Street Law is a community-based, student-run project that aims to improve legal understanding amongst local people. Street Law aims to distribute useful legal knowledge to people in the local communities who would not normally have easy access to the legal issues and information that might affect them.
The project sees Bangor Law students delivering interactive presentations on topics including Stop and Search, Anti-social Behaviour Law, Consumer Law and Employment Law free of charge to organisations such as Youth Clubs and secondary schools.
In the area of Consumer Law our presentation aims to inform the audience of their rights when it comes to buying in a shop, buying over the internet, buying from private sellers and auctions, debit card transactions and the differences between those and credit card transactions, warranties, guarantees and refunds.
The Stop and Search group concentrates on the Police and Criminal Evidence(PACE) Act which explains the powers the police have when stopping and searching a person on the street. We concentrate on Go wisely, and the meaning of suspicion in a fun entertaining way while concentrating on the legislation that covers stop and search. During the presentation we ensure that we cover what happens during the search, what they are looking for and what happens after the search if you have been taken into custody or not.
The employment group concentrates on young people’s rights in the work place from the minimum wage to working hours and where young people can work legally. It is aimed at younger people as this is the age group street law primarily target. We focus mainly on child workers who are between the ages of 13 and 16 and also young workers between the ages of 16 and 18. It is vital for teenagers looking for a first job to know this information to ensure that their employers act within the law and so they are treated fairly.
The area of anti-social criminal law is a very important one. Many of its aspects come into every day life including ASBO’s, which can be given to individuals for a number of reasons which one might not necessarily think of straight away. It is a constantly changing area of the law and it is important to keep up to date with what is going on, and for that reason, it is a crucial part of the street law project in terms of delivering this information to the public.
If you know of any group, organisation or school that would benefit from any of our presentations please do not hesitate to contact our project directors Scott and Rachel via email at streetlaw@studentsbangor.ac.uk.
