"Cop That": bridging the gap between young people and law enforcement officers

In 2010, the Baillieu Government pledged to appoint 940 Protective Services Offers (PSOs) to be stationed on train platforms. The Youth Affairs Council of Victoria’s Youth Reference Group (YRG) identified that this initiative was likely to result in increased contact between young people and law enforcement officers. As a result, we decided to investigate the relationship between those in a position to enforce the law and young people, and explore strategies that could be undertaken to improve these relationships in the future.

This was a peer led research project undertaken by the YACVic Youth Reference Group and supported by YACVic and Youthlaw. Research methods for this project included critical analysis of published articles (13 articles), an online survey (211 participants), a focus group and one-to-one interviews (9 participants), and vox pops (23 participants).