Solving gang violence requires moral engagement

The Met’s decision last week to routinely deploy police patrols armed with Heckler & Koch semi-automatic sub-machine guns on London's streets is not the way to crack warring gangs.

A far more effective tactic, which I've written about in this month's Prospect ("How to really hug a hoodie"), is to learn from the most successful attempt to deal with gang violence to date, currently being implemented in Glasgow—Europe’s most violent city. Based on the US model, the Boston Ceasefire Project, Strathclyde police aim to tackle gangs’ group dynamics head on.

Gang members, like the Turkish gangs Bombailar and Tottenham Boys in Harringey, are bonded by a macho street code similar to that of football hooligans, where reputation is gained through violence. Any disrespect has to be answered with brutal retaliation or there is a loss of face. Fights are normally personal; about girlfriends, respect and territory. The mantra is that gang friends would die or go to prison for each other. It is about manhood and honour. It’s Montague and Capulet. It’s West Side Story.



In Boston they sought to engage directly with gang members and to dismantle their powerful street code. A large group of gang members were summoned to face-to-face forums, referred to as “call-ins,” at the local courthouse. In the call-ins, gang members were not treated like psychopaths but rational adults. It was businesslike and civil. The object was explicit moral engagement. They were told what they were doing was causing huge damage to their families and communities and that the violence must stop. The police said that any further violence would result in the whole group being punished. In emotional appeals, members of the community, victims’relatives and ex-offenders spoke about the consequences of gang violence. And youth workers said that if they wanted out of the gang life they would be given help with jobs, housing, training and addiction problems.

This radical approach worked. Over the five-month period between the first two call-ins there was a 71 per cent drop in youth homicides. When the strategy was used in Chicago, the homicide rate went down by 37 per cent within 18 months in some neighbourhoods. Nine months after the first call-in in Cincinnati, gang-related homicides were down by 50 per cent.

In London and Glasgow’s deprived inner cities the drivers of gang crime—poor parenting, fractured families, youth unemployment, school exclusion—are the same as in the US.

The police in Glasgow have followed the Boston Project to the letter. After four months, 119 gang members had taken up the offer. Recently the programme was expanded from the east of Glasgow to the north.