Effective ways of steering kids from crime

[nightcrawler13]

BBC Gang members face stark choice at gruesome day in court

showing gang kids the reality of being in a gang, i like this and hope they continue with it

The gang members ranged in age from 14 to 20 - and at first there was joking in the dock.

"Is it funny?" Ch Insp Ian Kibblewhite, of Enfield Police, demanded.

But the giggles subsided into saucer-eyed silence as images of knife crime victims began to be displayed.

One man was half-decapitated - another had a carving knife thrust into his torso.

And it was deathly quiet when Nicola Dyer - mother of gang murder victim Shakilus Townsend - addressed the room.

"I used to consider myself an ordinary mother," she said.

Shakilus Townsend's mother told how she still dreams of him

"There's nothing ordinary about my life now.

"The other day I dreamt he was in trouble - I woke up and my first thought was, 'it's ok, he's in bed'.

"It took a few moments to remember he has not been in his bed for three years."

Ms Dyer said when 16-year-old Shakilus died in July 2008 her youngest children did not understand what was going on.

"I am now having to answer questions about how their brother died," she said.

"Did he die in hospital? Or was it when he was attacked?

"Questions I never thought I'd have to answer."

She added: "When he died there were comments that he was a 'soldier' - but there's nothing soldier-like about being run down in the street like an animal."

Stabbing outside court

As if to underline the immediacy of the gang problem, a 15-year-old boy was stabbed multiple times on the same street as the court that very day.

In the past year there have been three youth gang-related murders in the borough.

Jermaine Jones-Lawler, an ex-gang member, told those in the dock: "I had a mentality where I did not care what colour your bandana is or what your hand sign is.

"Whatever you had I would take it - if that meant stabbing you, I would do it, I didn't care."

Frank Cross's intensive care unit was sometimes 'half-full' of gun or knife victims

Mr Jones-Lawler continued: "When a man is holding a gun to your head, where are your man dem [friends]? They are running off.

"Let me tell you about 'man dem'. When you're in prison, they're not writing to you or sending you money.

"They are [sleeping with] your girl and spending your money.

"When I was in hospital with my eyeball hanging out where were they?"

Frank Cross, a former trauma surgeon at Royal Free Hospital in Whitechapel, described how hours operating on a knife victim led to the death of another patient.

He said: "It was a girl who had been stabbed in a mugging because she would not hand over £20.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Its wrong to say that this was the reason of a 50% reduction in gang crime in Glasgow. Whilst the call ins are used they are just a small part in bigger scheme. I read that this is run with a £10k grant. The scheme in Glasgow has had nearly 5 million quid pumped into it. I just see this as a half arsed attempt to be seen to be doing something after the riots

[kaosmark2]

The more I think about it the more I think just executing the little shits would just save everyone a lot of time and effort... we can also turn them into Soylent Green.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I think getting the victims to meet the perpretators is a constructive good idea. As well as getting the criminals to have a real idea of the consequences of their actions (something they tend to ignore), it also gives the victims (if and when they are involved) a real opportunity to make some kind of sense of what's happened to them

it's been tried in other countries, and is usually very helpful

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Yes, it is different...

I just think the principle - of the two sides connecting after the event - makes a lot of sense. A lot of the time, it doesn't occurr to the offenders that there (inevitably) is a victim. A bit like sentences as a deterrent; they don't commit crimes depending on the punishment, as they don't think they'll get caught in the first place.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Rufus Gwertigan

[grumpyhack]

The more I think about it the more I think just executing the little shits would just save everyone a lot of time and effort... we can also turn them into Soylent Green.

Edited February 1, 2012 by grumpyhack