We are Eltham Hill Technology College students and we are writing this article as we have decided that there is an important matter that is of relevance to us.

The issue that we are going to investigate and resolve is trying to build a better relationship between the younger generation and the police/community police in London.

We are doing this as a part of our GCSE citizenship coursework project.

The problems which can be associated with the relationship between the police and youths are that police may stereotype young people e.g. according to their race, appearance and gender.

The police stereotype a lot - for example, if they see a male teenager wearing a hoodie, they would assume that they were causing some kind of trouble.

Another problem occurring between young people and the police is the lack of respectful communication.

The police often presuppose that young teenagers may not understand and require more education so they talk down to them.

For example, they would speak formally to an adult but communicate informally with the younger generation.

Teenagers are more vulnerable and we believe that the police take advantage of this by invading their human rights. A lot of the teenagers think that the police infringe on their human rights by doing things young people may not know about e.g. not giving the police Code of Practice and some police officers may not provide the teenager with a yellow slip.

This leads to a feeling of negativity and hatred builds between the younger generation and the police because the police are not giving equal human rights to them.

We think the police should interact with the younger generation more and stop stereotyping. They should visit youth centres and run workshops. This will enable them to show their concerns and make the youths see that they are willing to improve but they need the youth’s co-operation to make it work.

By Jasvir Kaur Bassan, aged 15, Nikita Morar, 15, Victoria Cox, 15, Nicola Mazwi, 14, and all of 10x1 GCSE citizenship class.