The Bermuda Police Service are attempting to get young students to see them as friends and not the enemy. And as such they have been sending out Community Action Teams into nurseries, some schools and also to the Mirrors programme to interact with the youth.

Acting Inspector Troy Glasgow is in charge of the Central Community Action team and he said: "Basically the goal of the Community Action Teams is to enhance the quality of life in Bermuda. And part of that means engaging the youth and getting them to understand at a very young age that there are consequences to their actions."

But Act/Ins. Glasgow said that the consequences can be both negative and positive. "We always think about consequences in terms of the negative – for instance when we use the expression 'face the consequences'.

"But that is not necessarily true. There are good consequences. We talk about that and we really push the concept that if you work hard and do well then the consequences will reflect your efforts."

Act/Ins. Glasgow, a former Bermuda record holder in the high jump who represented the Island at the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis, said the main goal of the Police Service "is to make Bermuda safer".

He added: "It is not an easy task but we didn't sign on for an easy task. With the antisocial behaviour and the gang violence we have now, I believe we will start to see a revolving door of people who we deal with. And it only makes sense to try and stop that.

"At the end of the day we didn't get here overnight and it will not be fixed overnight. But it is important that we all make a concerted effort to engage young people."

He said he had two officers specifically "tasked with dealing with the schools and that normally is middle and high schools".

He said: "The respond to incidents and also try and put things in place to try and prevent things from occurring."

One school they have a good relationship with is Victor Scott. "We have a strong partnership with Victor Scott and that relationship became even stronger because of the unfortunate events (shooting) on Good Friday. We had a working partnership in terms that we have our officers there and we are letting the kids see that we are not just 'the man'. That is very important.

"Also it is important to understand that a lot of these kids come from households where their parents may not be friends of the Police or may not have a high opinion of the Police. The kids are already listening to their parents or neighbours (talk about the Police in negative terms).

"If you have a negative experience with a Police officer you are going to go out and share that with all your friends but if you have a positive experience with a Police officer you may only go out and share it with a couple of people."

The CAT is trying to engage kids at a young age and as such visited Tree Tops (pre school) earlier this year. "One of the officers has a child that goes there and they asked us to come by and give a presentation. And it went extremely well. The officers went out there with a couple of our interns and engaged the kids at their level. We brought colouring books, plastic bobby helmets and the kids loved it. We talked to them about road safety, crime and what's right and wrong. It is important that the kids see us as not only enforcers but also as public servants. While law enforcement is a major part of what we do, another part is to make life as comfortable as possible for the community.

"The visit was very successful and word started spreading. As a result more people are asking for us (to come and do a presentation). We want to work in partnership with the Department of Education this coming year and be in all the schools – have an official liaison."

Noting the rise of gangs, Act/Ins. Glasgow said: "It is escalating. The gangs are starting to recruit (in schools) and we are starting to see people who would not normally be involved (with gangs) now becoming unwillingly involved. They are threatened of being beat up if they don't join – there is a lot of pressure. These kids are being told 'you join us or we are going to beat you up every day'. That is something we want to try to get in there and prevent. We want to try and empower these people who are being bullied. We want to create relationships with them and their parents as well as other organisations in the community."

Act/Ins. Glasgow said some of the officers had also become involved with the popular Government programme Mirrors which works with at-risk youth.

"We have all done the professional development (programme) offered by Mirrors and we are all volunteers.

"The last one we did was for 19 to 24-year-olds. Some of those guys that were there had been involved in antisocial behaviour. I had to take off my Policeman's hat – I was there as a community activist. Initially they were were like 'the man is here'.

"But at the end one of them said he really appreciated the fact that we were there and he talked about seeing us in a different light. He saw us as people who cared about the community but also as people who had a job to do – and part of that job is telling people they can't do what they want to do. That comment hit home to the Mirrors people because I think they originally didn't know whether they wanted the Police to be involved or not. Now they have embraced us as a vital resource.

"In November some of the middle school kids are coming in to Mirrors and a couple of my officers have volunteered to go to that. These are some of the kids who are at risk. I think this is the first time Mirrors have had Police officers involved with this particular age group. We have been with the older age group and I believe we had an impact with that group – I am now imagining that we can have a significant impact with this age group."