Civics Education Rather Than Police Is The Answer

Civics education rather than police in schools is the answer

The proposal to permanently station police in ten South Auckland schools is fraught with problems and 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.

The police say they want to win the trust of young people and hear about gangs and planned criminal activity. However the best way to protect and enhance the community would be through the introductions of civics education throughout our schools.

Education about democracy, social and economic structures, human interdependency etc would benefit the whole community and encourage students to take greater responsibility within their communities for the benefit of everyone.

Civics education would build positive community attitudes and relationships rather than the negative “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff” approach being proposed here.

In their list of ten South Auckland schools the police have left out Kings College. One would have thought with the prevalent of corporate fraud and professional theft in the business world the police would also have been very keen to station officers permanently at this private school.

John Minto

National Chairperson

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