Isle of Wight Police and Crime Commissioner on young people

Ryde Police Station's front counter opened in October, ten years after it closed its doors to the public.

PCC Jones spoke to the County Press about the importance of local policing and how young people can stay safe on the Island.

She said: "Reopening front counters is part of my promise to the people of the Isle of Wight and I'm pleased to have been able to deliver on that."

PCC Jones, the Chief Constable and Isle of Wight East MP Joe Robertson (Image: IWCP)

PCC Jones said that front counters are for people with "soft information", like suspecting someone selling drugs outside a secondary school or finding a knife in a public place, to speak to the police.

She said: "Front counters are going to be a way of the public being able to come in, make those enquiries and ask those questions.

"Also, the people who are working on the front counters are not sat there merely waiting for the odd member of the public to walk in, they're also processing all the crime reports being made through the Constabulary website."

PCC Jones is also keen to support young people on the Island and is running programmes with schools and education partners around healthy relationships and staying safe online, as well as the risks of drugs and knives.

"If you're chatting to somebody on Snapchat, who is that on the other end of that Snapchat account? 

"Is it really another 13-year-old or is it perhaps a 50 or 60 year old person that may live anywhere in the UK? 

"It's about being super vigilant and hyperaware when you're online, particularly if you're sharing images of yourself or personal information about where you live or what your surname is.

"And we also run another programme which is about drugs and knives, and the risk that comes from drug taking and being associated with that kind of criminal behaviour.

"So many young people we know, through peer pressure, will perhaps smoke marijuana, and if they get addicted to that, that can spiral into much greater levels of criminality which they perhaps had never thought about in the first place.

"My role is about educating parents and making sure that they are keeping pace with the national trends that are changing around peer pressure on their young people.

"For example joining a gang and being a member of a gang because that brings significant risks in itself."