Digital Newsroom Assignment 2

Kids say ‘no’ to knives

A group of young offenders in Preston have made a series of stark films carrying the blunt message, “Don’t carry a knife.”

The youngsters and staff from the Youth Offending Team (YOT) joined together to make three short films – one about the importance of making the right decisions in life, another on finding fun things to do in Preston rather than troublemaking, and another warning youths about the dangers of knife crime.

Straight talking films

The upfront films, entitled ‘It’s Your Life’ include footage of young people interviewing senior police officers, the mother of a fatal stabbing victim, and a surgeon who carries out post-mortems.

Local boxing hero Michael Jennings, world welterweight boxing champion, also makes an appearance to speak about the time he and a friend were stabbed in the street, and the effect it has had on their lives.

Preston YOT workers Andy Winters and Jane Wignall worked with more than 20 young people to produce the knife crime film, entitled ‘It’s Your Life’, along with UCLan film production graduate Gary Coogan.
The project goes under the title of ‘stART Filming’ and follows the YOT’S successful stART art and writing project last year which was exhibited at the Museum of Lancashire.
“Don’t carry a knife”

Andy said: “It’s a fashion accessory to carry a knife, just like wearing a hoody is. I don’t think most young people who carry a knife ever intend to use them and that’s the problem – if they get into trouble and they’ve got a knife on them it could be used against them and that’s often the case.”

He added: “We’ve just got a clear message across which is, ‘Don’t carry a knife – if you carry a knife it could get you into trouble’.”

YOT worker Jeff Chandler, who helped make the film about decision making added: “I think knife crime is an issue nation wide. Young people are being tarred with the same brush when in fact it is the minority of young people who are involved with knife crime and carrying knives.”

“These films are hopefully going to be used to get young people to understand that by carrying a knife it could easily lead to it being used, either on other people or on themselves.”

Red carpet treatment

UCLan lent its Mitchell and Kenyon Theatre for the preview of the films in November, which was attended by magistrates, councillors and young people involved with the project.

Lancashire County Council’s Head of Children’s’ Services, Catherine Witt said: “We’ve done quite a lot of work with young people around art and development and so this was sort of the next stage. Anyone who attended the launch or watched the film saw that the children had been positively engaged with it and the messages were very strong and powerful. It was a very positive response really.”

She added: “This is part of an ongoing programme that the YOT are doing and it has been really successful. I think the strength is the involvement of the youngsters themselves.” Andy also added that the films had received “99% positive feedback” at the launch.

One young person who was involved with the project and asked not to be named said: “I think the films are good, if someone showed them at my school then I think people would pay more attention because it’s people our own age telling us about it.”

The project was at first produced on a shoestring budget; however the team have since been awarded £5000 of funding from the Preston City Council Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership.

The DVDs are to be distributed as a learning resource in schools across Lancashire, as well as in YOT offices by spring of next year.