Survey aims to give young people in Peterborough a voice on knife crime
Police and charity join forces to tackle safety concerns after teenager’s fatal stabbing
A survey is being launched across Peterborough to see how safe young people feel in the city as part of efforts to address rising knife crime.
It follows the fatal stabbing of teenager Baye Bireme Fall in Orton Goldhay in April, which shocked the local community.
Cambridgeshire Police and the charity Redeeming Our Communities are working together to find out when and where young people feel safe — and where they don’t.
The results will help shape support and activities aimed at keeping young people safer.
“To give young people a voice, to be able to tell us what they see in Peterborough, what are some of the challenges, but also what are some of the opportunities and things that they're accessing," Inspector Sam Tucker, from Cambridgeshire Police, said.
"We want to ask those questions so that we fully understand from young people themselves.
“Then we can consider some of the services that are available we need to consider to make places more safe for young people and improvements that we can make for them."
Insp Tucker said the survey aims to find out if knife crime is a common issue where young people are.
"Maybe they're carrying knives themselves, and it will just be the start of a conversation,” he added.
“I think with this survey, what we really want is young people to tell us where the issues are, tell us where the challenges are, tell us where they feel unsafe."
"We do some work and then we feed that back to young people and hopefully this will be the start of an ongoing engagement, an ongoing cycle of that conversation.”