Youth Takes A Stand

A couple of places I have lived have been quite rough. It's because my family have been in low paid jobs - when the work was available.

Politicians and middle-class know-alls, with their 'holier than thou' attitudes, just don't understand. They live in their nice neighbourhoods never having to worry about going out after dark in case they are shot or stabbed. Nor do they have to worry about not wanting to stay home in case they were beaten up, or going hungry for days at a time. I was lucky in my home life but many of my friends weren't.

Where I lived before it was on a daily basis the police were called to our street, where drug and alcohol fuelled skirmishes are the norm. I was fortunate because I get on with most people and most people knew I wasn't a soft touch, but for others their homes become their prisons.

Because of this teens group together in large numbers and use certain streets as boundaries. Initially it was a territory issue between rival gangs and other people were left alone. The last couple of years have seen changes though and the kids have taken on a role of vigilantes.

They know where the 'rejects' live. The druggies, their dealers, the nonces (paedophiles), the prostitutes, the homosexuals and the grasses (informers). It's easy to tell, all their windows are boarded up. Junkies were usually subject to 'happy-slapping' and their money / drugs taken. Dealers are taxed (robbed). Their money and drugs are taken with violence as with their 'customers'.

An odd moralistic twist is that the gangs then sell the commandeered drugs themselves. Hypocrisy is all many of them have seen all their lives, violence is just a normal part of everyday life.

Nonces and homosexuals are subjected to beatings and street robbery. Prostitutes are robbed and sexually assaulted (sometimes raped). Grasses are endlessly tormented and intimidated. The worst beatings and stabbings were mainly reserved for other gangs though, whether there has been some transgression of the unwritten code, or whether it's a simple case of straying into the wrong place at the wrong time.

As time has goes on the gangs seem to take things one step further each time and the police have no real chance and - seemingly - no real inclination to reverse this trend. Teachers are inept and parents the product of the bleeding hearts phasing out corporal punishment. With a lot of the gang-members being of a similar age I can understand some of the behaviour but I've never been one to run with the pack because very often they get it wrong.

If one of the gang has a beef with someone all they have to do is put a label on that person and retribution follows, warranted or not. I have no problem with bad things happening to bad people, but I hate it when innocent people get hurt. Round the corner an 83 year old woman had her handbag snatched by kids thought to be about 12 or 13.

The power has to be taken away from the gangs, if it isn't already too late. The only way is to win over the gang-members on the fringes because they're only there for protection. If youths have interesting alternatives to hanging around on street-corners maybe they and other decent lads will drift away from gangs, hopefully causing a snowball effect until the gang-members become a minority.