There seemed to be no obvious reason to pick on the teenage boy who was
leaving the Tube station in West London. But within seconds he was being
encircled by a group of young lads who forced him, at knifepoint, to take
off his clothes before they allowed him to go on his way.
By the appalling standards of knife crime in London today this incident may
not be classed as particularly shocking. Until you consider this: the
hapless teenager was targeted because he was wearing a blue shirt. And in
this particular sliver of London, this gang's chosen colour is, apparently,
red. Wearing the wrong colour in the wrong territory smacks of disrespect -
even if you were not aware of the “rules”.
There is no more terrifying violent crime than the seemingly arbitrary one.
David Idowu, 14, was stabbed in Southwark, southeast London, last month and
died this week. It has been suggested that the school uniform he was wearing
may have been a factor. There is no indication that he was involved in gang
culture. His Walworth Academy tie is fastened to the lamppost near where he
fell, along with dozens of floral tributes. Last year Sophie Lancaster, 20,
was kicked to death by youths in Bacup, Lancashire, because she was dressed
as a Goth.
Have we reached a point where a young person might be attacked because of the
clothes he or she happens to be wearing? Do parents, who now worry about
what colour sweatshirt their son puts on before he leaves the house lest he
inadvertently “disses” an unknown gang member, have a legitimate fear, or
are we all in danger of becoming hysterical?
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has already warned that British gangs are
copying the tactics of US ones. Earlier this year she said there was
increasing evidence that they are wearing colours of allegiance, like the
famous LA gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, and using graffiti to warn others
off their territory. A building or wall is “tagged” with graffiti to tell
gangs of another's presence.
“Some elements of gang culture tend to come from the States,” said Smith. “We
have seen the development of things like the use of tags, the use of
colours. Those are all things we need to address.” Some schools in London
already ban the wearing of bandanas in “gang colours”. In North London two
rival gangs have been known to wear Bob the Builder or Thomas the Tank
Engine caps to denote their loyalties. It is said that in Wood Green the
required colour of bandana is green while in Tottenham it is purple or
black. Camden, meanwhile, is signified by red.
The trend is not confined to the capital. A former peripheral gang member in
the North West, who is now 23, but spent three years in a gang when he was
younger, says: “Wearing a certain colour, or hat, or whatever, massively
strengthens the feeling of belonging. Sometimes you might get a tattoo, but
the names or the clothes can change all the time. It is all about respect.
These are kids who have virtually nothing in life, but the one thing they
can get s***loads of, by being in a gang, is respect. Other people are
scared of you and that feels good.”
It is important, of course, not to overstate the problem. Incidents such as
the one at the Tube station are rare and we do not yet know the full
circumstances of David Idowu's tragic death [a youth has been charged over
the incident]. It would be absurd to suggest that all schoolchildren now
need to worry about the shade of their jackets. But teen gangs are certainly
a growing problem: police figures from 2006 suggest there are 169 operating
in London alone, many demarcated by postcode. The police's pan-London gang
profile found that most gang members joined between the ages of 12 and 14
and that the majority were under 18.
Last year Commander Shaun Sawyer, head of the Met's Violent Crime Directorate,
said: “There have always been territorial gangs in London. What is different
is the level of violence - in most cases knives are used. It is postcode
related. I've spoken to young people who say that it is about respecting
territory. Because they've got nothing else, they hold on to what little
they've got. And the trigger seems more tightly sprung.” Of course, if the
“dress code” and postcode is well known for a certain area then it is easy
to know where to avoid. But as the number of gangs multiplies so does the
number of rules - and the outsider may accidentally do the wrong thing. In
some areas of London community leaders have spoken of children being
terrified of getting on the wrong bus, or simply crossing the road into a
different postcode.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools and Children's Secretary, has recently been
speaking to young people from deprived areas of London about the problem of
gangs. What they told him confirmed that many operate on a “colour-coded,
postcoded” basis. “Gangs often have a precise set of rules and their own
language,” he says. “It is a closed world, which it is very difficult for us
to penetrate.” He says there was a need to look closely at “the reasons why
teenagers are drawn to gang culture and the factors that are driving young
men to embrace gang violence”.
“We need to be asking hard questions,” Gove adds, “such as the part played by
the absence of male role models in young people's lives, their inability to
control their anger and frustration and the problems faced by those who want
to exit a gang but feel they cannot.”
Some private schools in London have taken the decision not to have a school
uniform to avoid its pupils being “picked on” by those from other schools.
Professor John Pitts, of the University of Bedfordshire, an expert on youth
crime, recently produced a two-year study on gangs for Waltham Forest
Council. The picture painted for certain areas is worrying, with gangs
transforming their estates into “totalitarian spaces in which the options of
the residents are largely controlled”.
“Many gang members appear to have a virtually obsessive preoccupation with
status and respect. This is institutionalised into gang culture in the form
of an elaborate non-verbal and clothing-based etiquette, the breach of which
‘can get you killed',” reads one section. Another quotes a young person
saying: “People come up to you and say ‘where are you from' and if you say
the wrong area they have you. But you don't always know what to say.” Pitts
says that mobile phones and texting have intensified gang- related tensions
in and around schools “creating little respite from rumours, threats and the
attendant agitation”.
Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate for Hammersmith, was raised by his
single mother on the North Kensington estates and was co-founder of a
charity set up to address the social problems faced by many young people. He
says that we must keep a perspective about gang culture and not afford
members a special status they do not deserve. He believes that fears about
so-called colour coding have been blown out of proportion. “It does exist,
but the wearing of a certain colour in a certain area is very unlikely to
put you at risk,” he says. “The gangs know who they are fighting with and
who they are looking for.” He says parents should not be worrying that “if
their kid is from E12 and he goes into E1 he's finished. It isn't like that.
There has been a certain amount of Hollywoodisation about gangs by the
media.”
Of the Tube station incident, Bailey says that it was likely that they wanted
to bully someone and the T-shirt was merely the catalyst. “They had probably
already picked him out as a victim,” he says. “If it hadn't been that they
would have found something else.”
But he agrees that gangs have changed since he was a teenager, mainly in
children joining at a much younger age, often as a substitute family.
He blames the levels of teenage knife crime partly on “15 years of liberal
politics” and parents being allowed to get away with not taking full
responsibility for their children. “A lot of the crime committed by boys is
their misplaced idea of what it is to be a proper man,” he says. “In the
absence of a father figure many get their notions of masculinity from 50
Cent and Loaded magazine.”
THE STATISTICS
1,000 gangs are thought to be operating across Britain
1,226 people aged under 18 were convicted of carrying a knife or other
weapon in 2006
10 per cent of boys aged 11 and 12 say they have carried a knife or
other weapon
179 under-16s were admitted to hospital with stab wounds between 2006-07
Sources: Centre for Social Justice; Home Office; Department for Health
