Summary
Responding to the interest of our Member governments, ICPC recently undertook a preliminary review of police-school co-operation programmes which are becoming more widespread. Three models of involvement are identified although there is considerable overlap: school-based police officer programmes, police as 'educators', and comprehensive or broad-based liaison programmes. These represent a range of unstructured and structured programmes with varying combinations of pro-active and reactive approaches, and prevention, intervention, enforcement and deterrent objectives, and short and long-term goals. They include bi-lateral initiatives, which work exclusively with schools, and multi-lateral initiatives in which the police are one of a wider range of partners. This brief report provides a preliminary overview of a some of these practices and programmes involving police and schools in a number of countries. It is far from complete.
Contents
1. Introduction -- 2. A wide range of approaches and programmes -- 3. The impact of new technologies -- 4. An absence of systematic information and evaluation -- 5. Different models -- 5.1. School-based police officers -- 5.2. Police officers as 'teachers' -- 5.3. Comprehensive police-school liaison schemes -- 5.4. Summary and next steps.