Research Dossier: Anti Gangs

Introduction and backgroung abou our issue

We are doing campaign about Gangs. We are agaings gangs and our purpose is to stop young people get into gangs.

London was the first city documented as the worlds gang capital followed by New York, Chicago and L.A. In the 20th Century, East London consisted of many gangs such as Hoxton Mob, Bethnel Green Mob, Watney Streeters and many more. In 2007 it was reported by Metropolitan Police that there are 169 different gangs in London and more of a quarter of these gangs have been involved with murders. Stabbings are more popular than shootings and are often not even reported, gangs describe shootings as “serious beef”. Gangs can be caused due to drug dealing, Post code wars and people mainly join them for security or something to do. The increase of gang crime is leaving members of the public frightened to leave their own home due to fear of being mugged, beaten up or assaulted. Gangs distinguish their different identities by wearing certain colours for example Wood Green Mob wear a green bandanna, graffiti of their gang names and post code. Gang members are now starting with people aged 11-12 years old who have been roped into gangs by being used to smuggle drugs for their older siblings. Gangs and criminal organizations come into creation for a number of reasons or motives. Usually they revolve around money, and use fear, crime and extortion. They can be loosely controlled with no apparent structure, or they can be highly efficient with military like organization. In contrast to general media conception, gangs have been around for centuries in one shape or another, the Chinese Triads for example were started as a resistance to the Manchu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty in the 1760s. Here are just one of the biggest gangs and criminal groups in existence today. It is called The Crips, they are a primarily, but not exclusively, African American gang founded in Los Angeles, California in 1969 by 15 year old Raymond Washington. What was once a single gang is now a loosely connected network of individual sets, often engaged in open warfare with one another. The gang is known to be involved in murders, robberies, drug dealing, among many other criminal pursuits. They have been popularized in many movies, thousands of songs, and even video games like GTA 3. Through the years the gang has grown to be one of the largest and most powerful gangs in the United States with a membership that exceeds well over 30,000 gang members. Since affiliation is lose and unofficial, the number may be much higher. The gang is notorious for flamboyant use of the color blue in their clothing. However, this practice has waned due to contentious police crackdowns on gang members.

The large majority of gangs are comprised of young people, there are members as young as 10 and as old as 40. Offending types differ among the ranks and the gangs. There is a general pattern to the distribution, roles and typical offences of gang-related offenders by age (i.e. older members are more likely involved in middle-market drug distribution whereas youngers are most frequent in street robbery). It is indicative and does not mean, for example, that older gang members never get involved in fights. The criminal justice system also plays a role in whether people leave offending behind as they age. In the past couple of years the most noticeable changes in the spread and distribution of gangs have been the appearance of outer London gangs and the breaking up of larger gangs into smaller cliques.

The issue about gangs has been pressing always, but it is going worse every year. People dont have jobs, familys are poor and young people are finding opertunity to make money trough being in gangs. We want to take action on this issue, cause it consers us young people and makes us look bad. We want to protect new generation and show them it is not neccesery to be in a gang. Also this issue is really interesting for us and there is lot os news and information about that.

People should support us, becasue it is issue for everyone. Any young person and child is easy to influence. When we can achieve even little change and gangs rate are geting smaller, then immediately there is less crimes.

Graphs and tables:

We didn’t think it was appropriate to draw up graphs and tables because there are many years missed in the research of gang crime and knife crime, here are some relevant facts and statistics which we can show instead.

One theft a minute – shoplifting has increased sharply during the recession, as has violence against UK shop staff, 22.000 were attacked in 2009, [7 January 2010]

20,000 young people were tagged last year, a 40% increase in three years. [15 December 2009]

Criminal gang cost UK billions – There are 30,000 criminals who are members of organised criminal gangs in the UK and they cost the country up to £40bn a year [14 July 2009]

25% of people know someone who has been a victim of knife crime [29 June 2009]

Knife carrying statistics – More than 3,700 people were caught with a knife in England and Wales last year; only one in six received a sentence of six months or less. [28th May 2009]

120% rise in victims of knife crime. The number of children admitted to NHS hospitals in London with knife wounds rose dramatically between 2003 and 2008. [31st March 2009]

We found out that there is another MCS1000 group which campaigns against crime. It is Higher Knife Crime Sentence Campaign. They are trying to rise awareness of a kife crime which is connected with the issue we are concerned about - gangs. They are preparing a petition claiming higher sentence for commiting a kife crime. Also we found three other importent projects what is related with our camapign.

1) CRIMESTOPPERS http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/ It is charity helping to find criminals and help solve problems. It runs several projects including one connected with knife crime. Crimestoppers has also a youth section team which encourage young people to talk about crimes and helps solving their problems in connection with crime. 2) FEARLESS http://www.fearless.org/ is the youth brand that introduces young people to the service offered by Crimestoppers. And third, what we find very useful is VSGATES http://www.vsgates.co.uk/ - a project based in London, Hackney and Southwark aimed at providing support to young people who are affected or concerned by gang violence and othercrimes connected with gang activities. It provides a free advice line for young people who want to talk about gang and crime related issues or fears. It also provides a lot of important informations and advices on this issue.

4.How could change happen?

a. which individuals and organisations could effect change?

b.How can you put pressure on them?

c.What methods would be best to use to bring that about?

Reliable sources and cite:

http://www.knifecrimes.org/gangs-crews-guns-knives.html

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/matthewmoore/100032096/google-maps-of-london-street-gangs-do-the-mozart-bloods-prowl-your-neighbourhood/

http://gangsinlondon.blogspot.com/

http://londonist.com/2010/03/londons_gangs_mapped.php

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2932813/London-gangs-are-aligning-themselves-to-LA-based-Bloods-and-Crips.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6383933.stm

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23834792-inside-the-child-gangs-of-london.do

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article7052090.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560074/Revealed-170-gangs-on-streets-of-London.html

http://londongangs.net/

Documentary by Ross Kemp about Gangs in London http://documentary-area.blogspot.com/2009/12/ross-kemp-more-gangs-in-london-special.html

YOUTUBE links about this issue
This link shows a gang in Manor House breaking in to Cost Cutter. All of the gang are wearing green bandana's, or green clothing which is associated with the gang they come from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCHLx1a6Bmc&feature=related

This clip gives an insight to gangs, shows them being arrested, fighting etc. Also has an interview with a gang in south London who explain why and how they got into gangs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YH0LUt8R2k This is a good link, a documentary about crime, how it is started, where it is most popular in london (Hackney, Brixton, Peckham) etc. It shows the families who are affected by their children being murdered due to knife crime and how they are trying to prevent it from happening to other families.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YH0LUt8R2k This shows the different bandana colours gangs wear around north London to distinguish themselves from other gangs.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xMyDQjFEtk&feature=related

Vicious attack on a drunk person in tottenham, stabbed five times, left for dead in the steet for accidently knocking into a cyclist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNeY6Kv2Bn4&feature=related

This is a website for gang crime in london, good statistics, maps etc.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/matthewmoore/100032096/google-maps-of-london-street-gangs-do-the-mozart-bloods-prowl-your-neighbourhood/# this link is a part of a documentry on gangs in south london http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x26l6r_ross-kemp-more-gangs-in-london-spec_people