Heather: That's amazing. I've heard you've had some great results. Is it true you've seen drops in crime where teams have been working?

Rev Isaac: We have; but you know, it's good to see and to know that people have said, yes they've seen statistics where crime has dropped, but we recognise that we have a long-term problem within our society today, particularly amongst our young people. What we are saying is, 'look, come on, join us, get involved.' All we're asking of people is to do twelve days of training. Then we're asking them to do one night a month: twelve nights over a period of a year. That's what we're saying to people. So that if many of us do that, we could all contribute making our community much safer and giving and offering people reassurance.

Heather: What's your personal view on things like the downgrading of cannabis and twenty-four hour drinking? When you're as it were - throwing water out of the boat, do you feel the government are simply shooting holes in the bottom letting more in?

Rev Isaac: Well you know we've made it very clear that we shouldn't downgrade drugs like cannabis. We meet people all the time who've had mental breakdowns, who've talked of the impact on their lives. We meet them all the time, and I think that it is a very serious issue. One of the things people are telling us is - we're not sure what we're buying anymore, because there are so many cocktails of drugs today. I also think that the twenty four hour drinking isn't working because our culture here in Britain says, drink as much as you can in the shortest period as you can. People are going out there to actually get legless; they're actually intentionally going out to get really drunk. So we have a very serious issue, which we have to think and take into consideration, our culture context and attitude towards alcohol.

Heather: What do you feel is the root of our nation's problems with binge-drinking, drugs and violence?

Rev Isaac: Well you know it's a big issue and it's a very complex issue. We haven't identified one single thing and said, 'that's the problem'. What we have identified is that people talk and young people talk about the breakdown of their family. The fact that they feel vulnerable, they feel that not enough time is being spent with them. They feel that they're hurt and there's no hope. We also know that people go out and get involved in gangs because they feel that that's the family for them. It becomes a substitute for their real family. We've also seen, you know obviously when people feel vulnerable, when people go out and they go out to drink, we know that many of them can't control. I think we need to do more education in terms of drinking and drinking habits. And if we can get those things right I think we could help society a great deal. I think the church needs to be there to say, actually we really care, let's help, let's go out there to help, without prejudice and having compassion on people and seeking to help people to understand that life can be great if we could do things right.

Heather: On that note - you've actually recently put out a call for more Christians to play a greater role in combating youth violence. Why is that? What are you wanting to see happen?

Rev Isaac: Well you see, I think that we really do need to get the message across that this is not a two-week mission that we're embarking on. We've got to be consistent. We have to be persistent in what we're doing. People need to know that they can find us, and where to find us and they need to know that we're not just there during the sociable hours, but we're also there during the unsociable hours. I'm saying to the church, come on, we need more of you to get involved. At the moment we're offering Friday nights and Saturday nights and sometimes it's only three weekends a month we're offering. We need to be there on a consistent basis. So we're saying to people, please do get involved, visit our website at www.streetpastors.co.uk and find out where the nearest initiative is to you and say I'd like to volunteer. I'm saying to the church - this is so important that society is seeing the church in a very real and practical way!

Heather: So basically the message is where some of us might be afraid seeing young people on the streets at night, we might not come from that kind of culture, we have to deal with those fears and start to care for those people and get out of our comfort zones?

Rev Isaac: Very much so. And I would say to folks, we make a lot of emphasise on our training. We train, we have good professional people. Even the police give training; the people in the Social Services give training. We have some very good trainers contributing to the training. We have very good procedures and we have very good structures to help people to make sure that people feel safe. We would say to them that we have put all the structures in place to ensure you will not be hurt in any form shape or size. And may I also point out that in the five years that we've been going out on the streets, and we are in over sixty locations around this country from Scotland all the way down to the South of England; no-one has ever been hurt. As I said to you earlier on, we have people who are seventy/eighty six who are on the streets and I tell you people really appreciate just their wisdom and the time that they're giving to the community.

For drug/alcohol/addiction statistics and info, see the Key Quotes section of the Cross Rhythms website.