Cllr Miller sets out Brent Council's gang strategy ahead of Tuesday's meeting

Ahead of Tuesday's 'It's time to talk about gangs' at the Roundwood Centre (5.30-8.30pm) LINK I though it worth blogging this question and response on gangs from the next Council Meeting agenda LINK:

Question from Cllr J Mitchell Murray to Cllr Miller, Lead Member for Stronger Communities:

Can the Cabinet Member explain: what is being done in Brent to protect children and young people from being drawn into or exploited by gangs; what we are doing to better understand what draws young people towards gangs; what can be done to help those who want to escape; and, what more we can do to pursue, catch and prosecute those who are wilfully engaged in gang-related crime? 

Response: 

Based on the Metropolitan Polices gangs matrix there are currently 21 gangs in Brent. Gangs and gang related offending continues to remain a concern and a priority for Brent, with links between Child Sexual Exploitation and County Lines emerging. There are estimated to be over 1,000 individuals involved with gang criminality in Brent, whilst the current Metropolitan Police Gangs matrix for Brent has 282 identified gang members. The Brent gangs’ cohort is over 90% male, 80% black, and has an average age of 24 years old. The long standing gang issues in Brent have created a cohort which is older than most London boroughs. Currently only 6% of the cohort are 17 years old or under, compared to the London average of 20%. 

The current rise in knife injury victims (under 25 year’s old - non domestic abuse), with 16 year old victims and 23 year old victims overrepresented, suggests gangs are a continuing issue in Brent’s youth population. The figures contradict the below average number of youths on the gangs matrix. Multi agency Work is currently being developed to better identify our youth gang associates, including our enhanced partnership intelligence meetings and focused deterrence forums. Police operations continue to enforce ongoing gang activity, with Dedicated Ward Officers still very much having focus on any gang hotspot areas and targeted intelligence gathering to aid enforcement. Other partners also feed into this intelligence gathering exercise. 

Such partnership interventions are coordinated by the council Community Protection service, to focus on certain gang hotspot areas, as well as certain gang associates including Young People on the fringes of gang activity in terms of preventative and deterrent interventions; as well as any possible links to child exploitation. All partnership interventions link in with missing and child sexual exploitation panels to ensure all intelligence links to create a clear valid picture of the issues we face. 

Unfortunately there has not been the same amount of resources made available across London to aid this prevention work as previous years have seen, therefore the partnership have been working with what resources they have to make the biggest difference possible. Our focused work is largely set by progressive analytical capabilities through detailed analytical work to ensure wider focused work, via our Focused Gang Deterrent Group meetings and the fortnightly partnership gang intelligence meetings. All partners feed into this analysis, including Police, children’s services, Youth offending, family solutions, specialist CSE workers and voluntary sector organisations. 

The community protection service commission external voluntary sector organisations to complete gang mentoring schemes, and many referrals for this mentoring come from Brent Social workers, Police Safer School Officers and other education placements. We advocate, through our partnership forums, that information sharing is key to help prevent gang recruitment, as well as ensuring we make an offer of support and exit options for anyone wishing to exit gang life. We have also utilised some MOPAC grant funding to fund a specialist gang mentor within the Youth Offending Service to offer more immediate focused support for those young people a little more entrenched in offending and gang life. In the first six months of 2015/16, 31 young people assessed as being significantly less gang affected after engaging with this specific intervention. 

Other interventions which we offer to young people identified as having possible gang affiliation include mentoring through sports interventions and music programmes, all of which are commissioned by the council with resources available. The Safer Neighbourhood Board have also commissioned some specific mentoring and education programmes to aid better awareness of gang issues in Brent for individuals in our PRUs. Police are key to these interventions and forums and information sharing between all statutory and non-statutory partners to ensure focused intervention takes place for any young person identified or refereed. 

Moving forward, we know that we need to continue our focused work, and especially more so on identifying young people associated with gang activity. Current partnership structures will aid this and although we don’t currently have a deployable resource available for emergency cases or enough resource to tackle the current scale of the issue we fact, thankfully the MOPAC London Crime Prevention Fund reallocated funds for Brent 2017-2019 projects, which resulted in a slight uplift of allocated funds. In December 2016 we put a proposal forward requesting to utilise some of these additional funds to help us better respond to our gang issue in Brent. 

The proposal included two gang mentors, one mentor will be a specialist young person’s mentor. Each mentor will support 20-30 gang affected people in Brent through targeted referral routes, as well as linking in with the wider partnership offender management programme proposed which will commission further sports mentoring and housing support. A third gang mentor will also be located within the Civic Centre with specialist onsite support for Youth Offending Service, Children’s Social Care including Early Help. As part of this new approach, we hope these posts will better align itself with those teams supporting Brent’s wider gang nominals, and work across all age groups in order to secure the best possible outcomes for young people. The programme will also provide a minimum of five education projects throughout the year in targeted schools, totalling to 10 as well as look to provide peer training for those who have engaged significantly. 

Aims for the new proposed programmes include:

1. Target number of referrals per quarter (specific number set for each programme). 2. 70% of those referrals that engaged will take positive action to address primary pathway/need.
3. 15% reduction in re-offending committed by the cohort in 6 months following engagement with programme, in comparison to offending rate 6 months prior to the programme.
4. 70% of those referrals that engaged will significantly be less gang affected (Gang programmes)
5. 70% Improved understanding and awareness of the impact of gangs and gang offending (education sessions). 

We also see the huge importance of involving our communities to help tackle these community based issues facing our young people of Brent. Last year we had a community led conference to ensure we involved as many partners from all sectors, as well as community members, as possible. We have seen however that community members including young people are sometimes reluctant to come forward and speak out against gangs. 

We have scheduled a further community event with our Partnership colleagues in January 2017  Janiary 17th Roundwood Centre) as a follow up platform, namely the ‘It’s Time to Talk about Gangs’ event. The event will take the form of 'Question Time' where all members of Brent's community are invited to come along and take part in a panel discussion followed by workshops to develop real, community-led solutions to the issues raised. 

Brent Youth Offending Service (YOS) also provides a range of specific support and interventions which I have provided some examples of below: 

• The Youth Support Programme is a Brent Youth Offending Service intervention programme that works with gang affected young people. Since its establishment in 2013 the 1.0 FTE Youth Support Worker has supported young people to exit gangs, develop greater empathy, access mentoring provision and diversionary activities, and obtain formally accredited achievements. Twenty one gang affected young people were referred to the programme from the Youth Offending Service, and a further 15 accessed services from multi-agency panels and the community between July and September 2016. In the first six months of 2015/16, 31 young people were assessed as being significantly less gang affected.
• Young people subject to court orders supervised by the YOS, who have been assessed using the YOS statutory Asset Plus assessment as being at risk of gang affectedness, are offered support and advice during supervision sessions, and are where appropriate required to attend interventions that will help them to desist from gang related activities. This includes attending the YOS delivered Weapons Awareness group work programme.
• Young people are also referred to other statutory and community services including Family Solutions, Plias mentoring, business mentoring, Safer London Pan London Gangs Provision, and the St. Giles Trust.
• As a regular contributor, Brent YOS shares and acts upon information gathered at the Brent Gangs Intelligence Hub. This includes the provision of information such as Court Order details and conditions, compliance, and gang associations.

How we should challenge gang culture

In September last year the Brent and Kilburn Times published an article by Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala (Stonebridge) on gangs. I republish it here as a contribution to the debate taking place LINK on this blog ahead of the Time to Talk About Gangs event to be held at the Roundwood Centre on January 17th.

The immediate challenge is to get the young people directly affected along to the event.

Recently, six people wearing balaclavas began firing gunshots at each other on the streets of Brent. What should have been a quiet Thursday afternoon turned into something resembling a scene out of a Hollywood movie. It was a timely reminder that gangs still cast a dark shadow over our community.

As chair of Brent’s Gangs taskgroup as well as having been born in the borough, I have become all too familiar of the impact gangs have on our area; some of the people I grew up with are either in prison or no longer with us – guns and gangs did that. Current estimates indicate almost one in every ten Brent 11-19 year old is a gang member and according to the Met. Police, gangs are responsible for 16% of the total drug supply, 26% of aggravated burglaries and 14% of all types of rapes. Even international events are adding to the toxic mix. My ward’s Safer Neighbourhood Team Sergeant once remarked that young people arriving from conflicts in Syria and Libya, traumatised by their experiences of violence and death were joining gangs. 

Although there are some very good examples of work being done in Brent. Initiatives carried out by the youth offending service, the police and the voluntary sector such as Stonebridge Boxing Club, which worked closely with ex-gang members to develop mentoring and physical routines to help change their lives around. 

The efforts of those working with some of the most hard to reach young people have not gone unnoticed – these are committed people genuinely trying to make a difference. But the truth is that many of the responses have at times been uncoordinated and fragmented. This is further exacerbated by the closure of youth facilities such as the Brent Adventure Playground, youth unemployment and the erosion of ‘community spirit’.

Gangs are also leveraging in brand new Nike trainers and designer clothes for gang members who have more often than not experienced family breakdowns and live chaotic lifestyles. A lack of positive role models, poor educational attainment, mental health and lack of aspirations are just some of the factors that lure young people to this violent subterranean street culture. Young women are also at risk from gangs whether it’s sexual exploitation, violence or becoming involved in criminality.   

Our solution to gang culture needs to move away from a one-dimensional approach, which focuses solely on increasing resources. Although this is important, increased investment in young people will achieve nothing without paying attention to other factors such as housing, education, family support and tackling social deprivation.

We need a more inclusive approach, which empowers the local community to develop youth-led initiatives. Local models can respond to local dynamics, and can be specific to the communities in which gangs operate. This should also be extended nationally and locally where we encourage young people to use their skills positively. Perversely, gang members can possess an entrepreneurial drive namely, building up their ‘gang business through clever branding and slick You Tube music videos. 

We should develop innovative schemes to provide business ‘start-up’ funding for young people who could be at risk of joining gangs to help them achieve their real potential. Moreover, we should have wider apprenticeship opportunities whereby those that display the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ are given opportunities to work in sectors such as banking and finance to make better use of their abilities. 

Brent is home to the largest industrial estate in Europe, Park Royal. Our young people should be given the opportunities to be apprentices at some of the largest companies in the world. And with Brent collecting £15m from the community infrastructure levy (CIL) from developers building new homes, maybe some that funding should go towards building the future of our young people. 

We are at a tipping point, do we accept gangs and gang culture or do we together as a community say enough is enough?

GANGS - Brent Council 'It's Time to Talk' event January 17th, Roundwood YC

I have received this from Brent Council. I am not sure what concrete measures, if any, emerged from the previous Time to Talk events but you may wish to attend.

Following on from two successful It’s Time to Talk events earlier this year on Hate Crime and Extremism, Brent Council will play host to another on 17 January 5.30pm at the Roundwood Youth Centre in Harlesden. This time we will be focusing on gangs and what Brent can do as a community to tackle them and prevent them from emerging in the future.

Attending the event will be a number of high-profile speakers including Angela Herbert MBE of the National Offender Management Service, Maria Arpa of the Centre for Peaceful Solutions and DJ Gussy of Roots FM and a former gang member.

The event will take the form of a Question Time style panel discussion, followed by resident workshops. The aim is to develop community-led strategies to empower all people in Brent to unite and create a stronger, safer borough. If you would like to ask a question then please submit it to james.curtis@brent.gov.uk. Please note that depending on the volume of questions, not all may be able to be asked. 

If you would like to have your say on the issues then please come along to this FREE event.
FREE TICKETS HERE

Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala (Labour, Stonebridge) produced a well received report ‘ A review of gangs in Brent and the development of services for prevention, intervention and exiting’ for the Scrutiny Committee in 2013. LINK

Since then Brent Council has closed youth centres, sacked youth workers and demolished Stonebridge Adventure Playground.

Having taught children from Stonebridge and St Raphaels I know how important the Adventure Playground and other youth facilities were in providing activities for young people who might otherwise get drawn into crime, particularly around drugs, as well as the workers themselves providing alternative role models.

What intervention at that level does is prevent children getting involved in the fringes of gangs and then gradually bcoming full members.  When I studied gangs decades ago in Battersea I found that there was an overlapping age profile.  Children as young as 10 were involved in a fairly benign  ‘junior gang’ but the oldest of that gang would also hang out with more ‘senior’ gangs and perform tasks such as delivering drugs or climbing through windows to steal for them. The overlapping groups formed an age hierachy becoming fully fledged gangs by the time members were in their 20s.

This was very much the pattern I found in Brent with primary age children being used to deliver drugs by bicycle for older gang members.   What was more disturbing was that in discussion Year 6 boys who weren’t yet involved  nonetheless expressed admiration for leading gang members in both terms of status and materially.  They unfavourably compared their teachers with role models who had status in the community and had the ‘bling, the cars and the girls.’  This is a key point where teachers, play workers and youth workers can intervene.

The Kalwala report stated:

When we met with a representative from the Metropolitan Police’s Trident Gangs Command Unit, he told us that offenders of gang-related crime, including knife and gun-enabled offences, tend to be male and between 14-25 years old. Mr Champion also said that along with robbery, burglary theft and assault, drugs supply was major concern and that gangs are now grooming boys as young as 10 years old. We heard that as a young person gets older, the role he plays within the gang also changes. Professor Pitts told us that whilst younger boys are being recruited as young as 10, they may only be acting as a scout or runner (of drugs) whilst teenagers may get involved in street-level drug supply. Older gang members, such as those 18 and older may escalate to more violent offences. These older youths may also become responsible for coordinating the activities of the younger members. Older gang members (21 years old or older) are likely to hold a more senior role within the gang which could include developing links with organised crime groups. Brent police told the task group that beyond 25, they are either in prison, dropped out and settled down or not as visible as they are involved in organised crime.

In coverage of the  ‘Time to Talk’ meeting in the Kilburn Times LINK  Keith Gussy Young (DJ Gussy)  owner of RootsFM  who will be speaking at the event said:

Young people need to be listened to, and there are a lot of young people out there, good people. If we don’t find a solution to really listen to them it will create a vicious cycle.

Most of our youth clubs have been shut down now forcing our children back on the streets. It’s not an easy subject but people at the top have to start listening. They may be building all these new flats but they need to build youth centres as well.