Dear editor,
In reference to the latest column by Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner John Tizard.
Read: Monthly column: Child knife crime, we must do better
Everyone’s Gang has been operating since May 2024 and, from our base in Kempston, since Jan 2025, during which time we have been working closely with several agencies, including, but not limited to, the Police & Crime Commissioner, Bedfordshire Violence & Exploitation Prevention Partnership, Bedford Police, and Youth Offending Services.
Everyone’s Gangs focus is on those young people who are most vulnerable to exploitation and at risk of exposure to violent criminal behaviour.
Using our experienced staff and mentors who have direct lived experience, we have our ‘ear to the ground’ and can relate directly to those young people. We speak their language.
There is not a fixed age range for this category, and we have worked with young people from just 10 years old, up to 22 years old.
We do not like to use the term ‘children’, though we understand why some might prefer that term. Addressing the young people as equals is important to us, and being consistent creates mutual trust and respect.
Perhaps most importantly, when you get as close as we regularly do to those young people most exposed to exploitation, you most often find that they are the consequence and not the cause.
Young people are products of their environment; they did not create that environment, that is on the ‘elders’. It is on the ‘elders’ to put this right, not the young people.
Creating a scenario where the Government makes it incumbent upon the Police to refer every child* knife possession case to Youth Justice Services, thus creating a criminal record for the said child*.
This will create ‘hesitation’ in how inter-agency intelligence can be shared.
A fragile bridge
Currently agencies such as Everyone’s Gang, form a fragile bridge between vulnerable young people and the Police.
Intelligence sharing, used respectfully and always with the best interests of the young people concerned, has huge benefits for the wider community by reducing crime.
This is the current positive and mutually respectful inter-agency model.
Changing the ‘rules’ in such a way that every child* must be automatically referred, with no allowance for a judgment call and inter-agency discussion, can only affect how or if that intelligence is shared.
Remember, knife crime, whilst still way too high, is down; reinventing how we process young people before we have a chance to show them a better way could have serious consequences for this.
Also mentioned in the PCC’s column are ‘specialist plans’ that will address the root causes of child* offending. We would be interested in knowing who was consulted on this. Maybe that is for another day.
Certainly, more discussion with those working on the coalface is needed before decisions like this are foisted upon us.
Pete Henrickson,
Everyone’s Gang
(*their term, not ours)
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