SO, a hip-hop song is going to solve one of the major ills confronting society today is it?

Namely, the problem of seeing youngsters fall into gangs and petty criminality which could leave them spiralling into a life of more serious crime.

Police announced this week they enlisted the talents of rappers and music producers to create a video to reach out to those most likely to fall into that very trap.

It is easy to be cynical about initiatives like this – you can almost hear the naysayers questioning whether this is the best use of police efforts.

But actually, why shouldn’t it be? We all saw what happened a year ago, with riots sweeping the capital and, indeed, rumours rife of unrest hitting Wycombe at one point. Surely creative solutions to such issues, which aim to prevent violent behaviour from ever occurring instead of ‘curing’ it with legal penalties, are exactly what we need.

Who knows if this one will be effective in the long run? But the track – viewed nearly 15,000 times on YouTube, certainly seems to have attracted quite a bit of attention.

Whatever the impact the music video has, we believe Thames Valley Police should be given credit for taking these unusual steps to positively engage with the community it serves – instead of waiting until it is too late and responding to a 999 call instead.