Discipline Outside School

[TeaTowelShoppingBag]

Does anyone know what happens if puplis in school uniform commit crime outside school hours?
A neighbour has had a small garden ornament stolen from her garden.(very sentimental to her) Her ring doorbell shows 3 children in the local school uniform taking and running up the road with the ornament.it was just after school ended. It is a secondary school.
I emailed the school for her, she is elderly and doesn't do emails,
The school have simply said to tell the police and they will help with enquiries after the police view the CCTV
Now I know for a fact the police won't be interested. We've had a cycle stolen before and the police just give out incident numbers.Cars have been broken in to and the police don't come out.
The cctv clearly shows the pupils faces and I assumed as they were in uniform the school could deal with them.
Any ideas?

They might well be more interested given that the kids are identifiable. That is different from a situation of no CCTV or other evidence.
Start with the police and go from there.

The school's correct.

The police will view the CCTV and go to the addresses of the pupils.

Quite when they'll have time to get around to it, depends on how busy they are.

I don’t think the school can actually legally view the CCTV until it’s released to them by the police.

CCTV laws are quite complicated. As soon as home CCTV cameras, ring doorbells etc record people outside the boundary of your property (so the pupils running up the street), the owner of the footage is bound by GDPR and Data Protection laws. Meaning that they cannot just give access to the images to whoever they choose. The school cannot request access to these images. Only the police can. (Although I believe you can request to see any footage of yourself. So if you wanted to see the images your neighbour had recorded of you, they’d have to agree)

If you don't want them getting a record and ruining there futures, maybe, take a photo of the video, where you can see the faces. Send to school, teachers will then be able to identify who they are, and she may well get it back and probably make them apologise. This lady may well be able to explain to them, tell them what this means to her and how their actions have affected her. Sometimes this is all that's needed, to put them back on the straight and narrow.

When I was at school the rule was that if you do it in uniform, school can punish you for it. I would go to police and get a policeman on side and a number, then they can share the images with the school to identify the boys.

I am surprised the school just told you to report to police.

At my children's schools, if anyone was caught doing anything untoward in school uniform, and were identifiable, the head used to seek them out and severely reprimanded. The parents were told as well so the kids had a double punishment. They didn't do whatever it was again.

Children often do things like that as a prank, mischievousness, but they have to learn to respect other people and their property.

The police won't do anything.

Now I know for a fact the police won't be interested.

The school isn't there to fill the gaps in policing, they have enough of their own problems, where can the school palm them off to?

I know the schools I have dealt with (shoplifting school children mainly) have been brilliant, identifying the thieves, in some cases suspending them, informing parents and making them come in to apologise and pay back what they stole. They sometimes ban the whole school from the shop for a year. Honestly more effective than the police.

Insist that they are easily identifiable from the video images and that school must take steps to punish them or if you want the parlance du jour 'issue consequences'. Absolute rubbish response from the school!!

I was previously on the senior team at a secondary school. If the images were shared with us and we could identify the students we would have taken action, including reporting to our school police officer. Equally we would assist the police if it came via them. This is poor from the school. It gives a terrible impression of their students.

I agree, that's what it is about, Cap89. Schools generally value their reputation.

Our school would have dealt with the pupils for sure. When in uniform you are representing your school, no matter what time of day it is. My own children's high school and Primary have even been known to call the police in themselves to show how serious they are.

It's a good way to teach the kids. Commit a crime in your work uniform and bring the company into disrepute and you can bet your arse you'll be looking for a new job!

@cherrytrismum that's all she wants, is her property back and maybe an apology.
She doesn't want to involve the police but the email says she must contact the police and if the police want the children identified by the school then the school will help.
I just assumed the school would have a word with the pupils🤷‍♀️

The school isn't there to fill the gaps in policing, they have enough of their own problems, where can the school palm them off to?

Schools manage to chase up kids who smoke in uniform or reomve their ties in town. And the police surely aren't chasing after some garden gnome, however sentimental. Totally the school's responsibility.

The school isn't there to fill the gaps in policing, they have enough of their own problems, where can the school palm them off to?

When children are in school uniform their behaviour reflects on the school and most schools do consider it within their remit to tackle poor behaviour immediately after school.

I’m a school governor, and it’s in our policy that we consider behaviour outsider of school to still come under the policy.

We have identified and dealt with fighters, thieves and vandals

DS's secondary school would be on this, as would (from the sound of our local FB page) the other local secondary schools.

I think follow up as someone said upthread, take a screenshot from the video and email it to the school in your response.

Moan about the school all you want, it's not their responsibility and even if they did get involved chances are the parents wouldn't give a shiny shit

School sounds crap. All my friends secondary age kids school behaviour policy included behaviour outside school when in uniform. Plenty of cases of exclusions for bringing school into disrepute. Email school again and ask for the chair of governors email and a copy of their behaviour policy.