To wonder who is actually responsible for rising murder rates in london

[SaucyJane]

So slimy frog faced Nigel Farage is blaming Sadiq Khan as mayor and particularly for reducing stop and search. There are also other calls for Khan to resign.

But surely there is only so much Khan can do if the government makes huge cuts to the police. And weren't those cuts made under Maggie May?

I didn't vote for Khan to be the mayor, and I am no fan of his, but it seems to me that it is unfair to blame it on him, and that the answer is probably partly government cuts and partly some of his changes since being mayor.

AIBU?

The UK city with the highest per capita murder rate is currently Manchester. For a long time, it was Glasgow, in which the killings were overwhelmingly white on white.

People are overlooking the factor of criminal adults drawing children into crime and violence. It is a very significant contributor to serious teenage criminality, and the existence of gangs.

plus, the raw figures for London being cited now are for all killings, which include random murders, 'domestic' ones, career criminal adults killing rivals, etc. Plainly, there is no one size fits all explanation.

Regina is correct for a number of Years Glasgow was Western Europe homicide capital
The Glasgow model of collaborative police,health,social work reduced that
Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) Established in 2005 A holistic overview a new in 2005, a specialist team tasked with preventing violent crimes rather than solving them. Reframing violence as a disease, emphasis and goal to diagnose the problem and utilise a “public health“ approach.

This from NIghtmanagerfan: Many of the young people caught up in gang activity are running drugs for criminal gangs. London is a hub for cocaine import and distribution and until this is tackled, there will always be young people who are vulnerable to be exploited to carry drugs for people in their area.

My son is relentlessly targeted to 'go cunch' on insta, snapchat etc. They take vulnerable kids - some of them poor, some middle class but wanting to fit in - and groom them relentlessly. No parent can afford to be naive, and think 'Oh not my child.'. We're too middle class, we're white or whatever.

I know someone who works in the home office and she says there is a huge influx of drugs into London. That is what is motoring this.

Gangs run on a for profit hierarchical model,they need supply of vulnerable members to initiate & groom
Drugs is the driver.the profit is huge,and there is demand.
Other multifactorial issues are contributory factors

Criminal gangs use human trafficking to staff the cannabis farms. Drugs aren’t a harmless toke,a wee snort despite what the mc tell themselves. If you're buying drugs,regardless how cool/nice/Funky your supplier is,you are unwittingly complicit in all of this

I live a very white middle class area not far from north London and I have teenagers. I talk to my DD about this often because to her at 16, this media reporting it seems is like something from a film. She cannot believe her eyes or ears. I know from growing up here and from her (School) that drugs are rife here too, along with all the same cuts faced nationally in policing and youth but the difference - the absolute difference and reason for outer London low gang violence is money. No one here is fighting over money, respect, honour etc - they have no need to. They are buying their drugs from London and don’t care for the consequences because they don’t affect them!

I’m at the lower end of the pile myself working class low income single parent and I’ve always been very hyper aware of what can happen to children from those homes (as I was one) and how disillusioning and demoralising it can be. I am as certain as I can be that if we lived closer to the city I would be lying here scared for my child every day because I’ve seen how she’s jealous of stuff on Instagram and wealth, how easy it could be for a young person to make easy money and how quickly you can lose them into another world like that.

It is poverty and it’s drugs. And the music and the IG glamourisation is not the cause it’s a product of these.

Morphene are you serious about this lead poisoning issue. I have never heard of something like this. Is it possible? Really shocking.

And gangs, drugs, rap music whatever some you are trying to say and are not saying it, is NOT just black culture. Where lawlessness is concerned, there is no one race to blame. There is poverty everywhere (among all races)as well as broken families.
It's the Tory cuts- that is the biggest threat.

I was a Y3 teacher in an estate school and there were children in my class (at 7) who played out every night with their friends, had no interest in the work the school expected from them, had no interest in the reading books we had, and were only interested in rap music and playing computer games (not age appropriate). They were 'on red' every day by 9.30am and found it hilarious to be told off. When asked what they wanted to do when they left school they all wanted to be footballers all computer game testers. They were adorable really (unless you had to teach them!) but had no idea of what to be when they were older, or how to get there. They didn't want to go to university, they didn't want to stay in school any longer than they had to. There is a glamour in the gangsta lifestyle, along with football and music, and the kind of jobs that they could do (without a glittering academic record) and get paid reasonably for don't exist any more. All of these kids came from loving homes with hardworking mums and supportive grandparents, but I don't feel like they had the role models to give them better choices for the future. (I suggested graphic design and being a chef which they both liked the idea of, so hope that did something.)

I'm part of a social al group - all of us left leaning and working in related fields - where one person suggested the other night that perhaps some of the youth lawlessness comes from families who perhaps had more children than they might have had otherwise since the introduction of tax credits which effectively made it more financially attractive to have more children...I know thats changed now but is that worth thinking about seeing as those kids are now hitting that demographic, those parents may not have been quite so hades on with those kids maybe?

I also think prison is not the deterrent it once was.

AGB, I don’t think the ‘kids who were born for tax credits’ trope really works in London. Cost of living is so high in London and has been for over 20 years so the tax credits would only really cover the minimum cost of having that child rather than in somewhere like Barnsley where parents can spend the bare minimum on the kid and pocket the rest for themselves. There’s also the added problem in London that if you kept having kids for tax credits you would be very unlikely to have access to even halfway adequate housing for them and would end up with seven kids in a two bed flat which isn’t really worth the money.

Actually, I’ll correct that. In London tax credits were unlikely to even cover the minimum cost of a child let alone profit the parents.

In my opinion it is all to do with the breakdown in family values, and the culture of entitlement that many young people live in. There are so many disfunctional families, with children growing up in poverty and with parents who lack maturity themselves. I believe that many teenagers get the sense of belonging from gangs, rather than from their families. Of course, no amount of identifying a problem will solve it and I don't think there is any quick fix on this. But British culture needs to change so that young people have a decent upbringing. I don't think this can be achieved whilst so many are living in poverty, so maybe if that were tackled, the rest might be tackled later.

I live in North Jersey and work in NYC. I've been here for 10+ years now. The policing in London is a huge factor as is education. You know these DC have broken homes and are living in poverty.

NYC policing is excellent. They dont mess around and have pushed judges to keep the worst elements in jail. The police here really do an excellent job and they are everywhere on foot, in cars and often you hear of off duty police response.

Policing in London is the opposite. They could also do with a bit of mayor Rudi. He held people accountable for their actions. He also had schools identify kids at risk and put them in sports programs.

Oh and drug use here is very different. Much more cocaine in London and more heroin here. More people in the suburbs are taking drugs compared to urban areas.

Do most of these kids live "in poverty"? In my area of urban London, most seem to live in perfectly nice, respectable and clean social housing. These are estates but the estates are remarkably pleasant to the outside eye

I think with crystal meth infiltrating London recently levels of violence will continue to increase.

Identifyinging children at risk and providing them with sports programs is a brilliant idea.

I agree that the issue is poverty and a lack of family togetherness within the home.

The other problem is the large volume of drugs getting into the U.K.

These kids are foot soldiers and their lives really do mean nothing to the people running these empires.

I’m not surprised that so many people live in poverty. The cost of living in this country is ridiculously high. Even a trendy pair of trainers for a teen can cost close to £100. Public transport costs/rent etc is ridiculous

If the govt didn’t sell off our infrastructure to private companies then we might not be in this situation!

The only thing we have left is schools and NHS

It’s DRUGS, particularly cocaine in London. An enormous, lucrative, unregulated market that the gangs are battling over. It’s the elephant in the room and nobody is taking any effective measures to address it. They are barely even talking about it. David Lammy recently said that getting hold of Cocaine in London is as easy as ordering pizza. This is true. It’s really shocking. It gives the gangs every incentive to get involved in turf wars, the drug trade is just so lucrative for them.

I've lived in London all my life and I haven't got a clue how to get cocaine, so I doubt it's quite as easy as ordering pizza.

Ok, well your experience is different to mine Pancake. I’ve been here 20 years, professional career, don’t do drugs and don’t hang out with a druggy crowd. But I could get it easily with a phone call and have it delivered to my door. It’s everywhere and very easy to obtain sadly.

I've lived in London all my life and I haven't got a clue how to get cocaine, so I doubt it's quite as easy as ordering pizza.

1. Drink in a trendy pub in an up and coming area a couple of times to get your face known

1. Ask the bar staff if they are aware of anybody who can ‘sort you out’

1. Dig out your old CD cases, whop out your debit card and roll up a £20 note.

Bob’s your very talkative uncle.

Still harder than ordering a pizza!

I grew up poor in a gang ridden area too.

And I don't own any CDs. Who still owns CDs?!