Inspirational teenagers: Whoever said the youth of today are just a bunch of feckless layabouts?
Here, we introduce six shining examples of young talent at work
By Charlotte Philby
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Dennis Gyamfi , social activistAge: 19
Dennis Gyamfi was raised by his grandparents in Ghana: "I would have to walk for miles carrying water on my head as a child," he recalls. "From an early age I had to go out to work to support my family." When he was 10 years old, Gyamfi joined his mother and father at their small council flat in Brixton, and his life change dramatically. "In London, my parents were working all day and night; there was no one to look after me and my siblings. I started hanging out in gangs on the streets around my estate, getting in trouble." Until a chance encounter set him on a different path.
At the age of 15, Gyamfi met a man called Soloman who worked for X-it, a programme set up by people who have successfully escaped gang life and which offers inner-city kids and teenagers an alternative to the street. Within a year of becoming involved with X-it, Gyamfi himself had become a mentor, and won a public service award for his efforts. "If it hadn't been for that meeting," Gyamfi recalls, "my life might have turned out very differently."
Number Two ...
Jail for gangsters' girlfriends who stash guns
By Elizabeth Barrett,
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Young women who stash guns for their gangster boyfriends are risking their futures and will face jail, police said today.
The stark warning was issued at the launch of a campaign to help prevent shootings across London by urging young women not to hide weapons .
Black teenagers in the capital aged between 15 and 19 years are being targeted under the initiative, which follows a recent rise in the numbers of young women being arrested and convicted for possessing weapons.
Among a dozen women charged so far this year with possession of a firearm were seven teenagers, including a 16-year-old girl arrested after a 9mm Browning self-loading pistol loaded with one round was discovered in her bedroom.
The series of radio, cinema and billboard adverts - carrying the strapline "Hide his gun and you help commit the crime" - has been masterminded by Trident, the Metropolitan Police's anti-shooting unit.
Police fear more girls are being persuaded to store weapons for male friends and relatives.
Detective Chief Superintendent Helen Ball, head of Trident, said: "We are launching this campaign now because of a very worrying trend that we have noticed has been increasing over the last few years.
"In the years 2004 to 2007 on average we charged five women a year with possessing a gun. Last year we charged 13 women, this year we have already charged 12.
"We've been very worried about the increase in women who are carrying and hiding guns for gunmen. We want to raise awareness of the fact they are equally responsible for the crimes committed with those guns and they will face the same prison sentences as the men involved."
She said if the women were over the age of 18 they faced a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years.
The campaign is targeting Trident's six priority boroughs of Brent, Hackney, Haringey, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark.
Claudia Webbe, chairwoman of Trident's Independent Advisory Group, said: "Sadly whether through lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence or the need for love, we are seeing an increasing number of young women being caught up in the whole nature of gun crime.
"This campaign sends a clear and direct message to young women vulnerable to male peer pressure that if you hide, store, or carry a gun there are going to be dire consequences.
"You will face the same consequences as your male counterparts. This will have devastating effects on your future and the people you love."
One woman at the launch, named only as Rebecca, who was jailed, warned other young females not to succumb to pressure and risk their lives through hiding a gun.
She said: "Nobody, if they say they love you, or if they say they care about you and that is the reason why they want you to hold their weapon, you know they don't. They are doing it to save their own skin. They are only doing it because they know you will face the consequences and they won't. That's not love, that's not friendship, that's manipulation and it's bullying."
She added: "Holding a firearm for someone is something you have to say 'I won't allow in my life'. There are consequences not only to yourself and to possible victims, but friends and family. It's your future."
Number Three ..
Gang rape: Is it a race issue?
A high proportion of such attacks appears to be carried out by young black men, according to Metropolitan Police statistics.
Sorious Samura investigates this horrendous crime – and what it says about Britain today
Sunday, 21 June 2009
In 1999 I witnessed a gang rape in Sierra Leone. I was forced to watch a group of rebel soldiers taking it in turns to rape a young girl in front of an audience of jeering men. It was the height of the civil conflict and rape had become a devastating weapon of war. When I moved to Britain I believed I had escaped such horrific sexual violence. As my Dispatches investigation tomorrow night shows, I was mistaken. Gang rape is happening here – and what I have found most disturbing as an African is that a disproportionate number of these attacks are being carried out by black or mixed-race young men.
Towards the end of last year, police and child welfare experts working on Channel 4's Street Weapons Commission told us of their concerns about gang rape. Then two big cases hit the headlines.
In December, nine schoolboys, some as young as 13 at the time of the attack, were convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl. She was dragged between tower blocks in Hackney where she was threatened with a knife, hit and raped during an ordeal that lasted an hour and a half – some of which was filmed on mobile phones.
In January, three men were convicted of gang raping a 16-year-old with learning disabilities for two hours before dousing her with caustic soda in an effort to get rid of the evidence.
How prevalent is this crime and why it is happening in Britain? Despite the seriousness of the crime, I was amazed to discover that no national statistics exist: gang rape is simply not recorded as a separate crime category. So over a period of several months we set about collating our own.
We approached the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Chief Police Officers, all 50 police forces, crown courts, barristers and rape referral centres to try to establish the numbers.
One of the few police forces to have begun recording the figures of reported gang rape is the Metropolitan Police. In 2008 alone, they received reports of 85 gang rapes. Using the Met's definition of gang rape – those involving three or more perpetrators – we began to look at the number of convictions. We tracked down 29 cases, from January 2006 to March 2009, in which a total of 92 young people were convicted of involvement in gang rape.
One fact stood out. Of those convicted, 66 were black or mixed race, 13 were white and the remainder were from other countries including Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
Clearly this is not a crime exclusive to black communities, but I found it impossible to ignore the fact that such a high proportion were committed by black and mixed-race young men. As a black man as well as a journalist, I wanted to understand what lay behind such attacks. So I spoke to victims, groups of black and mixed-race teenagers, youth and social workers and community leaders.
The groups of young men I met in London expressed some profoundly disturbing attitudes towards girls and sex. The boys explained how they make arrangements for "line-ups" in which one girl has oral sex with up to six or seven of them at one time. These arrangements might be made at school or on mobile phones.
Sometimes these girls initially consent because they want to be popular. But these events can spiral into rape because the boys consider that any girl who is prepared to agree to a line-up can be considered fair game. One boy told me: "If she wants to go and meet a bag of boys then she's probably a jezzie [slut], and if she's going to a house it's over – she's going to get beaten [have sex]."
In other instances, as some of the victims in our film describe, girls can unwittingly walk into a trap, innocently visiting someone's house to listen to music or watch a film only to discover that a group of boys are lying in wait. Or they might be hanging out with friends in a park and suddenly realise they have become surrounded by a group of boys intent on sex.
For both boys and girls, the line between this sort of group sex and rape seems to be blurred. A girl might agree to have oral sex with two or three boys but then be ordered to have sex with six or seven. The teenage girls I met told me that boys simply don't understand what rape is. And yet this is a crime that can ruin lives and is punishable by life imprisonment.
Occasionally gang rape is used to punish a girl for minor transgressions against gang members. In one of my most shocking interviews, I met a girl who admitted she had helped to set up girls for gang rape. As the girlfriend of a gang member, she organised these rapes, partly out of fear and partly to fit in.
She admitted she was terrified of being raped herself and had walked away when witnessing a girl being gang-raped at a party because she feared she might be next: "There was just loads of boys and the girl's tights were ripped up, like, she was bleeding as well, because I think she was a virgin, and they were just taking turns on her basically, and she was crying, and I didn't get involved because I thought if I get involved they're gonna turn on me."
The victims' descriptions of their attacks are horrific. One young victim likened her attack to being "pulled and pushed around like a rag doll", while another 14-year-old girl described her ordeal when she was gang raped by a total of nine boys who told her that she was not the only girl they had attacked. In that case, nine boys were subsequently convicted of raping her. The youngest perpetrator was just 12 years old.
I found there was concern among black communities about this violence. The Rev Joyce Daley, from the Black Parents Forum in Hackney, told me that gang rape is not a rare or one-off phenomenon. It is happening on a regular basis. She said: "It could actually explode on our very streets." Steve Griffith, a youth worker in King's Cross, said: "I see too much abuse of young women on the streets."
Gang rape, while constituting only a tiny percentage of all rapes in the UK, is a horrible reality in this country. The nature of the crime is so appalling that much more research needs to be carried out into its causes. But what seems evident from my investigation is that the key to preventing it will be changing the way young men view women and the kind of group sexual activity they are engaging in at such a young age.
Sheldon Thomas, a youth worker in Brixton, said: "We've got a generation that looks at sex as if it's nothing, and treats disrespecting women as if it's nothing. These guys are like 13, 14 and 15, and their actual attitudes towards young girls – towards sex – is mind-blowing. It's actually leaving you asking: where are their morals, where are their values?"
Sorious Samura presents 'Dispatches: Rape in the City' on Channel 4 tomorrow night at 8pm
Number Four ...
Police chiefs worried by rise in gang rapes
Friday, 6 November 2009
Meanwhile the age of victims has fallen with 64 per cent aged 19 or younger in the last financial year compared with 48 per cent in 1998-9.
Police define a gang rape, which they term multi-perpetrator rape, as being a sex attack involving three or more people.
Commander Simon Foy, who leads the Met's homicide and serious crime command, said there is no doubt the "abhorrent" crime is under-reported.
He said: "This is a phenomenon we are all concerned about. We know this is an area that is under-reported.
"There is a substantial amount of this type of offending going on which we do not necessarily know much about.
"The numbers we do have are relatively small. That makes it difficult to understand the trends and behaviours that are going on.
"There is no doubt that the number of multiple offender gang rape offences is going up and we can say there is an increasing number of offences with four or more suspects.
"The greatest proportion of victims of this type of offence are under 19 and there is a very significant number under 15.
"Young people are particularly at risk of this type of offending."
There have been a series of high-profile convictions of teenagers for gang rapes in the capital over the past year.
Two men who assaulted a girl aged 16 and doused her in caustic soda, disfiguring her for life, had their sentences increased on appeal.
In another case a 14-year-old girl was repeatedly raped "as punishment" by nine members of a Hackney gang because she had "insulted" their leader.
A meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), the Met's board of governors, heard levels of gang rape are linked to overall youth violence.
Boroughs with the highest numbers of gang rapes include Lambeth, Croydon, Newham, Southwark, Westminster and Hackney.
The Met has commissioned research from Dr Miranda Horvath, a lecturer in forensic psychology at the University of Surrey.
She is focusing on the "cultural context" of gang rape and speaking to officers from forces across Britain and the United States.
Jennette Arnold, who represents Hackney, Islington and Waltham Forest on the MPA, said some offenders are from cultural backgrounds where rape is more common.
She said the crime is seen by some as a "weapon of war" and more work needs to be done to get into the minds of culprits.
Mrs Arnold said: "It has got to be regretted that the increase in black victims has doubled."
Chris Boothman, another member of the MPA, said he remembers gang rapes taking place when he was a teenager growing up in London.
He said it is the responsibility of other agencies to intervene among young men who may be involved in, or are aware of, gang rape.
Mr Boothman said: "There is a massive piece of education to be done in schools and youth clubs in terms of unpicking an area of activity that groups of young men believe is acceptable."
The meeting heard workers trained to work with young people are based at centres for sex attack victims, known as Havens.
Officials based in Whitechapel and Paddington have also visited secondary schools and youth groups across London to dispel myths around sexual violence.
Cmdr Foy said: "What I do not understand is what motivates people to commit this particular type of offence in these particular circumstances.
"It is often clear why someone would carry a gun or knife. What is the propensity to commit these criminal offences and how does it manifest itself?"
Number Five ...
New racism finds a Yardie stick: The idea of a black and white yobbo 'underclass' is dangerous, warns Kenan Malik
KENAN MALIK
Wednesday, 3 November 1993
AT THE heart of the panic about the Yardies, whose mentality the pundits have been having a field day trying to explain, lies a distinction between decent folk and disreputable others.
The Sunday Telegraph noted 'the profile built up by the police of youngsters to whom ordinary standards of social behaviour have no meaning . . . It is a picture of man stripped of all civilising concepts of love, pity, conscience'.
At first sight, this debate looks suspiciously similar to previous panics about black crime. There is a long history of media and police campaigns attempting to associate crime with black youth.
The most infamous was the 'mugging' scare of the early Eighties, when the Metropolitan Police invented a category of crime specifically to propagate the idea that young blacks were disproportionately associated with street crime. Such panics had the effect of criminalising the black community and reinforcing the idea that black people did not really belong in Britain.
The current debate about Yardies has a somewhat different tenor. It distinguishes not so much between black and white as between respectable blacks and an 'underclass' outside 'civilised' society, composed of black and white, whose values and morals seem very different from those of the rest of us. As one black south London resident put it: 'Whether they're black or white, they're a different people. You can't tell them anything, you can't sit down and reason with them, you can't talk to them.'
Contrast this discussion with the debate about the treatment meted out to PC Les Turner by anti-racist demonstrators. Mr Turner was the black policeman hospitalised after suffering what he called a 'racist attack' by demonstrators on the Anti-Nazi League march in south London two weeks ago.
'I wore the Queen's crown,' he said, 'and I was the wrong symbol of authority to them.' At first he 'couldn't understand why there were so few black people on the march'; then he realised that 'decent black folk would not come to a march like this'.
This story has several themes. It emphasises the idea that black people are not only an integral part of British society, but that they are now also in the front line, defending the authority of the Crown. It implies that defence of the Crown includes the defence of equal rights for black people. And it helps to emphasise the distinction between decent black folk (who would no more take part in such a march than they would take crack) and those who are criminals.
Enter John Patten. If decent black folk do not take part in violent marches, deal in crack or shoot policemen, then decent white folk do not vote for the British National Party or riot in Rotterdam. That was the Education Secretary's message when he tried to reclaim the Union Jack from racists and yobbos.
Nationalism was only safe, it was suggested, in the hands of the right kind of people. Middle-class flag-waving, as at the Tory conference, is respectable; but if the national flag is placed in the hands of a working-class lout, its message becomes abhorrent.
Underlying all this is the idea that the racist is a product of the white underclass: a young working-class man with cropped hair, tattoos and DMs, someone who is ignorant and driven by blind prejudice - certainly too stupid to understand that racism is morally abhorrent.
According to popular myth, such people are not simply racist, but responsible for most other vices in society, too. The BNP's ranks, one newspaper has observed, 'are full of drug pushers, gunrunners, thugs, murderers, child molesters'. They are not like us, is the message. White yobbos, like black Yardies, are not part of civilised society. Morally, socially and intellectually, the underclass, black and white, is inferior to the rest of us.
At first sight, this recasting of the notion of inferiority in moral terms seems positive. After all, it implies that biological differences are not important; that the real distinctions arise from our behaviour, values and morals. But worrying consequences stem from these ideas.
First, they obscure the oppression of black people, by attaching racism to an 'underclass' rather than a society that treats black people as second- class citizens. It is easy to blame white yobbos for racial violence; much harder to confront the deep-seated structural causes of black inequality. We should always be wary of easy explanations.
Second, by giving notions of inferiority and superiority a moral rather than biological guise, such ideas are rendered more acceptable.
Arguments such as these not only fail to undermine racist ideas, they also provide the basis for a new form of racism. Talk of Yardies or yobbos being a 'different people' may be simply rhetorical, but it leads to the assumption that divisions in society are permanent or unbridgeable, even if they are not biological.
Victorian society castigated the 'undeserving poor' in terms remarkably similar to many contemporary descriptions of the Nineties underclass. The relationship between 'outcast England' and 'respectable society' provided the model for understanding the relationship between 'civilised' Europe and 'savage' Africa, and laid the basis for racial thinking. We should be wary of treading this path a second time.
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