A POLICE and Crime Commissioner says he wants to correct the notion that young people are nearly always responsible for anti-social behaviour and has called on the public to “celebrate” them.

Ron Hogg spoke at a meeting of young people who were deciding how to spend £20,000 on youth-centred projects in County Durham and Darlington to tackle crime and improve community safety.

It was chaired by 16-year-old Libby Wright, a Durham Police cadet who has been chosen as the Young Police, Crime and Victims’ Commissioner for the county.

The funding has come from Mr Hogg’s own budget and the High Sheriff of Durham, Caroline Peacock.

Mr Hogg conceded that crime was going up, particularly in categories such as sexual exploitation, cyber crime and theft, and that young people did not always feel safe.

He said: “We must work very hard to reduce these rises. But a lot of what we need to do is build bridges across the generations.

“We have got to celebrate our young people. A lot of anti-social behaviour is actually people my age having noisy parties, BBQs in the summer and having total disregard for other people by playing loud music and so on.

“We would like to get this perception corrected and that is why it is great to have people like Libby and the cadets who can act as role models for young people.”

Mr Hogg said that since he took up his Police, Crime and Victims’ Commissioner role efforts had been made to engage widely with the younger generation.

He said: “We have 1,800 mini-police in 80 schools, aged from nine to 11, we then have junior cadets from 11 to 13 and the senior cadets from 13 to 18.

“This tonight is about empowering the youngsters to make critical decisions to support their particular needs, rather than us saying this is the solution and making them feel valued and important.

“Some of our young people haven’t had many positive life experiences because of their background and circumstances. If we can engage them and give them that positive experience it makes a massive difference in the way they behave going into adulthood.”

Miss Wright, from Stanley, a pupil at Durham Sixth Form Centre, said: “We’ve got preventative ideas looking at stopping young people from getting into under-age drinking, drugs and anti-social behaviour and also to get out of the cycle of crime they are already in.

“There are also huge concerns about online protection with social media becoming more prevalent in the lives of young people.

“It can be a platform for crime to happen.”

Caroline Peacock, High Sheriff of County Durham, said: “A lot of young people don’t feel safe. We need to find places where they feel safe and supported and they feel they can make something of themselves.”