Walking the Playground Beat

By David Leask

SOMEHOW, PC Geoff Smith had folded his 6ft 4in frame into a seat designed for an 11-yearold. PC Smith, his peak cap gently put aside on the school desk, drew up his chair and fixed a stare on the boy in front of him.

"You and I are going to be big pals for years and years, " he told the lad. "For five years at least."

The boy, seeming even smaller than his four-feet-nothing, wasn’t saying much to his new friend: after all, he was a policeman. But the boy was taking it all in.

The headteacher at the child’s primary school had asked PC Smith – known as Geoff to everybody he meets – to pop by.

"She is worried there might be a possibility you might get into some bother when you come up to St Mungo’s, " PC Smith told the boy, referring to the Glasgow secondary where he is based as one of Scotland’s first school campus officers. "But that’s not going to happen, is it?"

The child, a primary seven pupil at one of St Mungo’s five feeder schools, looked at his feet. Then, as PC Smith chatted, he opened up.

He talked about his pals – teenage gang members who have long abandoned school – and their scrapes of an evening. "They were shooting fireworks, " he said of one gang fight. "I got shot by one. I got caught in the crossfire."

PC Smith and the teachers know just how vulnerable children like this boy are: he rarely eats breakfast; he has one family member well established in a gang; another has "drug issues".

He’s bright, and a good attender at school. "I want to be a barman, " he told PC Smith. "You could own your own pub, " the officer replied, before grilling the lad on whether he had a "menchie", the personalised gang tags members daub all over Glasgow.

Teachers worry about the boy. School is the only stable thing in his life. His school, that is, and PC Smith. The 37-year-old officer has worked in the east end of Glasgow for 12 years, more than three almost exclusively at St Mungo’s and its "new learning community", and he isn’t going anywhere.

PC Smith was one of Scotland’s first campus cops and is the longest serving. He’s the guy many of the other 19 school-based officers in Strathclyde go to see when they want to find out how the job is done.

The first Scottish school to have its own officer was Aberdeen’s Northfield. It was quickly dubbed "Police Academy" in the press. Other pioneering schools got similar treatment, headlines talking of secondaries so rough they needed their own police guard, a misunderstanding of what officers such as PC Smith wanted to achieve.

"The last thing a school needs is a guard, " PC Smith said yesterday. He was chatting to Philomena McFadden, a veteran of 18 years at St Mungo’s and effectively the school’s deputy head. There had been, Mrs McFadden admitted, some teachers who had reservations about a policeman in their school, mostly because of they way it could be portrayed. Those quickly evaporated.

"He has broken down barriers between pupils and the police, " she said. "He has been tremendous. Some children in Glasgow don’t have a lot of respect for the police. Here they do."

There are around 800 pupils at the school and 31 have applied to be police cadets this year.

That is up from single figures in the years before PC Smith came along. There are new recruits from Barrowfield, the fastregenerating scheme in the shadow of Celtic Park. "There haven’t been any of those for 30 years, " PC Smith said.

Crime in schools, especially violent crime, has always been rare. It’s the job of PC Smith and other campus officers to prevent crime outside the school gates, by developing relationships that can last a lifetime.

John Reilly, St Mungo’s headteacher, appreciates that change. For years local businesses, rightly or wrongly, had complained about the behaviour of what they thought were St Mungo’s children. Now the youngsters, many in smart blazers, stand out on the streets around the Gallowgate, St Mungo’s home, stopping to high-five PC Smith as he patrols nearby streets at lunchtime.

Local firms are much happier; far more youngsters from the school have been taken on as apprenticeships locally. The fast food market isn’t doing so well. There used to be six burger vans outside St Mungo’s. Now there are two.

Some believe PC Smith has even helped contribute to other general improvements under way in the school, which was one of the first in Glasgow to be rebuilt under a private finance deal. Attendance is up, for example, by staff as well as pupils.

St Mungo’s has nine major territorial gangs in its catchment area, some among the most violent in Glasgow. Outside the school, few walls escape gang tags. PC Smith knows them all, every member, every menchie. He makes vandals clear up after themselves.

"People say we have a problem with youth disorder in Glasgow, " PC Smith said. "We don’t: we have a problem with gangs."

Police in Glasgow are now very focused on breaking up gangs and turning around the culture of recreational violence. Campus cops, senior officers believe, are their front-line. That’s why school officers are backed by Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit.

Twenty schools in Strathclyde have them; nine in Glasgow; three in East Renfrewshire; three in South Lanarkshire; three in North Ayrshire; and two in Argyll.

Aberdeen, which led the way, has officers in three of its schools. Edinburgh this week announced officers for two schools. There are plans from other forces, including Central Scotland.

Robin Howe, commander of Glasgow’s ‘G’ Division, which covers the south side of the city and much of its suburbs, wants to see more PC Smiths on his patch. "There is no ambiguity about this, " he said. "Campus cops are having real tangible benefits for the school and the cops."

There is a hitch: money. Scotland’s current crop of school police officers are funded under a range of different arrangements. Everybody seems to want them; but nobody seems to know how they should be paid for.

The Scottish Executive last night warmly praised initiatives but said it was up to local authorities and police forces to decide on where and when they were needed. Glasgow City Council said it would like to see a campus police officer in each of its 29 secondaries. So who is going to put their hand in their pocket for the next 100 or so PC Smiths for Scotland?

The youngsters of St Mungo’s don’t need convincing. PC Smith has plenty of supporters too young to vote for financing. One was sixth- year pupil Marisa Kimmins, 17. "When he first came we thought he would be all moany, but he’s not, " she said. "Everybody likes him. Even the neddish boys."

Back at the feeder primary, PC Smith, still somehow squeezed into his tiny chair, told the boy about the St Mungo’s bike club and regular trips to see Blackburn Rovers in the English Premiership.

The boy shuff led in his seat, all lit up at the prospect. "But only if you’re not in a gang, " PC Smith told him.

(c) 2007 Herald, The; Glasgow (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.