Riot crackdown on gang leaders ‘has fuelled street anarchy and violence’

THE arrests of more than 200 leaders of London street gangs in the wake of last year’s riots has led to an increase in “chaos, violence and anarchy” in the capital, according to a report.

Prime Minister David Cameron promised an “all-out war on gangs and gang culture” following the riots which brought mayhem to many English cities in the summer of 2011, and police have responded by arresting many of those associated with criminal groups.

But the report, by the Centre for Social Justice thinktank, warned that the removal of the so-called “elders” from the streets has backfired by creating a power vacuum in which younger and more hot-headed members seized control of gangs on a wave of violence.

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Drawing on interviews with community leaders and former gang members, it warned of an “escalation” of violence as more junior members – known as “youngers” – vie for status and respect in the absence of the restraining hand of older figures who had imposed a code of behaviour. “There was a consensus that the current gangs neither have such a code nor cohesive leadership, which is resulting in increased chaos, violence and anarchy,” said the report by the CSJ, which was founded by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith

It also reported a “startling” increase in the number of girl gang members and a rise in sexual violence within gangs, citing one case in which a 13-year-old girl involved with a gang was being sexually exploited by members and was grooming her own 10-year-old sister for the same purpose.

CSJ managing director Christian Guy said that the police crackdown after the riots had “created a Lord of the Flies environment in which anything goes”.

The report, entitled Time to Wake Up, said police efforts needed to be backed up by a broader Government strategy emphasising the need to stop young people joining gangs in the first place.

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“Many in Whitehall regard the riots as a random one-off, and mistake the quashing of the disorder as control of the streets,” it said. They could not be more wrong. The alarming fact is that many streets across the country are besieged by anarchy and violence. There is no control in such neighbourhoods.”