The bigger problem - knives or the media?

July 1st, 2008 by mas | Filed under Society & Issues.

I enjoyed watching the first of the Disarming Britain series on Channel 4 last night, although I didn’t so much enjoy the first programme of the evening ‘Kids, Knives & Broken Lives’. I shared the feelings of Wallace over on the Disarming Britain blogs who says

“what I seen last night was a bunch of wannabe gangsters who watch and copy American Gangs……I was expecting more up and close talking with Gang Members from around Britain but what i seen was not actual gang members but some groups of boys who dont claim to be in a gang, but talk about gangs and hang about their street”

The programme itself rang true with quite a lot of what we see on courses from groups who discuss gangs and weapons - lots of talk from people who are apparently in the thick of things, yet little of any substance or that comes across as truly believable.

Thats not to say there aren’t problems, of course there are, but if you’d taken away the moody gangster music what you’d have mostly seen during that programme was bunches of lads fooling about. Perfectly normal behaviour albeit some of it concerning, and this is the reason for the title of this post, because I wonder how much responsibility the popular media should take for glamourising gangs and street violence. How much of the fear that apparently drives some young people to carry weapons is actually rooted in the image of young people painted by the media, and how much do programmes like these improve matters or do they actually make them worse?

I thought the later programme by the  Channel 4 Street Weapons Commission was much more interesting. I didn’t agree with everything Ray Lewis (London Deputy Mayor for Young People) had to say, but I think he made the strongest point in the programme which is the need to rebuild a sense of community and challenge the ’sense of entitlement’ people feel they have in this country.

Of all the examples shown, I think the one with most potential is the NCH project where project workers visit families and seek to work with parents as well as young people. I think much more needs to be done to support work with young people that sees them as part of the community, not just an isolated group that is worked with exclusively.

The series continues tonight, this time up North!

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Viewing 5 Comments

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    What I find interesting about the debate around the knife/ gang culture is how invested politicians and the media re in believing it's true - each new story of a 'stabbing' is lit up in headlights - even when its not a stabbing (the young boy in Eltham who died in a fight that wasn't gang related or as a result of a knife led to a newsnight piece on gang and knife culture in London.

    The sad fact is that we are talking ourselves into a culture where knives and guns are glamourised not by rap music but by the press and adults in general - we are sublimely coaching young people into behaviour that they wouldn't ordinarily condone
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    Very much agree with that. I'm not wanting to gloss over that there clearly are real issues with violence and some young people carrying weapons, but I also think its damaging to create a perception of streets ridden with gangs and gang violence and out of control young people etc. all creating a fear of crime that can only alienate people even further which can't help to improve matters.

    Just watching the 2nd episode now up in Liverpool and Manchester (loving those Scally Tans), and I think its interesting seeing which programmes and schemes stand up to scrutiny or come across as convincingly making a difference.
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    Some very interesting points made here... many of which are to be debated on Channel 4 this weekend on The TV Show (Saturday 5 July) - a programme which gives C4 viewers a chance to air their views on any aspect of the channel.

    If any of you would be interested in contributing your views to the show, or indeed joining the live studio audience, please contact me at thetvshow@channel4.co.uk and I can pass your comments/details on to the production company.

    Thanks,
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    I very much agree with the comments in many of these posts. I work for a voluntary agency who run a project providing support for people wishing to leave gang crime and the phone has hardly stopped ringing with calls from journalists. Most of the angles they are looking to run are simply feeding a high-octane media 'scare' around the issue and possibly (inadvertantly perhaps) re-inforcing the gang crime culture. The first Dispatches film on monday evening with the A&E consultant was very good. It's a shame they chose to focus on America for solutions as alot of the work highlighted (e.g. schools talks by ex-gang members etc) already goes on here in the UK (and the production team should have known this as they spoke to us during the course of making this documentary). But I'm not all sure about Kids, Knives and Broken lives. As has been said before, I'm sceptical about the authenticity of some of what was said and it simply gave some young people a platform to promote a negative picture of themselves - which they will regret in a few years time.

    However, for me personally, the worst thing is that there are plenty of young people who have grown up facing severe disadvantage (care, poverty, drug-misusing parents) who NEVER get involved in gang crime, offending, knives, guns, drugs, robbing etc and go on to make the very best of their situations. Can we give these young people a bit more air time please?
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    Hi Tambo - I really wish that would happen. We spent 6 years working with groups from the "most deprived" areas of the UK and what really stood out was not how awful people are or how bad life is, but actually how many amazing people there are trying to get on with their 'normal' lives and in many cases trying to help improve things for people where they live.

    We did hear many shocking stories too and met quite a few kids who deserved better than they got, but in most cases the kids who really had things bad weren't the ones getting in the most trouble (in terms of criminal behaviour anyway) - for me society needs to recognise this much much more and I think the media needs to recognise that it has a responsibility here.

    If the majority of the attention is placed upon those with the worst behaviour how does this help young people to aspire to positive behaviour? Its perhaps not right to blame everything on the media but I think it does need to accept a responsibility for giving a balanced coverage of the society we live in and what people contribute to this - and the majority of people are good people doing or trying to do good things - why then are they given the minority of coverage?

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