Stars call on young people to become cops

  • 2007-04-04
  • By Arturas Racas

SEDUCING THE YOUTH: Actress Inga Jankauskaite is a part of a new campaign aimed at attracting the youth to the police force.

VILNIUS - Lithuania's police force has turned to the country's youth idols in an effort to attract more people to join its ranks. It has produced video clips in which singer Alanas Chosnau, theater and television actress Inga Jankauskaite and basketball player Paulius Jankunas urge viewers to join the force.

"It's important to live in a world where my son and I feel safe," Jankauskaite says in one of the clips. The 26-year-old actress is best known for her role in the popular TV show "Stars' duets" and the local series "Uninvited Love."
In another clip, 22-year-old Jankunas, a 203-centimeter-tall forward with Zalgiris Kaunas, compares police work with a basketball game.

"Everybody fights for himself and for his team on the court. Not everybody can work in the police because a policeman has to think not only of himself," Jankunas says.
For Chosnau, 32, police work is like stage acting, as the players are always in the public eye.
"But to be a policeman, self assurance is not enough; you also need very good training, psychological preparation and respect for yourself and others," he muses.
However, in the clips both Jankauskaite and Jankunas say they are not sure whether they would be up to the task of joining the police and Chosnau does not speak about the possibility at all.
The video clips end with the question, "What about you, would you be able to?" The voice also urges viewers to "join the police and prove what you can do."

Danute Daunoraviciute, spokeswoman for Lithuania's police department, said that the clips were made as social advertising with an aim of attracting more young people to join the ranks of the police.
"We wanted to show that everyone should be professional in his area and that is why the stars doubt they could be policemen," Daunoravciute said.

She also stressed that the Lithuanian police are in need of some 1,000 additional policemen across the country.
The clips will be broadcast on Tango TV and TV3 channels, and can be found on police department websites.