‘War in communities killing more than Afghanistan' - Voice Article

Ex-race adviser says more black youths than soldiers being killed

(Article and photograph from:  http://www.voice-online.co.uk)

A FORMER race adviser to Ken Livingstone has sensationally claimed that inner city violence has killed more black youths than British soldiers in Afghanistan.

Lee Jasper, who was one of ex-London mayor Livingstone’s closest aides until he stepped down in 2008, said that the black community’s experience over the last decade of serious violence and murder was comparable to that of a country at war.

Writing on his official website, Jasper said: ‘The reality is that there is what can be reasonably described as a ‘small war’ going on within our communities. 

Since 2001 up to the 4th July 2011, a total of 375 British forces personnel or MOD [Ministry of Defence] civilians have died while serving in Afghanistan since the start of operations in October 2001. Of these, 331 were killed as a result of hostile action.

‘Over the same period, 298 black men and 67 black women were stabbed to death. 228 black men and 14 black women were shot dead. That’s a total of 607 black people murdered over the last decade. There is a strong view among black communities that if such levels of serious youth violence and murder were occurring in white middle class communities this issue would be a matter of national concern.’

However, the Ministry of Defence told The Voice that the figure for soldiers killed was 394. And according to Home Office statistics covering the same period for the UK, 636 black and minority ethnic people were murdered.

POLICE
Jasper’s comments came in the wake of the tragic stabbing of a teenager on Boxing Day. Seydou Diarrassouba, 18, was killed after a fight broke out at a Foot Locker store on London’s Oxford Street, which police described as “the busiest place in the United Kingdom on the busiest shopping day.”

Eleven people have been bailed to date in mid-January, Scotland Yard said.
Jasper said: ‘There is no real strategy or understanding from central Government or the media about the crisis we face or how best to deal with it.

As a result, our suffering is largely in silence. There is little empathy for our plight and no acceptance that the drivers of violent crime, unemployment, poor schools, bad housing, the fear of crime and the dysfunctional families that result, are in need of urgent attention.’

But Patsy Mckie of Manchester-based campaign group Mothers Against Violence said that the black community has to take responsibility for stopping the tide of violence hitting our streets.

She told The Voice: “I believe that what we are asking the Government to do they can’t do. We are the ones who live in the community, we are the black people whose children are being killed, and most of the time it’s by black young men. This should be a wake up call for us. How many more are we going to sit down and let die? It’s our responsibility to do something about it."

“If we are really going to stop what is happening young people have to know that black people care, and I really believe that they’re not seeing that.”

She added: “Fear and concern is very important, because that’s a start, but it shouldn’t stop there. Our young people see that we care enough to do something about it. Most of us are thinking about ourselves or our jobs, or what we have to buy. We’re not really thinking about our children. Money is taking priority over our children, and we need to start opening our eyes and seeing that.”

The Voice

Inner city youth violence: more casualties than Afghanistan

 

The last decade has seen inner city youth violence kill more black youth in the UK than British soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

The current scale of youth violence in UK black communities is rarely understood by white mainstream society. There is a strong view among black communities that if such levels of serious youth violence and murder were occurring in white middle class communities this issue would be a matter of national concern.

The implication is clear: that as long as black youth are killing each other then nobody really cares. I was interested to try to get some scale on the scope and impact of these murders on our communities. How best could this be illustrated was my challenge and so I did a little research and what I found was quite shocking.

The black community experience over the last decade of serious violence and murder is comparable to that of a country at war. The numbers are compelling.

Since 2001 up to the 4th July 2011, a total of 375 British forces personnel or MOD civilians have died while serving in Afghanistan since the start of operations in October 2001. Of these, 331 were killed as a result of hostile action.

Over the same period 298 black men and 67 black women were stabbed to death. 228 black men and 14 black women were shot dead. That’s a total of 607 black people murdered over the last decade.

The reality is that there is what can be reasonable described as a ‘small war ' going on within our communities.  There is no real support from either local authorities or central government for black communities seeking to deal with the wider consequences of such high levels of death and serious violence.

There is no real strategy or understanding from central Government or the media about the crisis we face or how best to deal with it.

As a result our suffering is largely in silence, there is little empathy for our plight and no acceptance that the drivers of violent crime, unemployment, poor schools, bad housing, the fear of crime and the dysfunctional families that result, are in need urgent attention.

What is equally not understood is the profound scale of the social and psychological damage, the damage to community morale and feelings of safety, the rampant fear of violent crime, and the tragedy of young people who survived but are disabled or walking with colostomy bags and razor scars across their face.

This is the desperate reality of black deprived communities. Add to this the fact that the recorded figures whilst accurate on deaths, significantly under records the extent of violent youth crime. Many, many young people are treated for gang related violence in hospital accident and emergency units and refuse to report these crimes to the police.  These are the walking wounded and when combined with the official figures illustrate the sheer scale of violence that deprived black communities are forced to live with.

Young people are becoming increasingly desensitised to this intense level of violence, primary school children understand the vocabulary of violence and the need for protection that is a major dynamic in driving vulnerable young people into gangs.

Whilst pathways to employment and education opportunities have largely been closed down, inner city areas are awash with hard drugs and guns.

In Inuit folklore there is a tale of a wolf hunter who plants a sword in the ice. The hilt is buried in the snow with the blade pointing toward the sky. The hunter covers the blade in blood and waits as wolves smelling the blood begin to lick the blade and as they do so the cut their tongues and bleed to death. Who does one blame for the deaths of the wolves, the wolves or the hunter?

Black youth who live in the most deprived areas in families made dysfunctional by long-term generational unemployment and high rates of income poverty, being taught in failing schools and living with high levels of knife and gun crime can be compared to the Inuit wolves.

The drug and gun importers represent the hunter here. The flooding of our areas with arms and narcotics results in some of these vulnerable bored, unemployed young people being seduced into crime.

They are alienated, angry and unemployed and are easy pickings for criminals that are intent on controlling their local markets and in need of soldiers to provide protection from rival gangs.

One cannot however escape the simple fact that the black community must also accept primary responsibility for the number of single parent families and the dramatic effect of fatherless homes have on the attitude and behavior of black boys. 

Black men who are estranged or disengaged from their families must take responsibility for their offspring. Black women must themselves be open to constructive dialogue with the fathers of their sons. SACYRD will be discussing the possibility of holding a national black family’s reconciliation day next year; such is the urgency of this crisis.

The current disjuncture between the status of black men and black boys must be repaired and reinforced. Parental responsibility is key to beginning the process of turning the tide of violence engulfing our communities.

However, no community immersed in poor neighborhoods, suffering generational levels of unemployment and high rates of income poverty can sustain itself over the longer term without these issues being addressed. Whole families and communities have suffered long tem unemployment in largely workless households over the last four decades.

Our young people have boundless energy and are bursting with ideas and talent. That latent talent is then wasted through want of real opportunity. As a direct consequence of long-term poverty we have seen develop a culture of poverty, bringing with it poverty of imagination, of ideas, ambition and the necessary resources to fully commit to and sustain family life.

Long-term poverty and unemployment, poor schooling, poor rates of health and worse housing all combine into a multi headed hydra of social problems that undermines the human moral propensity to do the right thing and that vacuum is filled by a moral decrepitude. With dysfunctional parents and no real social support, the culture of MTV and Hollywood rap videos become the model for the surrogate family – gangs.

Whole families and large minorities within communities unable to cope with the strains of modern family life, disintegrate and fragment. 

Such areas as we live in become permanently associated with violent crime and deprivation. The places where we live are flooded (some would say that this is a conscious decision by the authorities) with drugs and guns. Add to this an under reporting of violence that would increase the recorded level of crime by around 50% and the real scale of the problem we face begins to emerge.

And in our weakened fragmented state we turn on each other. Even relatively stable families living on such communities find it difficult to repel the culture of despair and the glamorisation of youth violence.

Remember the Inuit tale of the hunter and the wolves?

Government has to fully address the woeful lack of constructive opportunities for employment and education black youth. The economic state of our communities is acting as a recruitment sergeant for violent criminality. The grave worry is that in the current context of the austerity budget and public spending, these social ills will become gravely exacerbated exacting a terrible social and human cost. 

How are we to prevent another failed generation of our communities? The answer lies in America and Northern Ireland and the adoption of Affirmative Action is the only policy response capable of responding adequately to the scale of the current crisis. Overnight, young black people would have thousands of employment opportunities, as did Catholic youth in Northern Ireland when this was introduced in 1991. Our youth unemployment situation is much worse that that of Catholic youth at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland. If it’s good enough for those who face religious discrimination why not those who suffer more as a result of race discrimination? This is the only Government policy capable of having a dramatic effect on all of these issues that would result in bringing to an end, in less than a decade, this cycle of long-term deprivation.

Short-term palliatives and incremental short lived project initiatives, however well intentioned, are not sufficient in scale to address these issues. We should reject these conscience saving gestures in favour of a much more radical approach: Affirmative Action, which is likely to finally break the on going cycle of deprivation characterised by racism, poverty and crime.

In addition to this Government should adopt a proactive public health anti violence policy approach to violence and give the confiscated assets of criminals back to the communities that suffer the detritus of their foul endeavors.

Of course parents and black men in particular must also address the issue of responsible fatherhood if we are to see the cessation of unacceptable levels of violence. But a call for a community to ‘do the right thing’ is meaningless in the context of run down deprived neighborhoods and discrimination in education and the labour market.

Yes there is a war going on in our communities and the loss is unimaginable for most other communities. It is a sad fact that the level of death, injury and other collateral damage is not empathetically understood.

The conclusions some have come to is that Black lives are simply not worth as much to the media and some sections of the Government as white lives.

On that score we are degraded as both British citizens, human beings and as people worthy of compassion.

We need to tackle statutory indifference, institutionalized racism and community complacency if we are to save our communities from a violent descent into the kind of mayhem and chaos we have seen in some US cities.

It’s time for action.

Lee Jasper

For Kingsley Burrell, Smiley Culture and Demetre Fraser

Left to right: Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser, Smiley Culture. R.I.P.

The Black community’s history as a people both in here the UK and the wider world can be viewed as a series of on going struggles for equality and freedom. That history is punctuated with critical moments that represent significant and important milestones in our fight for justice and equality.
The ending of slavery, the right to vote, the campaigns for the independence of former British colonies, the civil rights struggle, the ending of the colour bar, the murder of Stephen Lawrence all represent such key moments.

Of late over the last decade marching lost its meaning and with the Public inquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence many Black activists simply laid down their banners and placards assuming that racism was defeated they went back to their home and families.

In 2011 the tragedy surrounding the deaths of three Black men in close succession, Smiley Culture, Kingsley Burrell and Demetre Fraser has reignited the black community’s passion for justice . Battered by the cuts and thousands of black men and women being made redundant, savage cuts to the black voluntary sector has left us dazed but determined to fight back.

Whilst the twin headed hydra of crime and poverty has unleashed a bloody war among our young people.
Despite this there is something moving within the black community, and I have never seen such anger and outrage. Packed public meetings and passionate demands for justice are the canary’s in the coal mine. Largely unnoticed by the mainstream politicians and the press the black community is returning to its campaigning roots. There is a feeling in the air that compels us to march for justice.

Tired of the constant attack on our culture ,exhausted by the state mis-education of our children, desperate to secure our children’s future, against a backdrop of our communities slipping silently into a social abyss as a result of consecutive Governments neglect, we are now awaking from our slumber to take to the streets.
Saturday 2nd July 2011 the city of Birmingham saw unprecedented scenes as the city that is now the black deaths in custody capital of the UK came to a standstill. Over 1000 people gathered from around the country to march in support of the Kingsley Burrell Campaign for Justice. Kingsley died after being forcibly arrested by the West Midlands Police earlier this year.

The march was vibrant and dynamic. We were led by a sound system pumping out revolutionary reggae anthems. There were families with children and a broad range of campaigns representing a number of Asian and white communities who joined the march in solidarity. It was a fatalistic sight made more glorious by the wonderful sunshine and the myriad of red, green and gold banners and flags.

We made our way from Hockley, Kingsley’s family home to the HQ of the West Midlands Police in the centre of town. Half way through the march the Sikh Gudwara on Soho Road in a touching gesture of solidarity provided refreshment to the marchers as we passed their temple.
When the police started to try and kettle our march we immediately sat down and occupied the road determined to stay there until the police backed off. They did so and we continued with our march.
We brought Birmingham came to a complete standstill as we marched and chanted for justice. There were speeches at the HQ of the West Midland Police from all the family campaigns who spoke eloquently and with a searing pain that left and indelible mark on all who heard their testimony.

We committed ourselves to the long hard road to justice recognizing the challenge and the difficulty we were no less inspired. We have had virtually no real press coverage of this hugely successful march the media black out was almost total. But go and look on Facebbok to witness what happened for yourself and what you will see will amaze you.

The Black community now sees itself self in a fight for its very survival. Saturday we marched for justice and tomorrow we march for peace aimed at stopping the madness of youth violence. We march today in order to secure our future.
As the mother of Demetre Fraser told the marchers at the rally,
“I looked at the papers when Kingsley died and I felt for his mother. I put the paper down and decided to do nothing about it. Yesterday its was Kingsley, before that Smiley today it's Demetre and I am that mother. Tomorrow it could be you”

Why are we marching again? Because justice demands it, our history dictates we must, it’s in our political DNA and our future that we do so. The mainstream press and politicians don’t get it but they never do. The marching season is back in fashion and poor black and white communities are taking to the streets demanding justice.

Protestors marching for justice in Birmingham on the 2nd July 2011.

Lee Jasper

(First published at OBV: the home of black politics http://www.obv.org.uk/ )

A Day Of Action Against Violence: Because All Life is Sacred

SACRYD:
STRATEGIC ALLIANCE OF COMMUNITIES REJECTING YOUTH DESTRUCTION.

 

SACRYD C/O

CAN Mezzanine

49-51 East Road

London

N1 6AH

admin@sacryd.org

www.sacryd.org

                                                                                                                Date: 13/7/11

A Day of Action Against Violence: Because All Life is Sacred

SACYRD is a new campaigning organisation; a social enterprise company with charitable objectives founded in 2010. Our name stands for Strategic Alliance of Communities Rejecting Youth Destruction.

Who we are and what are our aims?

SACRYD is made up of people and organisations from the voluntary, faith and private sectors, including parents, young people, local Government and health organisations, all of whom are committed to tackling violence with a focus on knife, gun and violent crime in our communities.  SACRYD is supported by organisations such as The Black Police Association, The Damilola Taylor Trust, The Peace Alliance, Eastside Academy.

All of those involved in SACRYD recognise the need for a dynamic campaigning advocate self-empowerment organisation that can advocate and champion the need for the urgent adoption of a strategic preventative public health approach to reducing violence.

Put simply a public health approach to violence seeks to treat the problem of violence as a social disease focussing on, prevention, early intervention, public awareness and treatment and rehabilitation.

We are particularly concerned with the escalation of youth violence that we see as stemming from the wider levels of violence prevalent in the UK.

Violent children are often themselves brought up in violent families who tend to live in violent communities. However we believe that you cannot tackle particular aspects of violence, for example youth violence, domestic violence racist violence in isolation from the general incidence of violence in communities.

SACYRD policy position is that we can effectively reduce levels of serious violence through demanding the adoption of a community led, preventative public health policy in poor and disadvantaged communities.

Our primary objectives are to raise the level of awareness, of both politician’s and the wider community of the proven and tangible benefits of adopting a preventive public health approach. In addition to advocating and driving the political empowerment of local disenfranchised communities in taking the lead in owning and responding to the problem of violence.

Black communities feel completely disempowered in the fight against violent crime.

This is a fundamental and critical error of approach. Black communities must take the lead in tackling violence and hold agencies to account.

This requires communities to organise themselves into robust local consortiums that can act as a vehicle and offer a platform for a range of community led interventions. 

Central to the self-empowerment of communities is ethical principled leadership and clarity of objectives. A public health approach recognises the primacy of communities in any sustainable attempt to reduce violence.

A new approach to reducing violence: Public Health

A public health approach to violence prevention seeks to improve the health and safety of all by addressing underlying risk factors that increase the likelihood that poor communities will be more likely to become either victim’s or perpetrator’s of violence.

By definition, public health aims to provide the maximum benefit for the largest number of people. Programmes for the primary prevention of violence based on the public health approach are designed to expose a broad segment of communities to a range of prevention and intervention violence reduction measures. This approach consists of four steps.

• The first step is for communities to take the leadership role with support from statutory agencies in designing and delivering effective intervention programmes.
• The second step is to defining the problem through the systematic collection of publically available information about the magnitude, scope, geography, characteristics and consequences of violence.
• The third step is identifying and prioritising the causes and correlates of violence, the factors that increase or decrease the risk for violence, and the factors that can be modified through a range of interventions.
• The fourth step is identifying what works to prevent violence by implementing widely available, national and international evidence based examples of successful violence reduction strategies.

Statutory failure - community indifference.

For years a broad range of community organisations have sought to convince successive Governments of the need to take urgent preventative action to tackle serious youth violence. The response has been piecemeal, short term and enforcement led.   This is best summarised as the ‘jail, hospital and cemeteries’ approach resulting increased rates of incarceration alongside increased rates of serious youth violence and an increase in the fear of crime.

Black communities themselves have in the past relied too heavily on statutory funding from central and local government. Combined with a general level of ignorance about the true social, psychological, emotional, economic and environmental costs of violence this has led to a dangerous degree of dependency that has created a climate of complacency.

The reality of the situation we face now is one of completely unacceptable levels of violence, increasing fear of crime against a backdrop of statutory indifference characterised by distinct lack of policy creativity and innovation a general failure to eliminate the insidious culture of statutory silo working, alongside poor highly transient poor communities who are deeply disenfranchised disempowered and disinclined to engage.

What we intend to do.

We believe that an enforcement led approach whilst necessary is not of itself a sufficient requirement to sustainably reduce violence in the long term. Prevention, community empowerment, early intervention, rehabilitation and support for vulnerable families are critical components of any effective violence reduction strategies. 

We believe that both local and central government are failing to adequately protect our communities and that black communities have become both alienated and too dependent on a statutory led approach to this issue.

That is why we are calling for a coordinated Day of Action across London.

Our view is that those communities moist affected by violence have to take direct action in the face of such indifference.

We believe that unless we are prepared to take coordinated direct action in the tradition of the non violent civil rights struggle then our calls to help save our children will fall on deaf ears.

Local and central government are closing down many community based early interventions services, crime prevention and diversion programmes, youth clubs and community centres, after school clubs and nurseries, libraries as well as local parks and adventure playgrounds.

Our fear is that as a result things could get much worse as vulnerable young people and the wider community become increasing alienated from society.

Where will the money come from?

Funding will always be a contentious issue but we believe that it is a false economy to be cutting community led interventions services in high crime areas.

Over £120 million pounds is confiscated from criminals each year. In the light of that we believe that Government should now agree that 100% of all locally criminally confiscated assets be returned to local communities enabling them to have the necessary resources to build their capacity to lead on this issue.

This we believe has a number of immediate and obvious benefits.

Ø  This is not taxpayer’s money. Confiscated criminal assets can therefore offer much greater flexibility and innovation in terms of funding criteria and innovation in project delivery. 

Ø  Using these assets for community safety and development projects can begin to attack the false glamorisation of a criminal lifestyle. For example the public auctioning of local dealers prized assets will aid in combating this pernicious culture.

Ø  Opening community centres paid for by these confiscated assets will reinforce public confidence in the criminal justice system.

Ø  Reporting crime will be incentivised if people understand that their local community is likely to benefit in a socially productive way.

Ø  We feel that this is proportionately effective as the more crime an area suffers and the more confiscated asset are seized, the more money they have directly reinvested in community intervention and support projects.

Ø  We believe this will increase trust and confidence in the criminal justice system, develop community capacity to take responsibility for crime in their area, minimise the contribution from the taxpayer and enhance neighbourliness and social cohesion.

That is why we are calling on all communities to participate in a London wide coordinated Day of Action: Because all life is sacred. We are hoping that such a campaign will drive home these issues onto the agenda’s of local, regional and central government and most importantly increase the level of constructive engagement of our own communities.

Our objectives are to demonstrate both our anger and concern at the continued and unacceptable levels of the murder of our young people. To challenge statutory agency failure and community indifference by seeking to facilitate community empowerment and local leadership in delivering a public health approach to reducing violence.

Local communities can take any number of actions designed to highlight the serious of our situation both to the government and the wider public. What will be important is effective coordination and effective media management.

There are four high level objectives for the Day of Action: Because All Life Is Sacred campaign

1. Significantly enhance interest from press and politicians and other key stakeholders in the issue of serious violence.

2. Creatively demonstrate and represent the total volume of deaths suffered by local communities

3. To promote the adoption of a public health community led preventive approach to reducing violence in poor communities.

4. To demand that all confiscated criminal assets are ring fenced and handed over to community organisations to fund community safety projects.

We believe that a Day of Action will attract significant interest from our own community, press and politicians whom to date have paid little more than lip service to this issue. We hope you will join us as we take action to stem the violence.

A planning meeting for this event will take place on Wednesday 20th July 6pm-9pm @ Greater London Authority, 
City Hall, The Queen's Walk, 
London SE1 2AA.

PRESS RELEASE: London communities to take a stand against violence

SACRYD: STRATEGIC ALLIANCE OF COMMUNITIES REJECTING YOUTH DESTRUCTION
	Press Release

LONDON COMMUNITIES TO TAKE A STAND AGAINST VIOLENCE

SACRYD, IS PLANNING A COORDINATED DAY OF ACTION AGAINST THE INCREASING VIOLENCE THAT IS IMPACTING UPON COMMUNITIES ACROSS LONDON.

Background

SACYRD is a new campaigning organisation a social enterprise company with charitable objectives founded in 2010. Our name stands for Strategic Alliance of Communities Rejecting Youth Destruction.

SACRYD is made up of people and organisations from the voluntary, faith and private sectors, including parents, young people, local Government and health organisations, all of whom are committed to tackling violence with a focus on knife, gun and violent crime in our communities.  SACRYD is supported by organisations such as The Black Police Association, The Damiola Trust, The Peace Alliance and the famous Eastside Academy.

All of those involved in SACRYD recognise the need for a dynamic campaigning community n organisation that can advocate and champion the need for the urgent adoption of a community led strategic preventative public health approach to reducing violence.  We are campaigning for Government to return the 100% confiscated criminal assets to the community to0 fund anti violence initiatives. Over £120 million is confiscated and that money is sent straight to the Treasury.

Carol Stewart Chairperson of SACRYD said “ Our primary objectives are to raise the level of awareness, of both politician’s and the wider community of the proven and tangible benefits of adopting a preventive public health approach. In addition to advocating and driving the political empowerment of local disenfranchised communities in taking the lead in owning and responding to the problem of violence.

Lee Jasper Secretary of SACRYD stated

“ At a time of increasing austerity confiscated criminal assets should be returned to communities to fund community projects designed to deter and prevent young people becoming seduced into a life of crime. If a crack dealer is running a crack house on an estate we should take his cash and open a community centre. That would inspire confidence  in criminal justice system as well, at a time of cuts to public spending , this cash should fund local initiatives to combat crime.”

He added

“Our objectives are to demonstrate both the level of anger and concern at the continued and unacceptable levels murder and youth violence affecting young people.  We intend to challenge both the failures of statutory agencies and community indifference by seeking to facilitate community empowerment and local leadership in delivering a public health approach to reducing violence. We want a renewed focus on prevention and early intervention not just a focus on enforcement. The balance is not right.

A planning meeting for this event will take place on Wednesday 20th July 6pm-9pm @ Greater London Authority, City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London SE1 2AA.

For more information contact Lee Jasper

General Secretary SACRYD 07984 181797

www.sacryd.org

-End-

Public Health and Violent Crime: An idea whose time has come

It’s almost three years since I wrote an article on the issue of youth violence for the Guardian newspaper. In July of 2008 I called for the adoption of a public health approach to tackling youth violence and its now five years since I embarked on a campaign to seek to convince Government, stakeholders and anyone else that would listen that this approach would be much more effective method in reducing youth violence.

Since then I have been banging on about this approach meeting after meeting convinced as I am that adopting an multi agency community led interventionist, prevention, education and enforcement public health approach to tackling violent crime was the only effective way forward.

In my original article I cited the injury surveillance projects based at Accident and Emergency units in Wales and Scotland as clear successful examples where a public health approach worked.

So it is with some sadness (given the number of deaths and injuries that have occurred in the last three years) tinged with relief that I read today in the Independent that the example cited by me three years ago is now to be rolled out across the country. The tragedy is that many lives could have been saved if this approach was adopted earlier.

The projected as cited in my original article is information sharing partnership between health services, police, and local government in Cardiff, Wales. Incidence of violence were captured and shared and then informed policing and other strategies to prevent violence based on information collected from patients treated in emergency departments. These were injuries that were not being reported to the police.

At that time I said “Research conducted in three Glasgow hospitals in March 2004 suggests that violent crimes are under-reported by at least 50%, possibly nearer 70%. And 55% of the individuals who came into accident and emergency departments during the period of another recent study stated they would not report their assault to the police. In order to get an accurate assessment of the level of community violence we must start where the action is: at the point of treatment, all violent injuries must be reported to the police. Schools must be champions of the violence-prevention agenda and both must work with community organisations.”

“ Injury surveillance pilot projects started by the government are now being run in Wales and Scotland and early indications are that even at the level of simply capturing and sharing data they are effective in reducing and preventing criminality. The government should build on this success.”

A lots of lives could have been saved had this approach been adopted earlier. Politicians have known about the effectiveness of this approach and yet have been reluctant to implement a public health programmed because of the cost implications. The cost to communities of inaction has left whole communities living with the bitter legacy of serious youth violence.

Thousands of young people are presenting themselves for treatment at hospital A&E departments having been involved in a fight or subject to a violent attack - some of them very serious indeed. The majority, and I choose my words carefully here; do not make complaints to the police.

The official figures on violent crime do not reflect the true extent of level of violence in our communities. The reality as all communities know is that violent crime is much, much worse than the official figures suggest. The data is known but not shared with the public for fear of what might happen if the true extent of violence was to become public knowledge.

This innovative public health approach over a three year period led to a significant reduction in violent injury in Cardiff compared with similar cities in England and Wales.

Information sharing on serious injuries and use were associated with a substantial and significant reduction in hospital admissions related to violence. In Cardiff rates fell from seven to five a month per 100 000 population compared with an increase from five to eight in comparison cities.

Average rate of woundings recorded by the police changed from 54 to 82 a month per 100 000 population in Cardiff compared with an increase from 54 to 114 in comparison cities There was a significant increase in less serious assaults recorded by the police, from 15 to 20 a month per 100 000 population in Cardiff

Professor Jonathan Shepherd, who led the Cardiff Violence Prevention Programme, said:

“All this work was built on the shock finding 15 years ago that all violent incidents are not known to the police, mainly because they aren’t reported.

“Even serious injuries, which lead to hospital admissions, such as knife wounds and even shootings in the US aren’t picked up on by the police.

“We’re recording, in A&E, where the violence takes place – the name of the nightclub or the street and where in the street; the name of the park or the school – what type of weapon was involved and the day and time it happened. This information, collected by the A&E receptionist once anonymised, can be shared with the police and is key to targeted prevention.”

The scheme in Cardiff has been developed over the past 15 years and is dependent on the partnerships between the lo0cal communities, the police, NHS and local council.

Prof Shepherd speaking to Walesonline said:

“This is very practical, straightforward and doable but it will only translate to other areas if it is well managed and it needs the local A&E consultant to get hold of it and work with the local police.
“It hasn’t always been easy setting this up but we now have these partnerships throughout Wales and several hospitals are doing this. The UK coalition Government is also committed to making hospitals share information for the purpose of violence reduction.”

A recent evaluation by the British Medical Journal found “information sharing and use were associated with a substantial and significant reduction in hospital admissions related to violence”.

The study added: “Our findings suggest that communities can achieve substantial reductions in the public health burden of violence through organised data driven partnerships between health, law enforcement agencies, and local government.

“The intervention was associated with an estimated 42% fewer woundings recorded by the police relative to comparison cities four years after implementation.”

Alexander Butchart, of the World Health Organisation (WHO), leading a global campaign on encouraging nations to adopt the public health approach to tackling violence said:
“In light of its large effect on preventing violence, this model will hopefully be emulated by other cities in developing and developed countries.”

Prof Shepherd added: “It’s particularly encouraging WHO has said it wants this model reproduced around the world.
“Because this is such a low-tech idea it means it can be done in those countries where violence levels are very much higher than here but police resources are limited.

Lets hope there is no further delay in implementing this approach by Government and local authorities. Every day loss comes at the enormous cost and personal tragedy to many communities whose lives are blighted with violence.

Lee Jasper





(First published at OBV: The Home of Black Politics http://www.obv.org.uk)

UPDATED: Mayor of London Boris Johnson and youth violence: It’s not a matter of commitment. It’s a matter of competence.

Day by day the body bags of those murdered mount up. In Lambeth we are in the grip of a small war among warring gangs.

With serious youth violence threatening to escalate out of control in certain areas of London I was reminded of the Mayor of London’s Boris Johnsons manifesto commitment to “end the scourge of youth violence “in the capital. I have to say that I was personally impressed by his vision. Boris was as usual eloquent on the issue and I sensed deep down he was both sincere and honourable in his concern and determination to make this a top priority. The Mayor launched his radical proposal in a policy document that set out his proposals entitled “Time for Action”

His vision delivered with much passion, vim and vigour outlined his commitment to get his wealthy chums in the city to contribute millions to his Mayoral Fund launched in April 2009. The fund stated that it:

“…aims to improve the life chances and aspirations of disadvantaged children, young people and their families in London.”

The Mayor was to use his influence with the city of London to secure sponsorship of boxing gyms and youth academies across the capital. That has not happened, the City has not responded to the Mayors invitation, as Boris has recently admitted speaking to the London Evening Standard. At the publication of his strategy in November 2008 he announced:

 "Tackling serious youth crime and the tragic murders of young people has been my most immediate priority since becoming Mayor.

"My action plan will provide the London-wide leadership and coordination that has so far been absent in tackling youth crime."

The Mayoral Fund has been a flop. No real appetite from the City other than a couple of major companies. Unbelievably the fund has spent huge sums of money on consultancies and administration in its first years of existence; far more than it did on funding youth initiatives. The projects that have been supported are quite small and not sufficiently funded to be rolled out across the most seriously affected boroughs in London.

Bizarrely all of the projects funded are in that well known gang hotspot Shoreditch! Over 80% of the Mayors Fund total budget in its first year of operation was spent on management consultants and administration.

I recently attended one of the Mayors Community Conversations in Peckham and there the Mayor publically admitted that  ‘we are not where we want to be in relation to the Mayors fund” and that “we are behind schedule but working hard to catch up”. The fact is the Mayor is so far behind on this issue he is out of sight.

As a result, other than tenuous claims to success gained by funding existing initiatives and badging them as Mayors fund deliverables, nothing much has been achieved. The Mayoral Fund remains one of the Mayors largest personal vanity projects.

The fund: “Time for Action" has been spectacularly unsuccessful of late in reducing the level of serious youth violence in the most affected London boroughs. No one really knows what “Time for Action” is really all about, what it involves or how successful it has been. Whatever the assessment there can be no doubt that however well intentioned the Mayor is, he has failed to deliver on his top line manifesto commitment.

Whilst he is not short on policy he is a day late and a dollar short on implementation. His Time for Action policy contains some excellent proposals, however the Mayor, having taken his eye off the ball now finds himself with one hell of a resurgent problem. The signature statement of his administration has been a distinct lack of policy innovation and one of the few policies that he can claim as his own has simply  not see the light of day. The Mayor seems to be incapable of implementing in any meaningful way his own flag ship policy.

Whilst the policy flounders in the doldrums, young people continue to die on the streets of London.

No doubt the Mayor will claim success in relation to the reduction in the official crime figure relating to levels of violence and youth murders. The problem for him is that in London there is no relationship between the official figures on gun and knife murders and how safe people feel on the streets. If one child gets shot or other innocent bystanders are killed in a drive by the whole capital feels unsafe regardless of the figures.

To be fair the massive increase in the police use of stop and search powers at the behest of Boris and delivered by the MPS as part of their anti knife strategy Blunt 2 coincided with a temporary reduction in these crimes. The problem with this approach is that it is not sustainable over the long term and there is little evidence that schemes like Blunt actually work.

Poor quality stops, incivility from aggressive and sometimes racist police officers have increased alienation among young black people; the very people they are trying to protect and youth violence is back on its remorseless rise.

In relation to the effectiveness of stop and search an in depth study by conducted by Professor Fitzgerald, of Kent University,

analysed Met stop and search statistics from April to October 2009 and concluded there was "no absolute proof that the tactic is of any use".

The statistics showed that during that period 13,247 stop and searches were carried out in Newham, east London, when knife crime fell by 7.7%.  In Islington, north London, 840 searches were carried out and knife crime fell by 24.8%.

But knife crime rose by 8.6% in Southwark despite 9,437 searches being carried out, and it rose by 6% in Waltham Forest, east London, despite 3,123 searches.

The same can be said for many other London boroughs such as Lambeth where we have seen a year on year increase in rates of serious youth violence.

Further more, whole communities in some areas, including young people and their parents, are now living in a climate of fear. Parents are terrified for their children and despite some falls in youth violence across the capital there remains a residual core of inner London boroughs where the problem continues to get worse. These areas feel abandoned and increasingly undermined in their desperate plight to create safer communities.

The overall murder rate can drop but if a small number of young people are spraying machine guns on the streets of London, if young children are getting shot and innocent teenagers are being murdered in the cross fire of warring gangs, then I’m afraid that such reductions are largely academic in terms of how safe Londoners feel.

These killings are stylised public executions designed to instil fear in the public. They are ritualised killings designed to send a message and that message is loud and clear: it is the gangs not the community or the police that run London’s streets. That’s the code on the road.

As if to dramatically reinforce that message those committing the murders show a dangerous and reckless disregard for public safety, the rule of law and Boris Johnson. Public executions, gang murder in broad daylight, witnesses killed and set alight in burning cars, children getting shot. It’s a 'fuck you' statement from the boys on the road.

Playgrounds are empty, children are escorted everywhere, teenagers stay indoors fearing to go out at night or even visit another area of London. The quality of life is desperately poor.

The fear of crime is not really influenced by the official crime statistics, all of which are viewed with great suspicion by the majority of the public. It is usually the nature of violent criminality that alarms. So whilst figures will be dropping in the official figures, a shooting of a child or the discharge in a public space of a Mac 10 machine gun will hugely increase the fear of crime whatever the official figures may say.

The other important aspect of assessing the reality of serious youth crime is the number of unreported serious violence injuries that are recorded by hospitals A&E departments, but are not reported as crimes. In London there are huge levels of underreporting of youth violence as it presents at local hospitals and this masks the extent of the true picture. There would of course be more deaths if not for the skill of surgeons. The conclusion is that the situation is much worse than the official figures suggest.

The combined effects of increased rates of serious wanton violence, high tech and apparently easily available weaponry, lived experience of violence by communities, disbelief in the official figures, rising unemployment, reductions in policing and cuts to youth services  are all combining to create an environment for the prefect political storm for a Mayor who talks a good talk but seems incapable of implementing his own policies. With a meagre budget of £4.5 million the message is clear and unambiguous. There is zero confidence or willingness in the City for the Mayors' programmes.

Even the Mayors' most welcomed mentor scheme seems unlikely to be able to deliver. The University of East London and London action Trust 2 organisations that were brought together as I understand by the Mayors' Office and offered the Mentors contacts even though they each bid separately. They are not a black led bid nor do these organisations appear to have the necessary experience or expertise.  I think that’s potentially illegal.

Black led bids to deliver this project were rejected in favour of these two white organisations one of which, London Action Trust, of which Boris Johnson is the patron. Both organisations lack the competence, the credibility and track record to work with the kind of ‘hard knock’ black boys that are members of gangs or at risk.

In any event given they are unlikely to start work until September, given the summer break and assuming that the Mayoral election purdah period will kick in early in the new year, the Mayor has left it too late to have much chance of achieving any degree of success before the 2012 Mayoral elections.

It does not take three years to determine that mentoring is a good idea and then completely mishandle the procurement process in such a cack handed manner. To complete the tragic picture there is prima facie evidence that the procurement process may well have been illegal and may yet be subject to legal challenge.

The Mayors failure is not one of commitment, I think that is genuinely accepted by most. The critical failure here is the area of competence. The Mayor failed in his attempt to get any traction with London wide implementation of his “Time for Action “policy. He has failed to any raise any substantial funds from the rich bankers and wealthy. He is cutting police officer numbers and lost hundreds of millions of pounds of LDA funding that was a source of regeneration funds.

His strategy is now left in tatters as local authorities decimate youth services and close down much needed voluntary sector community resources. Reductions in police officer numbers in the context of rising youth unemployment are likely to see increases in levels of violence not reductions. Communities are becoming increasingly angry and cynical as a result of the continued failures, despite the promise of the Mayor to tackle this issue. I said in the Mayoral elections of 2008 that the Mayor should avoid trying to make political capital out of the tragedy of youth violence; sadly he did not heed that advice. I stated that if he did then this issue would come back to haunt him and it looks like Boris is about to get hoisted with his own petard. The sky is dark with chickens coming home to roost.

(Updated 14th July 2011)

 Boris Johnson visits Brixton Road Youth Centre in Lambeth in 2008