How Lambeth is tackling gangs
- Published: 04 September 2008 08:01
- Last Updated: 03 September 2008 12:50
Lambeth LBC is the kind of inner-city local authority where youth crime and gang violence is high on the agenda.
Leader Steve Reed (Lab) believes that the government's Youth Crime Action Plan (YCAP) strikes the right balance, although thinks there should be more about jobs in there.
Lambeth was the first in the country to set up a multi-agency strategy to target gang crime in February this year. The resulting document, published in July, proposed increased investment in youth programmes, a crack down on drug sellers and buyers, linking police officers with primary schools and extending successful projects like X-it, which help young people to leave gangs.
It will also bring skills training to the borough's most socially excluded estates where half of all adults are out of work.
"What makes it different to what they are doing in Manchester or Nottingham is that we've put the community at the heart of it, Cllr Reed says. "The real answer to tackling youth crime is in the community."
The council is putting together a panel to oversee the document's implementation, which it hopes can become an independent trust at arm's-length from the council.
Today Cllr Reed is making a bold statement: "In five years I hope to see a dramatic reduction in levels of youth crime and an increase in the number of young people getting into work and training. If not, it has failed."
Not everyone at Lambeth is quite as diplomatic though. Junior Shabazz, head of the borough's youth support services, says that the YCAP is a failed vision.
"Young people don't want anti-gang, knife or gun projects. They want aspirational projects," he says.
His point is that if all resources are aimed at youth crime, the law-abiding majority of young people become disillusioned. For him the most beneficial approach is for young people to have a space that they can pursue their own interests, and a project where they can take the lead.
