Brixtons Thriving Gang Culture - Report Example

Brixton’s Thriving Gang Culture Located in south London within the London Borough of Lambeth, Brixton is one of the 35 key areas in Greater London; Brixton is largely a residential area with a prominent market and retail sector. Brixton is mainly a multi-ethnic community, with people of African and Caribbean descent making up a greater percentage of the region’s population1; this explains Brixton’s unique blend of cultures and languages. The first group of immigrants of the British African-Caribbean community arrived in Brixton in 1948 and spread out into the surrounding community where some settled permanently. The allure of Brixton is not apparent as you leave the tube, but wait until you get to experience its tenacious industrialized sensation, the dissonance of pronunciations and busy traffic flow on its streets, as well as its sparkling nightlife. Brixton strikes any visitor as a lively employed class environs with its spectacular nightlife and eccentric energy in the many Jamaican and Latin clubs dotting the area. Over the years, Brixton has also been known for all the wrong reasons, particularly for its notoriety as the leading crime areas in London.2 Increasingly, squeals of sirens, drug dealer arrests, and police tape segmenting off sites of gangland stabbing have become commonplace occurrences in Briton. Nevertheless, street gangs and crimes are not a recent phenomenon in Brixton, for the region has had a steady history of street violence and confrontations from way back, when Brixton’s predominantly African-Caribbean community began to experience serious social and economic challenges in 1981. With the increase in immigrant population in the region over the years, Brixton started experiencing high unemployment, high crime rates, and poor housing, as well as a serious shortage of amenities in the 1980s3. Riot scenes and police confrontations with the local African-Caribbean community escalated in the region around that time, which further encouraged the rise in street crime rates. Operation Swamp 81, an initiative of the Metropolitan Police was launched to curb street crimes, mostly through the “sus law”, which granted police officers special powers to randomly stop and frisk individuals on the streets on the basis of mere suspicion of probable wrong doing. Plain clothes police officers were dispatched in the region, a move that triggered mixed reactions and was largely resented by the local African-Caribbean community around Brixton, particularly because young black men became the prime targets of those random police searches. Brixton has a long standing history of gang culture that has contributed immensely to its being one of the highest crime areas in London; according to a 2003 report by The Independent, nearly 200 “Hardcore Yardies” are based in Lambeth, some of whom belong to the Firehouse Posse or Brixton’s Kartel Crew. Historically, Yardies have been associated with Jamaican immigrants and have had Brixton as their stronghold; interestingly, some parts of the region have been significantly nicknamed “Little Tivoli”, after the infamous “Tivoli Gardens” in Jamaica, a dangerous “garrison community” whose notoriety for guns and gunmen is unparalleled. Brixton has become the backyard for many notorious gangs and gang operations that have threatened to destabilize the region over the years. For instance, the so-called “Murderzone” (MZ) gang that deals in the illegal drugs business operates from the Somerleyton Estate while the “Pill Dem Crew” (PDC) conducts their illegal operations in the Angell Town and at the Loughborough Junction.4 Another gang that hails from the Angell Town is known as “Guns and Shanks” or “Grip and Shoot” (GAS); “Organized Crime” (OC), which has been associated with numerous shooting incidences and continuous rivalry with the “Peckam Boys”, hails from the Myatts Field Estate.5 Formed back in 2007, the GAS gang has been one of Brixton’s dominant territorial youth gangs whose gang members have been fighting to secure their place in the lucrative illegal drugs business.6 Founders of the GAS gang were previous successors of two other gangs, the Tiny OC and Y.28s; the group first came into the limelight through an increased media attention on its activities back in 2009 after their attempted kidnapping of a 13-year-old boy in Camberwell. Since then, the group has been the core of media attention over the years with the rise of gang-related violence and incidences in Brixton being linked to their operations in the region. Lately, the gang has been linked to numerous killings and some of its members have been charged for possession of illegal drugs and jailed for murder or attempted murder. In the year 2012, three GAS members were arrested and jailed for life after being charged for their involvement in one of the worst gang-related crimes ever witnessed in the region.7 On numerous occasions, the gang has engaged in revenge attacks against other gang members, which often end in violent stabbings of victims to death. Significantly, a vast majority of members of these gangs are principally young people in their late teens or early 20s and the gang leaders are mostly childhood buddies; previous police operations aimed at tracking these gang members have proved futile given that most of them do not have permanent dwellings. Reportedly, most gang members move houses nearly every night, thereby neatly concealing their tracks in case they are being tracked by the police; the Metropolitan Police admits that the Brixton youth gangs are nothing close to organized crimes masterminds. Nevertheless, most of these gangs have evaded police traps over the years and continue to terrorize local residents every day; presently, these Brixton gangs have been linked to many offences and homicides in the region.8 Police officers have also reported that getting the local predominantly African-Caribbean community to testify is one of the biggest challenges they are currently experiencing in their attempts to bring these gang members to book. For fear of reprisals, members of the community are not willing to report gang members or to give the police any vital information that can be helpful in the arrests and trial of the gang members. Statistically, nearly above 70 youngsters in Britain died of gang-related incidences in the year 2008, with about 26 stabbed to death in London alone; presently, London alone hosts nearly 170 gangs and counting, most of which have members as young as ten years old. These gangs every so often begin as loose relationships of childhood friends with the intention of monitoring a given area well defined by a certain post code. In that respect, by straying into the wrong area, which is a particular gang’ operation zone is a dangerous affair as one is more likely to be robbed, beaten or even stabbed. Expert opinion on the rising prevalence of gangs and gang related activities in Brixton have repeatedly cited the continuous breakdown of family life and values as the root cause of the rise of gang culture. The dominant argument going on in relation to the origins of the gang culture in the region is that these youth gangs have come to replace the family unit by providing the youth with a structured way of life and a false sense of belonging. In the wake of the rise in Brixton’s gang raids and gang-related incidences, authorities have taken numerous measures to restore sanity in the region through numerous drives such as the Brixton Unite initiative, which is spearheaded by the Lambeth Council and the Trident Gang Command.9 The Lambeth police have joined forces with the Trident, the council and the British Transport police and are more than willing to collaborate with the local community to ensure that the gang-related violence and crimes in Brixton are curbed effectively. Evidently, the authorities are probably doing all they can do within the limits of their powers to ensure security is restored in Brixton, but their efforts cannot amount to much unless the root cause of the problem is solved. Evidently, revenge attacks between gang members have become rampant in recent times, with different factions battling for supremacy in the region; until something is done to root out the main cause of the gang culture, these gang-related attacks are unlikely to stop irrespective of police surveillance.10 Community policing initiatives in the region have not been very successful in stemming the rise in crime rates and in fact to some extent, they have inadvertently contributed to the general distrust of the police, which further encourages increase in crime rates. The 1981 riot, which became the centre of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Swamp 81 spurred great tensions in the region since the local community was not consulted on the surveillance initiative and how they could be affected. Escalation of tensions on Briton streets stretched the patience of the police to breaking point; the local community complained that the young inexperienced police officers on Brixton streets were in fact provoking confrontation rather than helping to stem street violence and crimes. Resentment of the police, as a result of the perceived police injustices against young men of the African-Caribbean ancestry, has fuelled subsequent riot scenes that have been witnessed over the years. For instance, the 1985 Brixton riot following the shooting of a local black woman by the police and the 1995 riot, which was sparked by the death of a black man in police custody, are prime examples of Brixton’s history of riot scenes. The real solution to the rising incidences of gang-related crimes in Brixton could be found by tracing the issue back to its root cause, the breakdown of family units, which are the primary centres of socialization for the young people. Increasingly, loose family bonds and poor parenting styles have largely contributed to the corruption of family values and the eventual breakdown of the family unit. Evidently, the busy lifestyles of individuals as they attempt to eke a living against all odds for survival against a backdrop of the high cost of living have also contributed to the breakdown of the family unit. Without proper parental guidance and protection at home within the family unit, young people are left to wander the streets unattended thereby getting induced into gangs and all manner of illegal activities. Restoration of family unit through proper parental guidance and support that encourages young people to have ambition by attending school and pursuing careers rather than focusing on life on the streets would go a long way in addressing the rising incidences of youth gangs and gang-related violence. Left on their own, families may not be able to address the issue either; social and economic support to families through community initiatives that provide employment and educational opportunities to young people would also go a long way in restoring sanity in Brixton. Granted that the region is predominantly an African-Caribbean community, it is expected that the high gang-related crimes in the region are basically the manifestation of a far deeper problem in the community. High unemployment rates coupled with poor living conditions have traditionally been the greatest indicators of crime in most global societies; similarly, addressing social inequality through provision of educational and employment opportunities has also been proven to contribute to stable communities. There is great need to empower Brixton’s local African-Caribbean community through the provision of affordable social services, as well as educational and employment opportunities to prevent the youth from degenerating into criminality. Overall, crime in Brixton is indeed a reality, and not a myth, since the region is home to some of the deadliest gangs in the UK, one of the leading crime areas in London. Street gangs and crimes have been a common phenomenon in Brixton from the 1980s, when Brixton’s predominantly African-Caribbean community began to experience serious social and economic challenges. Increase in the immigrant population over the years contributed to the high unemployment rate, high crime rates, and poor housing, as well as a serious shortage of amenities in the region. The GAS gang is one of Brixton’s dominant territorial youth gangs that have been fighting to secure a spot in the lucrative illegal drugs business; the gang has been linked to numerous killings and some of its members have been charged for possession of illegal drugs and jailed for murder or attempted murder. A breakdown of the family unit is largely to blame for the increasing corruption of childhood with many youths turning into criminality by forming street gangs. 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