Not only have the media helped to make gangs seem commonplace but they have also largely contributed to the fact that ‘gangs’ have been associated with Blacks. In the wake of the 1985 Birmingham Handsworth riots for instance, the lack of consensus as to the causes of the disturbances had already given the media a free hand to convey their own interpretation: according to Solomos and Back, it enabled them to spread racist representations.76 The popular press helped convey the Prime Minister’s viewpoint by suggesting that the riots were directly linked with immigration—turning Blacks into the source of all evils77—which in a certain way allowed the government to justify the anti-(coloured) immigration policy that the Conservatives had been leading since coming to power in 1979.78 In 2007, the Metropolitan Police Service also suggested that immigration has played a pivotal role in the proliferation of ‘gangs’.79 A new stage in racialised criminal labelling was even reached in 1985: in fact, both the local and national press moved the Birmingham confrontations to the borough of Handsworth when they had actually occurred in Lozells, a neighbouring borough. Lozells did not conjure up the racially coded image that the press wanted to convey, whereas Handsworth and Black crime were already regarded as synonymous. Consequently, the petty Black delinquent progressed to the rank of Black rioter, and he graduated from being guilty of crime against private individuals to being guilty of crime against society itself.80
The obsession of New Labour with ‘immigrant’ youth ‘gangs’ was linked to the obsession they had with segregation, integration and community cohesion.
Alexander argued that ‘the ‘gang’ is a parody of ‘cohesive community’—the embodiment of the multicultural nation in crisis’.81 All the evidence suggests that New Labour’s and the coalition’s hidden agenda was no different from the Conservatives’, and that the press indeed backed the government against some
74 Simon HALLSWORTH, 2013, op. cit., p. 19.
75 Simon HALLSWORTH & David BROTHERTON, op. cit., p. 14.
76 John SOLOMOS & Les BACK, ‘Du clientélisme aux sections noires du Parti travailliste: la politique interraciale à Birmingham, Revue Française de Science Politique, vol. 46, n° 1, pp. 3-29, 1996, p. 21.
77 John GAFFNEY, 1994, art. cit., p. 93.
78 The most striking feature of this policy certainly remains the British Nationality Act of 1981, which put forward a definition of British citizenship as well as scattered measures relative to immigration. Basically, citizenship was no longer granted according to the place of birth, and it no longer conferred the right of abode. Also, three categories of citizens were established. See Elizabeth II, Public General Acts and Measures of 1981 (Part II, Chapters 54-72), London: HMSO, British Nationality Act 1981, c. 61, 1982.
79 Claire ALEXANDER, 2008, op. cit., p. 7.
80 John SOLOMOS & Les BACK, op. cit., p. 18.
81 Claire ALEXANDER, 2008, op. cit., p. 14.
destructive alien culture afflicting peaceful and law-abiding Britain yet again.82 The studies which influenced policy-making regarding the fight against gang-related violence in the 2000s, as hinted at previously, have failed to explain why poor urban young Black males are really inclined to be attracted to ‘life on road’. Therefore, the news media have jumped on the bandwagon and have provided their own interpretation of the phenomenon, publishing allegedly official statistics which lent substance to (extreme) right-wing comments.83
For instance, in 2010, the Daily Telegraph reported that out of the 12% of Black male Londoners, 54% were to be blamed for all the street crimes, 46% for all the knife crimes, and over 50% for all the gun crimes in the capital city, undoubtedly because of a sensationalist characterisation, namely ‘gangsta rap culture’.84 On closer inspection, the figures displayed corresponded to people ‘prosecuted in court, whether convicted or acquitted; those issued with a caution, warning or penalty notice; those the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge; and those whose crimes were taken into consideration after a further offence’. The account then reveals more about bias and the discriminatory practices of the police and the legal system, and about institutional racism, than it actually does about offences committed by Black male youths, since there are more White offenders overall.
Black male youths though are over-represented among gun and knife users.85
‘Nigger hunting’
86Racism and harassment practices have not been the preserve of the media. In the 1980s, both the Silverman and the Scarman reports for instance, suggested that the police themselves were guilty of such behaviour, noting two specific reasons why the riots had occurred: the insensitivity of the police and, more particularly, their practice of harassment.87 The conclusions of Hill’s book argue along the same lines: she identified one of the main causes of the rioting as the way the police were leading their operations on a daily basis; they seemed to be able to decide who could walk the streets and under which conditions, which brought about a deterioration of the relations between the police and citizens. Those who were stopped and searched claimed to be the victims of harassment. It is not unusual to hear urban youths refer to the police as a ‘legit gang’ to whom they want to give a taste of their medicine.88 If one goes by the research work carried out on relations between the police and the public, a vast majority of those stopped are among the young, the unemployed, or
82 John SOLOMOS, ‘Riots, Urban Protest and Social Policy: The Interplay of Reform and Social Control in Ethnic Relations’, Policy Papers in Ethnic Relations, n° 7, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, Coventry: University of Warwick, December 1986, p. 8.
83 Ian JOSEPH & Anthony GUNTER, op. cit., p. 6.
84 ‘Police Statistics Shed Fresh Light on Link between Crime and Race’, Daily Telegraph, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7856404/Police-statistics-shed-fresh-light-on-link-between-crime-and-race.html [accessed 8 June 2014].
85 Ian JOSEPH & Anthony GUNTER, op. cit., p. 6.
86 In the 1960s, the phrase was common among policemen: they would go ‘nigger hunting’, that is harass Black people (Danièle JOLY, L’émeute, Lonrai: Denoël, 2007, p. 106).
87 CITY OF BIRMINGHAM, op. cit., pp. 4-5; Leslie (Lord) SCARMAN, op. cit.
88 Dilys M. HILL, Citizens and Cities: Urban Policy in the 1990s, Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatheaf, 1994, p. 136.
come from ethnic communities—and most belong to all three categories at once.89 Since the police are supposed to protect property and suppress drugs, violence, etc., they are bound to be influenced by stereotypes. As evidenced by research, petty crime soars in a context of unemployment; since unemployment rates tend to be higher than average among Black youths, the latter tend to be more involved in petty crime: the police therefore consider that they have to harass this section of the population in order to succeed in catching offenders.90 Not only does it seem to police officers that harassment is a natural behaviour, but also it is sometimes presented by higher authorities as a duty they have to perform. For instance, in 1981, Superintendent Dick Holland, talking about young Black men of ‘Rastafarian appearance’ declared that this was ‘the sort of discrimination and prejudice we want from police officers. This is what clears up the crime’.91
The situation hasn’t changed over time: ethnic youths, especially Black youths have been systematically associated with the ‘youth culture’, Yardie culture and
‘gang’ culture. To Modood et al., Black youths are ‘exemplars of youth culture’.
They have been portrayed by White people as deviant through their lifestyle (Black street culture).92 Such a stigmatising representation influences the way one mentally constructs the ‘gang’. As Black youths have increasingly posed a potential threat to society and authority, attempting to self-govern their own lives (in other words, revolting against their condition through participation in riots or through gang membership), the police have been ever more suspicious of them. An interesting perspective can be found in the answers provided by the respondents to the Runnymede Trust’s Birmingham focus group composed of young people who ‘had in various ways been affected directly by “gangs’’’. They claimed that recurrent confrontations with the police have strongly influenced ‘gang culture’.93 As contended by Roche and Tucker, studying the young enables commentators to take stock of the well-being of society: the state of mind this section of the community is in challenges the government as it proves things have gone wrong in economic and social terms.94 Deep distrust and mutual resentment has therefore clearly pervaded the relationship between (Black) youths and the police. Still, various sources, among which the rather sympathetic Silverman report, have suggested that the Black community were to a certain extent paranoid: ‘The feeling of being discriminated against is an important part of the social and psychological background of Handsworth’.95
An interesting point, though, is that in the 1990s ‘gangs’ developed primarily amongst the Asian (Muslim) community (they multiplied tremendously at the time
89 Ibid., p. 151; for more recent information see Simon HALLSWORTH & David BROTHERTON, op. cit.
90 Chris HARMAN, ‘The Summer of 1981: A Post-Riot Analysis’, International Socialism, vol. 2, n° 14, pp. 1-43, Autumn 1981, http://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1981/xx/
riots.html#top [accessed 1 April 2013].
91 Jed FAZAKARLEY, op. cit., p. 6.
92 Tariq MODOOD et al., op. cit., p. 347.
93 Ian JOSEPH & Anthony GUNTER, op. cit., p. 21.
94 Jeremy ROCHE & Stanley TUCKER, Youth in Society, London: Sage, 1997, p. 3.
95 Julius SILVERMAN, op. cit., p. 48.
of the 2001 riots in Northern England96). The gang industry has however surprisingly decided to focus on Black groups. What is more, Alexander contends that the reason why the authorities and the media have never expressed much interest in White ‘gangs’ for instance, may be that they would have had to focus on structural similarities rather than on cultural and racial differences.97
Crime statistics show that if Black youths tend to be more involved in petty crime, it’s true that they’re also victims of gun and knife-related violence. In the 2000s many a ‘gangland hotspot’ had been identified in distressed areas throughout the country and Black youths were disproportionately affected as victims of violence involving weapons. For the period 2008-2009, Black young people aged 10 to 19 (that is 21% of London’s youth population) represented 30% of the young offender population. 35% of those children and young men in custody were from BME backgrounds. Even though the last figure may have been inflated by police harassment towards Blacks, it remains substantial and indeed too substantial for it to be likely to be accounted for solely by unjust practices. Still, the explanation is simple: poor urban areas are inhabited by a disproportionate proportion of BME citizens. This reality was highlighted by the 2011 London Probation Trust report on youth gangs in London, which, positing that the escalation in youth crime should not be considered as a moral panic and should be envisaged within the context of social exclusion, dismissed any link between ‘gangs’ and race, stating that their ethnic composition ‘tends to reflect the neighbourhoods in which young people live’.98