Street Crime Live - Monday November 26
17 Nov five's blog | Email this page | 1662 reads
street crime live (4/8)
Donal MacIntyre presents this exciting crimefighting series which puts the viewer on the police frontline in cities across the UK. Tonight, the programme comes live from Birmingham, where Donal investigates the gang culture that has gripped the city and meets some of the groups that have formed to tackle it.
Each week, Street Crime Live broadcasts from the streets where the crimes actually take place. Donal is on location in the thick of the action, assisted by criminal psychologist Laura Richards. This week, Donal and Laura are in Britain’s second city to get an insight into the gang culture that has overtaken many lives. Birmingham has seen gang members sent down for a total of 496 years of prison time since the high-profile murder of Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis in January 2003. Donal and Laura look at the issues surrounding the violence and find out why many young people live in fear, whether they join a gang or decide to walk away.
As ever, Street Crime Live goes to the heart of the violence to meet the people who are personally affected. Among them is Linda Parchment, the mother of Daniel Miller –a young man murdered in June 2004. She makes a desperate appeal for people to break the wall of silence and identify the masked gunman who executed her son in what is thought to be a case of mistaken identity. The programme also learns why young men are willing to fight to defend a postcode, whilst refusing to accept that they are even part of a gang.
Laura and Donal also meet some of the groups who have set about trying to end the problem by uniting warring foes. They follow the story of the Freshwinds project, a football team which has brought together over 120 young people from all sides of the postcode divide. In addition, there is a report on the West Midlands Mediation and Transformation Service, which has brought back methods tested in Northern Ireland and the USA to tackle violence before it erupts by using mediators who have served time themselves.
Street Crime Live also continues its regular features, including police appeals, a roundup of crime stories and the most extreme CCTV footage.
b21 - b6 zup zup
b6
13 Dec 07 at 4:03 pm
these mans forgot to mention da heart of P4ki gang culture, alum rock/washwwod heath
hold tite
Hutton Mans
Total Boys
All reppin B8
4 Dec 07 at 11:50 am
b21 bang bang
3 Dec 07 at 12:50 pm
I think before every one rushes to baricade them selves into their houses and dig up their shotguns after watching Donals gang culture, please read on from this piece from a BBC site. WORD G!
Last Updated: Tuesday, 1 March, 2005, 16:07 GMT
Gang culture threat 'overblown'
By Justin Parkinson
BBC News education reporter
British children 'rarely carry weapons'
Gang culture is seen as a problem by one in five of England's secondary schools according to a report by the education watchdog Ofsted.
It comes amid concern over levels of disruption and even violence in the classroom and playground.
Stories of weapons checks and drug tests at schools do little to alleviate fears.
But criminologist Simon Hallsworth thinks Britain's political parties are fuelling a "moral panic".
'Fuelling suspicion'
Attitudes to young people - particularly those from poor or ethnic minority backgrounds - had been negatively affected, he told BBC News.
Levels of violent crime had actually fallen but politicians had attempted to out-do each other to appear "tough on crime".
Mr Hallsworth, director of London Metropolitan University's centre for social evaluation and research, said: "The idea of gangs can be dangerous.
"Young people here are only doing what they have always done.
"Only America has an established gang culture. Young people here carry guns very rarely indeed.
Kids are suffering. It's like we are criminalising being young
Simon Hallsworth, criminologist
"Even where there are gangs, such as in parts of south Manchester, members tend not to join until they are 18 to 21."
Mr Hallsworth has carried out research in deprived parts of Hackney, east London.
He found that, although young people hung around together, there was no "gang culture".
He said: "Standing with trousers down to your crutch and your hood on does not make you a member of a gang.
"Some of the poor kids I spoke to were excluded from everything. They were living in homes they shouldn't have to live in and were being called anti-social. Police were moving them on.
"Now we have Asbos [anti-social behaviour orders], which are draconian and politicians are competing to see who can seem the most 'anti-crime'.
"Kids are suffering. It's like we are criminalising being young.
"People branded the usual suspects as gang members. There were black kids and Bangladeshi groups being labelled.
"Young kids are doing what they have always done. Nowadays, when there are three or more of them hanging around they can be moved on."
Mr Hallsworth said that in Moscow - unlike London - groups of young people who spent time together in public were not bothered by police and that this had not resulted in higher levels of gang activity.
Some commentators have linked "tagging" - daubing personalised graffiti on walls - with gangs marking out their "turf".
But, Mr Hallsworth said, the practice had been happening for more than a decade and had only recently been linked to violent group behaviour.
He added: "We've had these panics before with mods, rockers, goths. This is the latest.
"Maybe we should understand more and condemn less."
26 Nov 07 at 10:51 pm
lol
i know
"the gang members characterise themselves with their clothing..with bandanas and the like..."
Yeah..no sh1t sherlock!
26 Nov 07 at 10:32 pm
Oh my god - i've just been watching this and what can Laura Richards tell us that a normal police Officer can't. psychologist schmycologist. bring on the real coppers and not the paper pushers who know nothing but theory.
what a JOKE.
26 Nov 07 at 10:15 pm
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