'These young people know people with knives and guns, and thug life is thug life. But they still sit down and talk with each other'

"When gangs go to war everybody in the community is targeted.” That is how someone who deals with senior gang members in east London sees it. The truth of his words has been graphically illustrated in acts of youth violence that have caught the nation’s attention over the past few months.

Every murder is accompanied by lengthy debate among politicians and experts about the causes of the problem – and how it should be solved. Such debates are perhaps a bit academic for housing associations; as community managers they have to work with and resolve these problems on a daily basis, and have been doing so for some time.

For the past three years housing association CBHA has been actively seeking ways of reducing tension and violence among young people as part of the Defending Da Hood partnership with the London Borough of Waltham Forest, the police, other housing associations and local community groups. Defending Da Hood’s aim is to target young people who are already gang members or at risk of joining up. It tries to engage with those exposed, at risk, or facing the consequences of gang activity.

There are no definitive figures detailing total gang membership in Waltham Forest. But three main gang clusters have been identified across the borough, with each cluster consisting of up to seven gangs. A single gang selling crack cocaine on a typical 1,500-unit estate could make up to £390,000 per year. But in reality only a very small number, perhaps five to 10 “insiders”, take the decisions and make the real money.

Below that the number of – mostly young men – in the borough affiliated in some way to a gang could run into hundreds. There is no doubt that the gangs have a real and visible effect on the lives of people living in the areas affected. Everybody is exposed to risk: teens excluded or expelled from school; the jobless; and those deprived of money. Young people in these situations are a target for gang recruitment.

Reasons for violence

Violence breaks out for age-old, yet trivial, reasons. One young person is accused of looking at another “the wrong way”, another is targeted for talking to an opposing gang member’s girlfriend. The same justifications for violence have been concocted by teenagers for generations. But the difference today appears to be the inability of some young people to mediate conflict without resorting to what the Metropolitan Police gun crime unit Trident term “extreme violence”.

A youth worker who has close relationships with gang members in the Leytonstone area of the borough explains: “The young ones will start a war – a stabbing might occur, for example. Then the older boys get involved and hot headedness makes it explode.

“In a situation like this it’s important for us to find out who are the people we can talk to, to stop the violence continuing. We have to know who the older heads of the gang are and to urge them to put an end to it.”

You have to understand that everybody involved in gangs knows everybody else. When you do anything associated with gangs, the risk assessment has to be high

Rollin G is a collective of 13 young people set up as part of the Defending Da Hood initiative to perform outreach work among gang members. Each Rollin G member will have friends or acquaintances who are members of the various local gangs. Having a relationship means they can actively seek to ease tensions when violence breaks out. The group plays a crucial role in talking down tense situations among the younger gang members.

Territorialism

Leytonstone has several gangs, all of them fiercely territorial. Some of them name themselves after the housing estates they draw their recruits from. Two of the main gangs in the area are Beaumont, named after the Beaumont estate and the Priory named after the Priory Court estate.

“Post code beef” has become a common reason for gang conflict. A young person found in a particular gang’s territory but known to be associated with a rival gang would be either intentionally inviting trouble or acting foolishly. Either way the outcome is often violence.

Post code beef also raises problems for organisations attempting outreach work. CBHA runs five youth clubs in areas affected by the gangs. The aim of the clubs is to provide a safe place for young people on the street. They are run by people with ties to the local community, who have often known young gang members since they were young. This plays an important role in encouraging dialogue between young people and adults while providing an important source of advice and training opportunities for local youth.

Rollin G has worked extensively in areas where CBHA owns and manages housing and some of its members are employed by CBHA. Rollin G also has a presence in the youth clubs run by the housing association.

Jason Dolphin, 19, and a member of Rollin G, says: “None of us are gang members, but we all have access to every gang in the borough.”

The group recently went out among gang members in an attempt to convince them to take up training or college employment initiatives. They were successful in getting interest from 36 gang members from various gangs to sign up to some sort of activity.

But getting gang members to sign up to training is one thing, getting them safely together at the same time is something else. The dangers associated with getting gang members safely from their territory to a central place for training are significant. There is a huge potential for conflict, for example, at local transport nodes where there is a high chance of rival gangs coming into contact.

As an adult you look at it from a risk point of view but for a young person this is their environment

As a solution Rollin G offers to take training to the gangs. Roz Gordon, head of community development at CBHA, says: “Rather than get the gang members into a corporate environment, we have to go to them. This is a really useful way for us to cater for a particularly hard-to-reach group. If Rollin G can help us to access these gang members, then we can go on to assess the problems and needs of these young people.” The Defending Da Hood partnership is then able to consider ways to deliver on those needs.

Rollin G has enjoyed some success in delivering training to gang members. Some men have begun training and making the first steps away from gang life. But there have been setbacks, too. A stabbing in Leytonstone that was thought to be gang related meant that the initiative involving the 36 gang members had to be put on hold – the possibility that trouble could flair up meant the risks were suddenly too high.

“You have to understand that everybody involved in gangs knows everybody else,” says one source close to the gangs. “There’s a multitude of things to take into account. When you do anything associated with gangs, the risk assessment has to be high.”

But surely there are risks for the mostly teenage members of Rollin G, too? It is difficult to imagine many parents wanting to put their children into the type of dangerous situations Rollin G members often encounter.

However, a source close to the gangs points out that violence is just one of the risks these young people have to consider as part of their daily routines.

“Most of these young people are living in a conflict situation anyway,” he says, “Obviously as an adult you look at it from a risk assessment point of view. But for a young person, this is their environment. These young people know people with knives and guns and thug life is thug life. But they still sit down and talk with each other.”

It is difficult to quantify the success of these efforts to turn young people away from the gangs. The summer of 2006 saw a dramatic drop in incidents of anti-social behaviour on some CBHA estates as a result of initiatives run through the youth clubs.

Rollin G can point to the 36 gang members it managed to interest in training opportunities. It also provides a valuable conduit between service providers and a particularly hard-to-reach group.

But its most valuable contribution is also the most difficult to quantify. Every conversation initiated by a Rollin G member aimed at talking down tension between gangs represents a service to the community.