Yesterday Mayor Ken published his manifesto for re-election. As the Evening Standard spun it, his policies were unmistakeably focused on young people. As a fairly young person myself I don’t entirely disapprove. However, whilst some of his ideas were reasonable, like giving students reduced rates on public transport, his policy of rolling out a scheme for metropolitan police cadets in high schools across the capital is just crazy.
Just picture it. Schoolchildren across the capital donning police uniforms, eschewing the traditional after school splif to take part in law enforcement related after school activities and learning all about the traditions of our fine constabulary. Surely not.
Embarassingly, I was once involved in a similar scheme. In my early teens I had a scholarship to a rather posh London public school. There they operated a detachment of what was called The Combined Cadet Force, an afterschool club where little toffs could play at being a member of the armed forces. I was, to my shame, an army cadet. I still have the jacket.
We used to shoot guns, run around in forests at night, get shouted at by sixth-form “officers”, eat army rations that made you constipated, all kinds of fun shit. Eventually though the shame of having to go school on the bus in army fatigues every thursday got too much and I had to quit. In any case, I realised I would much rather be stopping off for a spliff in Brockwell park after school than standing in the quad, in the cold, getting barked at.
Nowadays I tend to dismiss my involvement as a result of a puerile gung-ho attitude fed by the media. But the army is arguably far more fun than the police (soldiers aren’t likely to arrest you or anyone you know in the UK) and it is difficult to see how Ken’s scheme could have much appeal amongst the yoot of today, or indeed of any day.
But there is something even more sinister about this proposal too. Of all the arms of the state to get involved with children the police seem the most inappropriate. The police are, after all, the coercive arm of the state, the government’s tool for maintaining order and rooting out subversion in society. Young people should no more be involved in this than they are in the armed forces, i.e not at all.
Such youth programmes are am echo of the great fascist youth programmes of the early to mid twentieth century, programmes that still exist in parts of the world. Recruiting our children in to the police is a disturbing neo-fascist idea with disturbing implications. Imagine little johnny coming denouncing his parents at school for smoking a spliff, or little Ahmed accusing his dad of saying someone should blow up the queen. The metropolitan police have a deeply damaged image through frequent victimisation of minority groups and young people in particular. They should be kept as far away from our children as possible!
Dx
Filed under: Uncategorized , civil rights, London, mayor, police, youth
