Children as young as five are being given police escorts from school under Government plans to crackdown on bad behaviour, it has emerged.
 
By Graeme Paton, Telegraph Education Editor. Published: 2:48PM BST 18 Sep 2009. http://tiny.cc/EU6MW

Officers are travelling on buses, waiting in potential crime hotspots and accompanying children walking home, it emerged.

Police are targeting areas which are known to have problems with anti-social behaviour. To date, 65 local authorities in England have carried out patrols covering 1,632 primary and secondary schools – around one-in-12.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said it was “advocating after-school patrols and will be supporting other areas” to set them up.

Thousands of schools already have dedicated police officers – giving talks to pupils, controlling the corridors and searching for weapons and banned items…..

According to figures, 15,292 patrols have been carried out so far. Some 64,017 pupils have been spoken to by officers and 2,497 have been referred to other services, including drug and alcohol experts……

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