Inquiry into police relationships with children and young people

The All Party Parliamentary Group for Children has launched a new inquiry to explore the police's relationships with children and young people.

The committee has chosen this theme as it believes that how the police engage with children and young people is vitally important. The police are often the first point of contact for children who are at risk or in challenging circumstances and they have a duty to protect children and young people and keep them safe.

The inquiry will focus closely on hearing about children and young people's personal experiences of engaging with the police. It will also consider how the police interact with other services including education, social care and child protection.

The inquiry will seek to address the following questions:

• What is the experience of children and young people in interacting with the police?
• Which particular groups of children and young people are at greater risk of being criminalised and why?
• How can the police improve engagement with children and young people?
• What should be the role of wider children's services in supporting this? 

The APPG for Children will set out recommendations on how the police can better work with vulnerable children and young people. Recommendations will be of interest to bodies representing children and young people in the youth justice system. They welcome written and oral evidence from professionals, young people and organisations.

For further information on the call for evidence view the information sheet at www.ncb.org.uk/media/1010289/children_and_the_police_-_call_for_evidence.pdf.

To submit evidence, before the deadline of 13 September, complete and return the submission form at www.ncb.org.uk/media/1006955/appgc_2013_inquiry_call_for_evidence_form.doc.