A NEW educational scheme replacing the Prison! Me! No Way!!! initiative is intended to reach Island schools this year, the government has revealed.
Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat said the programme formed part of the wider Building a Safer Community Framework, unveiled last week, which aims to bring together different government departments and stakeholders – including the States police – to discuss methods of crime prevention.
Prison! Me! No Way!!! was operated through an independent charity from July 2005 until the end of 2019 and was was designed to educate students about the consequences of crime.
The government later revealed that a decision had been taken to “review the approach” to the programme and ensure that “the funding available best meets the specific needs of children and young people in Jersey”.
Deputy Le Hegarat said the new BASC education initiative would aim to reach every secondary school – targeting Year 8 students – with themed sessions involving the police and other Justice and Home Affairs representatives.
She added: “Educating children and young people, in all sorts of ways, is critical, because they need to have an understanding of the circumstances and the decisions that they make – and how those can impact on their lives long term.
“So I think it is important that we do that work.”
Cirsty de Gruchy Moseley, BASC co-ordinator, said: “People aren’t born criminals; it’s often due to adverse experiences, potentially in childhood, potentially through poor social determinants of health, poor housing, poor education and so on that people end up falling into crime, getting drawn into crime or developing criminal behaviours by the way that their brains develop as they’re grown.”
She continued: “What universal prevention can we put in place? So things like: best start, what the children’s plan is doing, what’s education doing, then looking at targeted intervention.”
