Gangs in London

[ShouldIActNow]

I have two Ds’s age 11 who have just started secondary school in se London.
Where we live is rife with gang activity, there was a stabbing at the bottom of the flats we live in last week & there are boys smoking and drinking on the stairs regularly so we have to walk through them.

I’m not particularly concerned about that and not really scared for myself, however my sons have to go home by themselves and I am honestly terrified of them being groomed, robbed or worse by them.

The other day one boy was offering my son money and I know how to easy it is to then become involved.

So my issue now is, is it too late to move out of London as they are starting to settle down or am I being over dramatic?

All of our family and support system are in a 2 mile radius to us, their dad is round the corner although not really much help.

What do I do? It’s such a difficult decision to make on you’re own.

Also do any of you have any experience with this type of situation and what did you do about it?

Well, this thread is about London Gangs. It's the title of the thread. There is a well known problem with gang violence in London. Nobody has said stabbings only happen there. But there are places outside London where gang violence is less prevalent.

I agree
It's cheaper to live outside of London I'd hate that for my kids

So much overhype on this. Damilola Taylor was over twenty years ago and stands out in notoriety due to it being outside of the norm. Yes, there are frequent stabbings, but not of 10 and 11 year olds. I have four sons, and have raised them in Hackney, youngest is reaching mid-teens now and eldest is late twenties. We are a mixed race family, my DH is black and I am from another minority. Both DH and I grew up in inner London and we've both been caught up in gun and knife incidents when we were younger this isn't a completely new issue. We had murder mile in late 90s/early 2000s.

I obviously wouldn't move. I think having a support network is more beneficial and we love London life. I'm sure mine would get into more trouble if we moved somewhere isolating and we would all have been miserable. We own a house now but lived first on an estate and then in a HA flat, all pre much of the gentrification so not the previously mentioned leafy experience. About 10 years ago we rented outside of London thinking it would be a better quality of life and were back within 18 months which was about 17 months later than the DC would have liked!

Activities are good, especially where they are mixing with others within the area. I think we've been lucky as all of my DC are sporty so into boxing/football/basketball and have lots of friends through that. A few friends do things like drama school.

You also need to be real and explain some of the realities of life quite clearly. How gangs work, consignment, NOTHING is for free, thinking about what you post on social media, come home if you aren't sure about a situation, if someone robs you give them what they want etc. That being said, mine don't smoke, aren't big drinkers, absolutely are not in a gang, and have been going home from school on their own since year 7. Of course I worry, but I would do that anywhere. Do you have any parent friends in the area, if so, what are their thoughts?

If at all possible, I'd move, I say this as a mum living in a part of east London where a few days ago 2 16 year olds were stopped with a machete and a loaded gun.. 2 of my girls have been threatened with knives, my (white) son is a young teen and I worry constantly, I have to drive my kids everywhere, they can't use their phones or bikes, I do want to move but it's not as simple as that, if my son were black I would have left before teen years.

Do you have friends elsewhere in the UK who live in places you like, OP? What’s your job situation?

@AMessageToYouRuby I agree with you. I grew up in Stokey before it was leafy and full of bankers. Murder mile was a real thing and 2004 gang violence was worse than what we have now. In OPs position I would try to swap, but leaving London entirely is not all it's cracked up to be. Everything has its pros and cons. A town outside of London that OP could afford will probably be riddled with anti social behaviour and problems of its own. It's not all better on the other side.

I don’t know if people are necessarily suggesting the OP move out of London entirely. I certainly wasn’t, but I do think she should move away from this particular area to somewhere a bit safer if she can. It might be ok now but by the time her kids are 14/15+ it could easily be a different story.

As a mum of a toddler in London can anyone recommend (to the OP and other parents) any areas in London which are safe / not affected by gangs and still within grasp (eg not Hampstead)?

@Edamamebeans what does within grasp mean though. You'd struggle to find a 2 bed in Tottenham for less than £1600 and by the sounds of it, no one on Mumsnet would touch that with a barge pole.

I don't know @Meadowbreeze but my point is that everyone's saying just move out of London and this isn't realistic for many people for all sorts of reasons - jobs, family, racism - and of course there are thousands (millions?) of children being brought up in London without a problem. If everyone with children left London there's be no-one left.

So I'm asking those parents still in London and not experiencing gang issues where they recommend living.

@Edamamebeans I meant budget wise. London is unique in that a road can be very posh and there's a sink estate right behind it. There's not many areas immune to it. I wouldn't really consider Teddington in London but that's just me. I think the biggest thing would be to get out the estate. A lot of the stuff happens within estates and as OP mentioned, they have to navigate that daily.
If your kids are busy with clubs and activities, there's very little time to play outside with the other kids on the estate.

I moved from a very white middle class village well away from London because I didnt want my children growing up in an area with so many drugs around.
I would walk the dog in fields and see bunches of youngsters huddled together down embankments and when I returned to the walk the following day there were needles and drug paraphernalia.
I was always being offered drugs if I went to the pub.

I felt safer in London

I look at my home town in the north of England and that isn’t safe either.

As I said my friend who lived in a very rough area of East London took her children to school every single day and collected them every single afternoon. They weren’t allowed to come out of school until she was there. Even when they were 18 and doing A levels.
Her attitude was that no one was going to get her children into a gang if their mum was standing next to them.
Play dates were only allowed with children who had parents with her same philosophy or it was at a particular event or place and only if there was adult supervision.

She was a super strict mum when it came to safety and it paid off.

I lived in North London. Dd went to school in Central London I wasn’t worried about her on public transport. I would drop her at the tube and pick her up each evening

I think most people I knew would at the least make sure they got on the bus in the morning and met them off the bus each afternoon.

Yes, I think you are being a bit naive. The risk for black teenage boys in areas where gangs operate is a million miles higher than the the risk to white boys in the SW suburbs.

Those saying move, where would you move to?

I agree, I'd do everything humanly possible to get teen boys out of those flats, but I live in a fairly leafy part of the home counties and gangs are a big problem here too. It's less obvious, more discrete and if you don't work with young people, like I do, you can probably be blissfully unaware, but gangs and gang related exploitation are by far the biggest issues at all our safeguarding sessions.

It's probably less than in other areas but it is very much happening here too

Hi Op

I am curious

I would like if possible a follow up on your thread,

Did you manage to get out of where you are living then?

How are things,