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Guns, Gangs and Terrorby Dr Lee Rotherham
It was an inspired move by the organisers (hats off here to Michael Jervis) to bring in TRIDENT. That team concentrates on gun crime in the black community, which is estimated to make up three quarters of London’s shooting victims and about the same number of perpetrators. There are some worrying trends developing in the Boroughs. While there has been a drop in the shootings, the average age of those carrying them out has also dropped. Last year, the youngest convicted was just 14. Gun criminals are compressing their ‘career’, and although starting crime at the same age as before, they are turning to extreme violence much younger. That’s why videos, like the one you can see here http://www.stoptheguns.org , shockingly now have to be targeted at that age bracket. Another concerning trend is a failure of witnesses to come forward, often through fear – in 70% of cases, the victim either refused to assist Police, or witnesses withdrew their cooperation. We further heard two very strong presentations about how terrorists are using gang culture and criminal mentality to recruit disengaged youths, abusing their corrupted sense of loyalties and lack of role models to potentially devastating effect. It’s a hidden consequence of gang lifestyle we overlook. The real gems came with the insights from the campaigning organisations on the ground, so often held together on a wing and a prayer by volunteers who give their all. This was the Solutions Phase of the Conference. Waltham Forest’s award-winning Defending Da Hood sounds a bit gangsta, but it is an absolutely impressive approach that completely won me over. In an environment where gang membership and the drugs business that goes with it can rake maybe in a third of a million a year, and a gun goes for maybe £180, there is a massive vested interest in hooking gang members for keeps. DDH uses language and product the kids can understand, motivating them and encouraging them about what real respect is. Unlike campaigns put out by authorities, the campaigners here can focus on community safety rather than any target figures for crime reduction. Linked in to this was the example shown by the CBHA, providing an environment where youths can drop in and activities that keep them occupied productively, or even repaying their own debt to the community. Space alone prevents me from doing justice to the example done by Parents Against Violence, whose founder, Paula Liverpool, ‘makes herself a busybody’ by the effort to listen to what her children might be getting into, and linking in with other parents to sidestep gang violence between them. Or the truly inspirational young crowd in the Rollin G project, “a group of young adults trying to make a posture change” who have taken upon themselves the burden of acting as role models, even during the most trying time of all – when one of them had become a victim of knife crime. I also urge you to keep your eyes open for the highly professional Lyrical Wordz, videos that have real reach potential, and the brave young Llamea Lall who is another star of the future, standing up to show from personal example (www.lhamea.com).
Two of the strongest presentations came at the close from Conference sponsors. Kids Count (www.kidscount.org.uk) is a cross party think tank, bringing together leading politicians from across the Westminster spectrum, that acts as a focal point for the sharing of experiences between the various groups on the ground and policy makers in Westminster. It will clearly under Linda Lawrence achieve great things, as too has Heidi Watson at the Damilola Taylor Trust (www.damilolataylortrust.org/). Both of these alarmingly busy ladies deserve vastly stronger public support for their activities. The Trust, for instance, is able to make use of ex-offenders who know and understand the reality of their environment, and are able to go places and talk to people that would send ‘government’ Health and Safety people in a spin.There was, perhaps unintentionally, a keynote speech. It came from Richard Taylor, Damilola’s father. Would that it had been recorded, because a CD copy deserved to go into every policymaker’s tray. The quiet elegance of the tale, of the child “punished for not giving respect to those who did not deserve it”, was deeply moving. Richard spoke of the way society was spending huge sums on education, when our children are getting a very different education laid out for them on the street. Hopefully, we all walked away with a host of lessons from all this. The need for role models, especially in a neighbourhood of single parent families. The lesson that parents should not close their eyes to the society in which their children move. That politicians shouldn’t make knee-jerk reactions that might lead to the wrong results. The need to graphically show that knives and guns aren’t glamour, but streaked with blood and grief, and through visits that prison isn’t how ex-cons spin it. That corporate sponsorship of lots of little pots might look good in the annual report, but it becomes so diluted it’s meaningless. That the Community has to stand up against the criminal element. That ordinary people need to spot and confront the extremist recruiters before they corrupt. That, as the African proverb goes, it takes a village to bring up a child. But what about the right priorities by those in government? Every time there is a street fatality using knives or guns, the Met kick off a lengthy investigation that on average costs a million pounds to complete. The Damilola Trials themselves ran up a budget of perhaps sixteen million pounds. Accepting the pure need for justice to be served, if the State is nevertheless prepared to spend these large sums on individual cases, couldn’t some of this be better invested on preventative measures, carried out by passionate veterans on the front line, instead? Article written by Dr Lee Rotherham Those interested in learning more about the conference or about the work of Kids Count can contact (linda@kidscount.org.uk)
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To all those who have missed Thursday’s seminar on Guns, Gangs and Terror, held in Central London, I have to say you lost out on a real eye opener, and even if we can only skim over a tiny handful of the highlights it is a learning experience worth sharing. All credit is due to the Community Based Housing Association (CBHA) and the two other hosts (Defending Da Hood and Kids Count, on whom more in a moment) for an inside tour of London’s hidden streets. 
Perception in all this was a key issue. On more than one occasion it was pointed out that, just because kids wear certain clothes, wear a hat, walk in a certain way and have a style of talking, that doesn’t make them a thug. It makes them a “street person”, part of one particular culture. There were “street people” and there were “thugs”, and it was a serious mistake by outsiders to that culture (especially in the media) to mix the two.
