Plan to put police in schools 'full of problems'

Youth rights could be breached if law enforcement was one of the scheme's intentions, says youth law senior solicitor John Hancock.

The plan to put police officers in selected low-decile high schools from next month is being criticised as "fraught with problems".

The Quality Public Education Coalition national chairman John Minto said yesterday that the proposal should be abandoned. "Police already have relationships with schools and visit for a variety of reasons and there is no need to move outside this model to station police permanently in schools.

"Schools are educational institutions and are not there to provide captive audiences to encourage children to inform on their friends and families."

Youth Law senior solicitor John Hancock told the Herald this week there was a risk that youth rights could be breached if law enforcement was one of the scheme's intentions.

Under the plan - revealed in the Weekend Herald - five specially trained officers will be based in 10 secondary schools in South Auckland, an area with one of the country's highest rates of robbery and other violent crime. Police chiefs are introducing the system to build up trust with youngsters and to gather intelligence about youth gangs, drug dealing, and to tackle crime before it happens.

Secondary Principals Association president Peter Gall said the worries of civil libertarians that the scheme would infringe students' rights were unfounded.

He said the plan was simply a strengthening of a relationship that already existed between schools and police. Rules about the way police dealt with young people would not change just because officers were based in schools.

TRIAL SCHOOLS

* Tangaroa College
* Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate
* Manurewa High
* James Cook High
* Aorere College
* De La Salle College
* Mangere College
* Southern Cross Campus
* Otahuhu College
* McAuley High