TSG has ‘negative effect’ on young people claims report

A call for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to disband its Territorial Support Group (TSG) has been issued after a report criticised the unit’s relationship with young people.

Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones, author of the report titled The kids are all right: How the Metropolitan Police Service can gain the trust of young Londoners, argued that the TSG had a negative effect on public confidence among young people, saying their marked vans were referred to as “the bully van” by some.

As a result, she said the TSG should be scrapped and replaced through extra funding to train a greater number of police officers for public order situations.

She added that the mayor should give TSG youth training as a priority if he was unwilling to disband the unit.

“This one team appears to exemplify the problems between young people and the police. They were repeatedly mentioned for not only having a poor relationship with young people, but for having a negative effect on other areas of the police,” the report said.

“The TSG has been heavily criticised in other areas, for example in their policing of demonstrations, and I think it is time to rethink their purpose.”

A spokesperson for the MPS said that the TSG was actively engaging with young people and had seen many improvements recently.

“The TSG actively works throughout the year to engage and increase the number of positive interactions with young people. They do this by working with schools and colleges as well as investing in youth diversion schemes,” they said.

“The TSG routinely work alongside safer neighbourhood teams to build relations in local communities, supporting local crime and community initiatives particularly against gang violence and knife crime.

“The TSG has made many improvements in recent years, which is evident in the decrease in the number of complaints; the sustained decline shows that the programme of work is having an impact. Officers facing some of the most difficult situations are doing so in a highly professional way.

“We will continue to strive to increase understanding of the particularly difficult area of work undertaken by the TSG – which includes tackling knife and gang crime – and work to improve officers’ behaviour by education and increasing the scrutiny of officers’ actions by managers within the TSG.”

The spokesperson added that the TSG has created community reference groups to scrutinise stop and search, recruitment and complaints against it and hold the unit to account. The unit recently won a commissioner’s excellence award for its work in setting up the groups.
The TSG was set up 25 years ago and provides a response to outbreaks of disorder, tackling terrorism and supporting borough work on priority crime.

Ms Jones’ report also set out a number of other recommendations to change the MPS’ policy towards young people:
•The MPS should work with the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) Peer Outreach Team and the Safer London Foundation to deliver a youth-led training scheme to all new recruits;
•All officers in public-facing roles should periodically undergo training regarding working with young people, with the aid of community and local groups already delivering this work;
•Officers should be rotated between teams so all officers spend time in neighbourhood teams and schools;
•More MPS officers should visit schools, take part in workshops and interact with young people;
•Local safer neighbourhood teams should be more involved in community projects to build positive relationships with young people;
•A list of youth projects and schemes should be maintained to keep the MPS aware of what is happening; and
•The Police and Crime Plan for London should have a specific aim to improve the confidence of young people in the MPS.