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We must harness the good in gangs, says Boris aide
Pippa Crerar, City Hall Editor15.09.08
Boris Johnson's deputy announced plans to step up the fight against gangs today in a bid to halt the spate of teenage murders on London's streets.
Deputy mayor for policing Kit Malthouse said it was time for communities to say "no more" to the trouble caused by groups of violent youths.
He added that young people were a key part of the solution and they should start by reclaiming the word "gang" from its negative associations.
Instead of trying to prevent teenagers from forming groups the authorities should focus on diverting the energy of gangs to more fruitful ends, he said.
The Metropolitan Police will set up an operation designed to pull together all its previous work on tackling gangs.
At the same time City Hall will focus just as strongly on "longer term, more complex" work to change gang culture. It comes after 19-year-old Oliver Kingonzila was knifed to death during a fight outside a Croydon nightclub on Saturday, the 26th victim of teenage violence this year.
Mr Malthouse, addressing a peace conference at City Hall, said: "We will be stepping up our efforts to combat gangs in London. Much of the violence we see on our streets today is caused by these gangs and it is time we confronted them as a community and said: 'No more.'
"It has to stop. It cannot go on. The Mayor and I refuse to believe nothing can be done. The welfare and safety of our young people is our first priority."
He added: "Young people are part of the solution to the problem. Perhaps the word 'gang' needs to be redeemed and the challenge that we face is not one of preventing young people from forming and belonging to groups we call gangs, it is to create the environment that helps them to use their individual and group strength, ingenuity and concerns for positive peaceful ends."
Mr Malthouse said the capital's communities were key to dealing with the problem in their own areas.
The Met has already encouraged young people to act as observers and advisers during Operation Blunt 2 which aims to take knives off the streets.
Overall, the level of youth violence has dropped by more than 10 per cent in the last year but the increase in teenage murders has deeply worried the authorities.
Later this month, the deputy mayor will hold another youth violence summit at City Hall with professionals, academics and young people, to think up longer-term solutions.
Mr Johnson wants to focus on ways of keeping young people in education, combat truancy, boosting support for parents and providing mentoring for troubled children.
Reader views (9)
The only good that these gangs could be put to is as landfill, or chain gangs.
- Squiz, Islington
C Nichol brilliant Malthouse will have us Doomed!
- Binky Boo, London
Save us from yet another "Hug-a-hoodie"
- Adam, Harrow, UK
C Nichol - it's good that you are so well informed.
Strange that as a professional of 15 years in the field, I have only ever seen evidence that police action on it's own doesn't work. In the US they have huge sentences (running into 1000s of years in some cases) and even the death penalty - yet their crime stats are enormous.
Prison without rehabilitation is an expensive waste of money - recidivism is around 80%. With rehabilitation, it's only around 17%.
A individual spending a year in prison costs the state approximately £30,000 - the same cost as a professional youth worker - even if that youth worker only prevents a single young person a year from committing a crime (which in my experience is a very low target), then it has been money well spent.
- Liberal And Proud, London, UK
Mayoral Chambers? Maybe if you addressed it to City Hall, it would get to him.
The Met Police have all the crime stats published online - google reveals all.
- Liberal And Proud, London, UK
One big problem is that many of the Black youths in UK look to their fellows in the USA for their inspiration, where gangs are a feature of life in such cities as Los Angeles.
- Michele Smith, london
Kit Malthouse comes across as a soft out-of-touch youth worker - a waste of time, space and our money.
We don't need more conferences on the rise of knife crime and we certainly don't need calls for the "community" to say "no more".
Instead we need cops using hand-held metal detectors to pro-actively detect and prevent it. We then need the court system to impose sentences on those that carry knives (or any other lethal weapon) and use them to injure and kill which reflect the gravity of these offences, not the age of the offender.
When Malthouse becomes the latest deputy to leave Boris's ineffective little clique, perhaps I can apply for the job.
- C. Nichol, London
Oh dear, another varsity pillock speaks.....
- Kedge, Marlboro wilts
"Overall, the level of youth violence has dropped by more than 10 per cent in the last year" Really where is that statistic document held to view it please ?
If you write to Mr Malthouse at Mayoral chambers he never replies so I would like to see where his data is sourced from
- Binky Boo, London
