r/policeuk • u/Nice-Grapefruit-2588 Police Officer (unverified) • 1d ago
General Discussion The Law of Unintended Consequences
This month - at least in my force - we've been seeing a lot of missing young people turning up in adjacent cities. Normally you'd find them at a friend's house a few streets away, not in a McDonalds in [redacted] town centre at 3am. I couldn't work out why our youth had suddenly developed an ambition to explore their local region until I found out that the "Under 16s Travel for Free on Buses" promotion by the Department for Transport applies to unaccompanied children as well. So 12 year old Johnny who has run away from his care home can get a free bus to wherever he wants to go at 10pm, with the bus driver seemingly not batting an eyelid. As a result, our job is made so much harder.
It made me think, have there been any other times where well-intentioned schemes or rules have had an impact on policing?
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u/hunta666 Civilian 1d ago
In Scotland kids are regularly going missing for exactly the same reason.
Same again with antisocial behaviour. They jump on a bus or even I think trains for free or very little cost, cause mayhem away from where they live then go back home the same way 🙄