Twitter and FB is full of people thinking that a permanent Section 60 stop and search policy is the way to fix things.Where do you go though? Other than legalise and regulate the drugs market. Cos at the end of the day, these killings are about the drugs market.
But you can't get a sensible debate on legalising drugs.
You can't get a sensible debate on the current carnage; LBC this morning Ferrarri commends caller who went: Not allowed to discipline kids ----> not allowed to educate them ----> National service ----> death penalty
In terms of how youth violence became so lethal? Yes imo.
What did they do?
It's not the reason for every deadly quarrel but it's the main economic driver of London's gangs and one of the main reasons that the violence has become acceptable to parts of society.
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yeh, back in the 90s there were regular fights in north finchley on a friday and saturday night, large scale affairs too, involving a couple of dozen or more people, by the auld bus station. quite gentlemanly affairs, you could watch from quite close quarters without being dragged into the event. sadly stopped after someone got killed (run over, not stabbed)
IME a lot of the kids suppplying drugs actually provide an essential income stream to their impoverished families. This is what needs to be tackled if the gang-related knife crime is to stop. They're fighting over crumbs, tbh not unlike our political overlords. You don't generally get ripped off by these kids - they know that there are 10 others waiting to take their place.Where do you go though? Other than legalise and regulate the drugs market. Cos at the end of the day, these killings are about the drugs market.
But you can't get a sensible debate on legalising drugs.
You can't get a sensible debate on the current carnage; LBC this morning Ferrarri commends caller who went: Not allowed to discipline kids ----> not allowed to educate them ----> National service ----> death penalty
yeh swamp 81 worked so well the first time round
Urban regeneration without gentrification is what is needed. And for that, essentially you need social housing, and lots of it.
Social housing doesn't fix the problem on it's own, especially in these days of housing associations and increasing social rents. Something needs to change about the lack of income streams and opportunity as well.
Lack of social housing is a huge part of why people are forced out of areas to be replaced by more affluent types, and is the driving force behind gentrification - people are forced out of the area because they're a million miles away from buying, they stand zero chance of a council flat, and private rents are going through the roof. Especially somewhere like London, where you'll be paying, say, 700 quid a month for a room in a house even in a cheaper area. Social housing with a proper social rent, of course - I'm not talking part-rent part-buy cons or anything like that. Properly affordable social housing would raise the effective income of a great many people by stopping private landlords from stealing their wages.
A lot of the violence is from families who haven't been forced out - rather it's the children of families who have been ghettoized in increasingly affluent areas.
Social housing doesn't solve all problems, but I am suggesting that it does solve the current problem, which stretches back years now, whereby urban regeneration inevitably leads to gentrification, and that is destructive in many different ways.
I'm not denying that it would help solve some of the current issues. However, I feel that systemic issues to do with lack of opportunity and betterment are also essential to solving the problem. With boys especially, there isn't the 'out' of getting pregnant and thus getting housed, for example. If you can never afford your social rent if you work, why bother, etc...
Absolutely. Sorry to be clear, I was replying specifically to your gentrification point. I don't agree with you that gentrification isn't a bad thing in and of itself. I think it really is, and the trick has to be to improve areas while preventing it from happening.
