According to BBC News, Berkshire Police has employed two sixteen-year-olds as community support officers. I think this is a fantastic move.
The simple fact is that these sixteen-year-olds are effectively adults – they can do full time work, start learning to drive, live on their own, and (if Gordon Brown gets his way) they’ll get the vote. True, they are young, they can’t drink in a pub, they can’t legally drive and all that, but surelythe fact that the police force is employing such people proves that they are reasonably intelligent and responsible adults.
In the end, it’s not likely that this is going to escalate into a) four-year-olds being put out in uniform on the streets or b) children being forced into working in uniform for the police force. In this country we’re protected by relatively well-enforced rights, as defined by the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
