"I have the power....."

A phrase previously only heard from a freakishly strong, helmet haired, sword wielding, super hero known as "He-Man" - the mid 1980's fictional character from the Masters of the Universe story. However, I heard those magic words recently from a scrawny, pale skinned, dishevelled 13 year old kid whose only super power is "bionic annoyance". More a look of "He-Mans" arch nemesis "Skeletor" than the chest baring Adonis himself.

Rather than residing at "Castle Grayskull", this little cherub was a one of our children from The Metro’s child care homes - a position I would hate to have been in myself and one I completely empathise with. The vast majority of these Children go unnoticed by the Police, and are just trying to get on with life and deal with the bad break that it has dealt them. Most with stories that only regular kids could have nightmares about. I have plenty of time for these children and will happily give them as much of my time as they need. I think most people who read this would agree - they need nurturing and guiding to try and make up for the lack of family love and parental advice and wisdom. 

However, there are a very small percentage of these children who consume an ever increasing amount of Police time. These are the kids banded as "too difficult to deal with" by other elements of society. Their own families have distanced themselves from them, and they have been moved from regular schools into special behaviour management units. On many levels, they are not too dissimilar from the children mentioned above - many have unbelievable histories of extreme neglect or abuse. But this smaller group have a more menacing edge, a greater lack of respect for anything and everything - including authority and laws. 

I have heard and appreciate the arguments that these children have not been taught the same morals that most others would have been; or that they lack the love and guidance of other children and therefore their path in life was almost always going to end up this way. My counter-argument to this is that the large majority of similar children do not follow this path, and the lack of willingness to accept the rules of society and life are much simpler to explain. They just don’t want to. It’s their rules or nothing. 

Police probably deal with about 10% of children in The Metro, but the ones mentioned above occupy about 80% of our time where dealing with children is concerned. The reason for this is because the vast majority of time dealing with children is taken by what the Police call “AFC’s” or “Absent from Care”. This is entirely different from missing people, but is treated exactly the same.

The children in care are given a set of rules – just as any child would be. They are given times of day that they are allowed to be outside with their friends, or free to do as they please. The vast majority of children in care will return without any problems, with just the occasional oversight on time. But this small minority will just do as what they want. 

If they are due to return home at 10pm, they will stay out until whenever they want – often not returning until the following day or days. They will not answer phones, or turn them off so they cannot be traced, and they will have a large network of friends [more like associates that they use for their own benefit] who they will call upon for a place to stay for a night. They will do this several times a week, or even every single night in some cases. Each time, the care home is duty bound to inform the Police to report them as “AFC”. 

Once this happens the ball then starts rolling and wheels are in motion. Police Officers are deployed to obtain a “missing person report”. This form is several pages long and consists of all manner of questions, the majority of which we will have asked the night previous when the child did the same thing. Their bedroom is checked to ensure all is OK and to look for any evidence that may assist us in finding them. We then return to the Police Station to put all the information from the form onto a computer database. This database is then used to find addresses they use, or associates and their addresses, phone numbers, places of interest and previous places they were found. These all have to be checked along with hospitals and custody suites to see if they have been arrested. The majority of addresses we check are unsuspecting families whose children have been “roped in” and “used” by the child in the past when they stayed at their address, or associated with their child. As you can imagine, a 2am knock on the door, or phone call, doesn’t go down too well – particularly if it’s the 5^th time that week. But they are treated as such as they have previously housed a missing person, whether it was unsuspectingly or not. 

Each report and subsequent search/address checks can take anything from 1 hour to several hours or indeed your full shift. In my particular command area of The Metro [which is only a percentage of my force], we average between 2-4 AFCs per night shift. That’s at least one Officer per child until the enquiries are completed. As you can appreciate, this can cut resources very thin indeed.

In ALL cases there are only three usual outcomes. 

1] Police find the child either at an address, or wondering about and they are returned to their care home, words of advice are given [usually it falls on deaf ears and we are met with scorn by the Child]. 

2] The child returns of their own accord several hours later or in the next day or days. The Police have to then attend the care home to make sure the child is OK, and to try and glean some information that may help us find them next time they go AWOL. On most occasions when asked, “where have you been?” we get the reply “OUT!” as they turn away from us and carry on. 

Or 3] and the most infuriating of all.............

The child gets bored, runs out of money or patience, or falls out with their friend [associate] and they find a phone box and call 999, or walk into a Police station. We are then duty bound to return them to their care home whilst trying to glean information again – which they are not willing to provide. The “Blue Light Taxi Service” is used as these kids travel tens of miles across the city to then call Police and get a free ride home. We can’t ignore them, I know we can’t, they can’t be left to walk/hang on the streets in this day and age can they? You begin to see how infuriating this is?

This is all to be dealt with along with all the usual crime and disorder across The Metro. Is it no wonder people get frustrated with our response time? I do not know the answer to this problem, should care home children be treated as a missing people report? Should Social Services be responsible, either fully or in part? Should financial penalties be made to the children in the form of reductions in their “pocket money” – which can be considerable in comparison to most children [However, we have been told this would breach their human rights]. It really is a problem, and one that not many people seem to be aware of. 

So as I spoke to the “Skeletor” looking kid after he had returned home the following morning after Police had been looking for him all night; he looked back at me with a wry smile and look of victory. I asked, “Where have you been tonight? And who have you been with?” He took a split second, licked his lips and said “I’m not saying.... I have the power” and walked off. The staff looked on defeated and disappointed. They too at the end of their tether with the system and reaction from the children. They apologise on his behalf and I explain that its not their fault as I repeat yet again that I couldn't do their job as they say they couldn't do mine.

I never felt this bad at the end credits of “He-man”.