Video: Chief Constable Craig Guildford said more would be done to cut knife crime
Notts Police are bringing back specialist officers who go into schools to try to turn young people away from knife crime after they were cut to save money.
Chief Constable Craig Guildford said the roles needed to be brought back after figures showed knife crime had risen by almost a third in a year.
In 2010 the force had four school liaison officers, nine youth issues officers and four officers who worked as youth offending constables.
By 2014 this had fallen to just one school liaison officer and eight youth issues officers, although all posts were later changed to ‘schools and early intervention officers’.
Mr Guildford told Notts TV the force was looking to recruit more again after Government figures showed knife crime in the city and county jumped buy 31 per cent in the 12 months to March 2017.
It means officers are dealing with around two incidents every day – from possession of knives to serious stabbings.
“If you look at things like schools liaison officers, with some of the measures and the numbers of officers when they were reduced, they were taken away a few years ago,” Mr Guildford said.
“It’s my intention to try and put some of those officers back into schools, despite some of the current resourcing challenges that we’ve got.”
Besides knife crime, the specialist officers also help to improve the relationship between teenagers and the force and advise on child safety.
Nottinghamshire Police has around £10m a year less to spend compared with five years ago, and has closed police stations, re-organised investigative teams and merged departments with other forces to cope.
Last year former Chief Constable Sue Fish said cuts to its budget had had “a deep effect” on the force.
Mr Guildford said the force would not be able to “arrest its way” out of the knife crime increase, which comes alongside a 12 per cent rise in overall crime in Notts.
Instead families, schools and youth groups were needed to help convince teenagers not to carry weapons, he said. Campaigners have repeatedly warned how some young people involved in violent feuds in Nottingham see carrying weapons as essential for protecting themselves.
He added: “This is something that’s grown over time, it’s become a little bit more socially acceptable for younger people to think, wrongly, that carrying a knife may make them safer. I can utterly assure you it doesn’t.
“If you carry a knife and then in an altercation you use that knife, even though you didn’t intend to use it when you left your front door, the consequences last for years.”
