Governmental Responses to the Riots

placing such funding as remains in the hands of elected Police and Governmental responses Crime Commissioners (PCCs) to do with as they, or their political to the riots constituency, sees fit. But if the voters are not too worried about gangs, Harry Angel discusses the government’s because their violence is confined to a handful of down-at-heel housing main policy strategy to date estates, but want to see ‘travellers’ evicted from a local beauty spot, localism will trump the government’s gang strategy. ovember 2011 saw the clear that: publication of Ending Gang It’s a family affair Nand Youth Violence: A Across the ten forces where the Unsurprisingly, given the ideological Cross-Government Report (HM disorder was most prevalent persuasion of the Conservative-led Government, 2011). This document a total of 417 arrestees during Coalition, the punchline of Ending is based, in part, upon the the period of the disorder were Gang and Youth Violence is ‘the deliberations of a rapidly convened reported to be affiliated to a family’. To oversimplify, but only International Forum on Gangs gang – 13 per cent of the total. slightly, it seems that the problem chaired by Theresa May and Iain For forces outside London, the of violent, drug-dealing, youth Duncan Smith in October 2011. majority recorded fewer than 10 gangs is ultimately reducible to the Clearly, this event was planned when per cent of all arrestees being ‘troubled family’. If, by dint of a David Cameron and his advisers still identified as gang members. concerted, long term effort, we can believed that the August riots were solve this problem, then the problem orchestrated by violent youth gangs. Doing more with less locally of youth gangs, youth violence, THEMED SECTION: THE AUGUST 2011 RIOTS THEMED SECTION: THE AUGUST Subsequently, CCTV footage, court Straightened economic poor nutrition, poor motivation, records and research undertaken by circumstances dictate that the low academic attainment and, The Guardian, the Cabinet Office leitmotif of Ending Gang and Youth presumably, rioting will also be and others have demonstrated that Violence is inevitably ‘doing more solved. No hint here of worsening this was not the case. with less’. There is a little new money poverty, burgeoning social and and so this initiative, like much else economic polarisation or fiscal Conspiracy of cockeyed to which the government has turned policies that hit the poorest hardest; thinking? its hand, is to be realised through if we can sort out these errant In their report for the Runneymede ‘efficiency savings’. Thus the report families we can look forward to a Trust, two academics of a commends a concerted, long term new era of social harmony and high conspiratorial turn of mind have effort, to be achieved by statutory aspirations. argued that David Cameron’s and voluntary sector agencies in Step forward Tony Blair’s erstwhile suggestion that youth gangs had the fields of policing, youth justice, Anti-Social Behaviour Tsar, the instigated the riots was a cunning probation, youth work, safeguarding, infamous after dinner speaker Louise plot by agents of the state to lay the health employment and training, Casey (Roberts, 2010), who will blame for the riots at the door of who will share head up a new the Black community (Hallsworth information, Coalition’s thinking Troubled Families and Brotherton, 2011). If this is so, resources and Team (TFT) in the it was not nearly cunning enough accountability. on social issues Department for because, within days, this claim This process Communities and was shown to be nonsense. It seems will be facilitated, is still in thrall to Local more likely that the, ‘wet-behind- it says, by the Charles Murray’s long Government. the-ears’, political apparatchiks and new Localism Bill Though many right-of-centre think tanks that do the which will give discredited underclass families would be Conservative-led Coalition’s thinking local areas the troubled by the on social issues (still in thrall to power to take thesis prospect of a visit Charles Murray’s long discredited action and pool from Ms Casey, underclass thesis) chose to ignore the their resources through Community this is to misunderstand the primary cautionary note sounded by Home Budgets. However, this hearty role of the TFT. Their job is to target Office civil servants and allowed endorsement of multi-agency the 120,000 families whose their ‘broad brush’ class and racial working has an odd ring, coming as deplorable child rearing practices are prejudices free reign, thus scoring it does from a government that is believed to be at the root of the gang a very embarrassing ‘own goal’. withdrawing funding not only from problem. Subsequently, as Ending Gangs and each of the services named, but also The belief that troubled families Youth Violence observes, it became from community safety partnerships; are the progenitors of the violent 24 ©2012 Centre for Crime and Justice Studies 10.1080/09627251.2012.671002 youth gang predates the deliberations one of a multiplicity of social, crackpot version of brain science, of the 50 or so experts who were economic and cultural factors that military training, sub-psychotherapy flown in for David Cameron’s hastily will determine whether or not a or transcendental meditation. In convened International Forum on young person becomes involved truth, while there are some genuine Gangs, in October 2011. Delegates with a violent gang (Klein, 1997; experts around, there is also a small to the Forum barely mentioned the Hagedorn, 2008). This being the army of Midas-in-Reverse, arriviste family. Not so, Chair Iain Duncan case, the resurrection of the former claim-makers wanting to get into this Smith whose Broken Britain identifies ASBO Tsar is even less explicable, as potentially lucrative field; and it is the malfunctioning family as the root is her mission to ‘troubled families’. far from clear that the government or cause of street gangs and much else anybody else knows how to tell the besides: ‘Who you gonna call…?’ difference. Alongside the TFU there will be an This motley crew will turn its Most significantly however, a Ending Gang and Youth Violence attentions and proffer advice to 30 catalyst and consequence of Team located in the Home Office, ‘local areas’ where £10 million, these pathways to poverty, is the working with a virtual network of lifted from pre-existing early breakdown of the family.Marriage, over 100 expert advisers to provide intervention monies, has been far more stable than cohabitation, practical advice and support to local redesignated to improve the way has rapidly declined in recent areas with a gang or serious youth mainstream services identify, assess decades; 15 per cent of babies violence problem. There are, of and work with the young people in Britain are now born without a course, a small group of experts who most at risk of serious violence (with resident biological father; and we have experience, knowledge and at least half this funding going to the have the highest rate of teenage expertise in this complex field. But non-statutory sector). pregnancy in Europe. Without where, we might ask, have all these Taken together, this eclectic band strong families violent and lawless other experts (of whom we have not of gang-busters, offering disparate street gangs, whose leaders are previously heard) been hiding for advice to elected Police and Crime often school age, offer a deadly the last ten years while gang-related Commissioners who are primarily THEMED SECTION: THE AUGUST 2011 RIOTS THEMED SECTION: THE AUGUST alternative. fatalities have mounted. Prior to an accountable to their local (Iain Duncan Smith, 2009) unspecified damascene conversion, constituencies, while Louise Casey some of them claim they were main sends in hit squads to get troubled Leaving to one side the bizarre men in UK spin-offs of the ‘Crips’ families to ‘shape-up’, does not bode conflation of marriage and single and ‘Bloods’. Others made their well for a coherent, or indeed parenthood, most serious research names as founders of idiosyncratic intelligible, UK gang strategy. shows that in gang-affected youth projects based on some neighbourhoods, parenting is only Harry Angel is CEO of Ironic Investigations, a South London think-tank References Duncan Smith, I. (2009), ‘Broken Britain Can Be Fixed By Its Army of Social Entrepreneurs’, London: The Centre for Social Justice. Hagedorn, J. (2008), A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Hallsworth, S. and Brotherton, D. (2011), Urban Disorder and Gangs: A Critique and a Warning, London: Runneymede Trust. HM Government (2011), Ending Gang and Youth Violence: a cross-government report, Norwich: The Stationery Office. Klein, M. (1997), The American Street Gang: Its Nature, Prevalence, and Control, New York, Oxford University Press. Roberts, L. (2010), ‘Louise Casey profile: the former Asbo tsar who said ministers work better drunk’, The Telegraph, 25 November. cjm no. 87 March 2012 25.

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