I USED to live in East London, near some of the streets where teenagers are currently being shot and stabbed at such an alarming rate. And although this particular spate of violence is shocking, sadly it is not new.
Neither are the testimonies of mothers afraid to sleep at night in case their sons or daughters don’t come home, the reports of young men routinely carrying knives – even guns – for protection, the innocent friends, sometimes strangers, who end up accidental victims of some pointless feud started when someone was “dissed” on social media.
The extreme cheek by jowl nature of life in inner city London means wealthy professionals in million pound houses often reside just yards from sink estates, and while taking in reaction to the terrible events of the last week - seven people died in shootings and stabbings in the city, contributing to a total of more than 50 this year – I found myself agreeing with Tottenham MP David Lammy that were young people in the Home Counties being murdered at this rate, action would be far swifter and more co-ordinated.
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Mr Lammy was also on the money when he said London has much to learn from Glasgow when it comes to tackling gang violence. Indeed, it is hard to fathom why it has taken the Metropolitan Police and the UK Government so long to pick up on the city’s experiences. As recently as 2005, after all, Glasgow had the unenviable reputation as the murder capital of western Europe. Thirteen years on, it has reversed the trend. Between 2006 and 2011, 15 children and teenagers were killed with knives in the city; between 2011 and 2016, that fell to zero. Glasgow isn’t violence-free, of course, but thankfully its teenagers are no longer stabbing each other to death.
Trace the story behind this miraculous turnaround and you will find not divine intervention but rather a rare example of weary public authorities and devastated communities coming together to solve a problem they were simply not prepared to put up with any longer. At the heart of the work carried out by the Violence Reduction Unit – part of Police Scotland - was a radical new approach: treat violence as a health issue rather than a criminal justice problem.
In reality, this means performing major social interventions in the lives of young gang members who are both perpetrators and victims of violence and cannot imagine any other way of living. This holistic approach involves taking the person out of their existing world, showing them there is an alternative, demanding 100 per cent commitment then providing the full range of services - housing, education, training, tailored mental health assistance – required to have even a chance of succeeding. Police, doctors, psychologists, social workers, families and communities must work together.
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Eddie Gorman, a former violent offender who turned his life around and now works as a mentor for others, spoke honestly and eloquently on BBC radio at the weekend about the reasons young people get themselves into this cycle of violence in the first place.
“Most of the guys I work with have one thing in common – the absence of a positive male role model,” he said. “They come from broken, socially isolated families. Violence is contagious and they catch the bug at a very age. They go back to this life even after being stabbed because it’s all they know, because they’re never presented with any other way.”
Eddie and his colleagues provide that other way, guiding and supporting the participants through a difficult, intense but ultimately life-changing process.
It takes a leap of faith on behalf of the police and the communities that suffer the devastating effects of violence to accept this approach will inevitably mean diverting people, some of whom will have done awful things, away from the courts.
Such an approach is also expensive in the short term, since it requires intense one-to-one support. In the long-term, however, each successful outcome will save the NHS and the justice system tens of thousands of pounds, and may even eventually produce a taxpayer who contributes to society. As for the grief and anguish a life turned around saves families and communities, that’s surely priceless.
READ MORE: Glasgow held as example to London in cutting murder rate
And if Glasgow can afford to take this leap of faith, then surely London, the richest city in the world, believes the lives and futures of its young people are worth investing in? Indeed, perhaps the big financial institutions that make so much money in London and often side by side with the worst affected East London communities could find it in their hearts to give even a tiny amount of their vast wealth to fund the sort of life-changing projects Eddie Gorman and his colleagues work with.
Perhaps, too, the Conservative Government could stop cutting funding to the welfare and community services so many disadvantaged young people rely on to stay on the straight and narrow in the first place.
This terrible waste of young life simply must not be allowed to continue, especially when workable solutions clearly exist. It’s time for London to listen and learn.
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