Jailhouse Shock

YEAR 9 pupils at Angmering School got a taste of life in chokey when they took part in the school's crime prevention day on Wednesday.

Representatives from the West Sussex Youth Offending Team, prison warders, fire safety officrs, customs officers and the police were all on hand to deter the youngsters from a life of crime.

Ivan Suter organised the day's programme and he felt confident the message had hit home.

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He was pleased with the positive response from the pupils: "They seem to be enjoying themselves and the most important thing is that the message gets across."

This was a refreshing method of crime prevention never before seen in West Sussex schools.

Instead of lecturing pupils about how they must not commit crime, pupils were instead shown what would happen to them if they did.

They were treated as though they were inmates and walked around the tennis court for their half-hour "exercise" before eating lunch under strict prison conditions.

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School pupil Amber Sampford admitted she thought the day was going to be a bit of an easy ride but said it had turned out to be something of an eye-opener.

She said: "It has been a good experience and very interesting I don't think I will be ending up in a cell!"

Anya Stevens, from the Youth Offending Team, said the conditions in prison were much tougher than those experienced by the youngsters during the crime prevention day.

"If they were actually in custody, it would be a lot harder."

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In one classroom, pupils listened in horror as a prison warder explained in full detail, how a strip search was conducted.

A replica of a prison cell was set up in another classroom to show the pupils what they could look forward to if they ever found themselves behind bars and luxurious it certainly was not!

And fire safety officer Mike Cope was delighted to be asked to contribute to the day and hoped it would help to reduce the high incidence of arson attacks in the area.

He showed pupils a video called "Consequences", a grim warning to arsonists of the potentially fatal results of their actions.

The day finished on a lighter note when the pupils were entertained by a group called Northern Beat who had come down from Hull to play at the school as part of the crime awareness programme.