We were greeted by Heather at the front door of Devonport station. We were escorted up to the top floor where heather made us a cup of tea. For the next hour and a half it was all about our introduction to the police project. We went over things like:

Our passes to get in and out of buildings

Our timetable for the next 3 months

We also signed important documents, such as – consent forms, confidentiality form and completed a vetting form.

In this meeting we were able to ask questions or bring up queries. I asked a couple of my own:

Where are places I can park at the stations?

If my access pass doesn’t work getting into buildings who do I contact about that?

We then proceeded onto the computers with Heather, she logged us onto our websites and duty sheet. The duty sheet allows us to add in our hours we have done with the police, also add in our expenses. I also had a browse on the jobs list as well as we have access for that to.

After we did this intro meeting with Heather we got to speak to an Inspector Nick Lindsey who works in serious offences. He spoke a little a bit himself and we got to know how he became to be where he is today. This part of the session is known as a ‘think tank’ in the police project. Its where police workers and police officers put forward their problems to us and we have a chat about it and the types of solutions we could come up with. The problem put forward to us was a newly built car park, where people who are in a bad state of mental health go to commit suicide. The reason they use this particular car park is due to the fact they can fit through the barriers that supports the building. Thankfully no one yet has jumped from this car park.

We did come up with a couple of ideas that the police hadn’t though of. Such as an Officer on sight and making entrance points to the carpark harder to access.

I felt today was a good introduction into what we have coming up. The car park scenario made me want to do abit of research into why this situation occurs so often in the UK. I found Oscar Newmans defensible space theories as to one of interest that links into this.  He states”a residential environment whose physical characteristics building layout and site plan, function to allow inhabitants themselves to become key agents in ensuring their security.” He goes on to explain that a development is only defensible if residents intend to adopt this role, which is defined by good design: “Defensible space therefore is a sociophysical phenomenon,” says Newman. (1997) Both society and physical elements are parts of a successful defensible space. This is something that the carpark doesn’t have. There is no resident who wants to take full responsibility on the design of the car park and the fault purely lies within the design and the accessibility of the car park. Bearing in mind this carpark lies directly in between A&E and a mental health housing place. Making it an easy option for someone who wishes to take their own life or is having a mental episode.

I also had a look into other prevention Schemes. A case study undertaken by 3 students in London, Croydon to see the effects of closing parts of a carpark off to prevent fewer suicides of happening. Which would make it harder for people to gain acccess to this suicide hotspot.  Within 2 weeks of closing parts of this carpark they had a 37% drop in people going there to commit suicide. They also found CCTV was a great help to be able to spot people before they were to jump. I feel this is something the Devon and Cornwall police could look into for this carpark to prevent suicides happening in the near future.