Pizza cuts youth crime

Pizza is the latest crime fighting initiative

A plan to give teenagers pizzas to help cut crime has been hailed a success.

Youngsters were invited to tuck into the free meals at local churches rather than hang around on the street.

The Police and Churches Together (Pact) project in the Arnold area of Nottingham is being credited with helping to bring about a 40% cut in the number of juveniles involved in crime.

The project, which was the brainwave of a former police inspector, saw offences drop on the nights young people were invited to enjoy free pizza at places of worship.

The idea is now being adopted by the Metropolitan Police to see if it can have an impact in the capital.

Junk food

Alan Stuart, former police inspector for Arnold, brought together 18 churches for the scheme - with each place offering a different activity.

Mr Stuart told the BBC: "We monitored it continually and after three years we noticed that crime in the Arnold area had dropped by 10%, significantly more than other districts.

"What was very unusual about this was the number of young people committing crime had dropped by 40%."