Critical Investigation - 'An investigation into how and why the tabloid press generates moral panics about male teenage deliquency'
Linked Production - 'A documentary title sequenec and opening about teenage deliquents who may have been influenced by the gangster/Hip Hop genre'.
Contemporary articles on on my investigation..
1) Gang culture threat 'overblown'
By Justin Parkinson BBC News education reporter
British children 'rarely carry weapons'Gang culture is seen as a problem by one in five of England's secondary schools according to a report by the education watchdog Ofsted.
It comes amid concern over levels of disruption and even violence in the classroom and playground.
Stories of weapons checks and drug tests at schools do little to alleviate fears.
But criminologist Simon Hallsworth thinks Britain's political parties are fuelling a "moral panic".
'Fuelling suspicion'
Attitudes to young people - particularly those from poor or ethnic minority backgrounds - had been negatively affected, he told BBC News.
Levels of violent crime had actually fallen but politicians had attempted to out-do each other to appear "tough on crime".
Mr Hallsworth, director of London Metropolitan University's centre for social evaluation and research, said: "The idea of gangs can be dangerous.
"Young people here are only doing what they have always done.
"Only America has an established gang culture. Young people here carry guns very rarely indeed.
Kids are suffering. It's like we are criminalising being young
Simon Hallsworth, criminologist
"Even where there are gangs, such as in parts of south Manchester, members tend not to join until they are 18 to 21."
Mr Hallsworth has carried out research in deprived parts of Hackney, east London.
He found that, although young people hung around together, there was no "gang culture".
He said: "Standing with trousers down to your crutch and your hood on does not make you a member of a gang.
"Some of the poor kids I spoke to were excluded from everything. They were living in homes they shouldn't have to live in and were being called anti-social. Police were moving them on.
"Now we have Asbos [anti-social behaviour orders], which are draconian and politicians are competing to see who can seem the most 'anti-crime'.
"Kids are suffering. It's like we are criminalising being young.
"People branded the usual suspects as gang members. There were black kids and Bangladeshi groups being labelled.
"Young kids are doing what they have always done. Nowadays, when there are three or more of them hanging around they can be moved on."
Mr Hallsworth said that in Moscow - unlike London - groups of young people who spent time together in public were not bothered by police and that this had not resulted in higher levels of gang activity.
Some commentators have linked "tagging" - daubing personalised graffiti on walls - with gangs marking out their "turf".
But, Mr Hallsworth said, the practice had been happening for more than a decade and had only recently been linked to violent group behaviour.
He added: "We've had these panics before with mods, rockers, goths. This is the latest.
"Maybe we should understand more and condemn less."
2) By Tom Geoghegan BBC News Magazine Criminal gangs have been around for centuries but police believe they have become more organised in recent years. So how do they operate?
A prior engagement one night 21 years ago prevented Shaun Bailey from a life of crime.
"I can place to the day the point I missed out on becoming an idiot," he recalls. "A group of friends was going to burgle a factory near where I live. I missed it because I was at the cadets and they were all arrested."
Of the group of 12, three are now dead of gun or knife wounds, and others have been involved in "madness" or suffered mental health problems, says Shaun, 35.
He credits his uncle for making him join the Army cadets, which not only saved him that fateful night but taught him to listen to his mother and grandmother's values and less to the "street".
The camaraderie is unbelievable and is a bit like the Army
Shaun BaileyAfter getting a degree, he returned to the west London estates where he grew up and for more than a decade has helped prevent youngsters drifting into gangs and crime, in the knowledge that the line separating a life of purpose and one of violence is a thin one.
But not everyone escapes. Last week the Metropolitan Police identified 169 gangs in London, a quarter of which have been involved in murder.
A gang led by the men who murdered City lawyer Tom ap Rhys Pryce committed at least 150 robberies, and compiled a robbery guide to Underground stations which rated areas according to police presence and victims.
"The nature of gangs in London is changing and we are starting to see more clearly definable gangs - only a couple or a handful at the moment," says Met Police assistant commissioner Steve Round.
Ganging up
Getting into a gang depends on a recommendation, a family connection or a big reputation, says Shaun, and initiation could mean receiving a beating or stabbing someone. The more organised gangs have tattoos and use websites to spread their message.
When is a gang a gang?"It's a loose association and you might see the others every night or once or twice a week. Now and then someone will plan something or say you need to meet.
"There's a real power in it, especially if someone has a problem and you deal with it. The camaraderie is unbelievable and is a bit like the Army. People are dependent on you and you have a role. There's the safety, the friendship and there's the purpose."
A role could be keeping the gun, cutting up the drugs or even fixing the mopeds, he says.
"You're getting affirmation from alpha males. Another man telling you that you are good or worthwhile is very, very important."
Yob culture
Gangs are nothing new, of course. In Victorian times, there were the Scuttlers in Manchester and the Peaky Blinders in Birmingham at a time when, not unlike today, there was a panic about yobbery and hooliganism. But methods have changed.
It's a brutalising environment that seeks to transform the individual into a complete and utter monster
Professor Gus John"In my time robbing adults was a big step and people were very rarely prepared to do that," says Shaun. "Now it's stabbing people to death. My friends waited until they were 20 before they got shot. Now there are more guns and knives."
Professor Gus John, who has studied gang culture in Manchester and London and advised the Home Office on policy, says that in recent years those using guns are getting younger. They are more likely to take the law into their own hands, and geography is playing more of a part in gang warfare, which used to be defined more by conflict over business deals.
Some gangs demand a loyalty test on joining, which in extreme cases could mean committing an act of violence against a family member.
"It's a brutalising environment that seeks to transform the individual from what could be a reasonable, well-adjusted social being into a complete and utter monster."
Gangs are usually between 20 to 30 in number and members aged between 15 and 25, he says, but their activities are hidden and many communities like Moss Side which have gangs are otherwise well-balanced, vibrant places to live.
"It's not as if the community would be intimidated by seeing 30 or 40 people together, necessarily. It's the way in which they operate within sub-cultures that are on the margins of what the rest of the community is seeing."
Rules of behaviour
There are three common means of income - drugs, robbery and handling stolen goods. The leaders are clearly identified in the more organised gangs, says Professor John, and when one is killed or imprisoned, others vie for top spot.
Children hanging around in large groups is the most natural thing in the world - whether they are a gang is about what they're doing
Shaun BaileyAnd despite the brutality, there is a "moral" code which means younger and elderly relatives are usually off-limits.
"Even within the madness there are certain codes and principles that they ascribe to. But they might not respect the grandparent enough not to hide a gun in their house."
People apply the term "gangs" too liberally and should be careful doing that, he believes, because it confers a status which is worn as a badge of honour.
Shaun Bailey believes government plans for tougher sentences for gangs will glamorise and encourage them, and the notion of what defines a gang is not clear.
"Children hanging around in large groups is the most natural thing in the world," he says. "But whether they are a gang is about what they're doing."
He says the estates in North Kensington where he lives and works have "clicks", groups lacking the loyalty, names and codes of violence associated with the gangs which reside a few miles away in White City and Shepherds Bush.
For instance, if a gang member was attacked then the rest are obliged to exact revenge, but in a click they would not - although they may well do anyway, he says.
Clicks can be formed and dissolved instantly, coming together for an event like the Notting Hill Carnival, and may or may not be involved in crime.
But the distinctions may be irrelevant anyway. In Nottingham, even those not members of gangs imitate the behaviour of those who are, says Karl White, who has 24 years experience working with young people in parts of the city where gangs are rife.
"They may not be a gang member but they become dangerous because they do dangerous things because they want to be gangsters."
3) Are the hoodies the goodies?
By Dominic Casciani BBC News community affairs
The mere sight of a hooded teenager is enough to make some people hurriedly cross the road. But appearances can be deceptive. Not every street-wise youth is out to terrorise you. Meet Mr Hoody Two Shoes.
Sharmarke Hersi fits the description. He's tall with cropped hair and wears a hoodie and trainers. And for those whose fear of teenagers is driven by something more troubling still, the colour of his skin will no doubt make them cross the road.
But he's not happy about society's impression of him or his peers. In fact he's pretty angry about it - not least after he was stopped by police officers last year who were looking for a knife-wielding robber in north London.
When the A-level student asked why he had been stopped, he was told he fitted the description of a tall black man wearing a hoodie. If he meets the same officers again, he will be telling them that, subject to getting the grades, he's probably off to study international relations at university.
"It's like some kind of moral panic," he says philosophically. "I was on the train not long ago and a lady was holding her bag tight because of my dress code. You sometimes see people crossing the road to avoid you or putting their phone away."
Sharmarke Hersi: Tackled gangs, soon to tackle universityGang culture and youth crime is something that Sharmarke and his friends grew up seeing around their neck of Camden in north London.
But after one student died in a knife attack in 1994, the head of one of the biggest schools in the area vowed to turn it around and instil in all his young charges a sense of community solidarity. Huw Salisbury, now retired, was nationally recognised for his efforts at South Camden Community School, particularly because of his pioneering work in integrating refugee children into the mainstream. But Sharmarke says it's the former head's mantra of doing what is right for those around you that stuck with him.
Tackling gangs
"My little brother and his friends were hanging around in groups and had nothing to do. There was violence between the white community and the Asian community and people like me, Somali kids, were sort of in the middle. I didn't want to see them following in the footsteps of others, younger boys looking up to the older ones and thinking that gangs were the thing to do."
That's when youth charity Envision turned up. The organisation works with hundreds of teenagers, predominantly in London, and helps them take leading roles in shaping their communities. Unlike most volunteering organisations, it doesn't tell them what to do. Instead, it supports them in all their ideas - good and bad - and teaches them how to negotiate the roadblocks of officialdom which stand in the way.
"You don't know what's going to work sometimes because every school or community is different - but it's about being willing to put some trust [as adults] in someone's ideas
James Williams of Envision
School ban outlaws 'hoodies' In the case of Sharmarke, he wanted to set up a sports club, based around the martial arts he enjoys, to provide a focus and discipline for younger teenagers at risk of getting into gang culture.
Run on a shoe string budget, the project eventually attracted up to 40 people per session - 40 people who could very well have been hanging around on the streets. As a result, gang culture may be a little bit weaker today in one area of north London than it was two years ago.
"We believe that young people have the ideas and we want to take their ideas and turn them into action," says James Williams of Envision.
"You don't know what's going to work sometimes because every school or community is different. But it's about being willing to put some trust [as adults] in someone's ideas."
Active citizens
Demos, a thinktank that looks at what makes communities tick, says Sharmarke's experience and Envision's other projects have wider lessons.
Its new report looks into what makes Britain's most active volunteers. And it argues that fear of hoodie culture, and the branding of teenagers as apathetic or a threat, is damaging efforts to rebuild communities.
Banned:
Hoodies barred from some shopping centresCrucially, argue authors Paul Skidmore and John Craig, society and officialdom's reluctance to listen misses a trick: if government wants to strengthen communities, then people like Sharmarke need the chance to do the work, rather than just be told what to do.
Rather than focus on Asbo-aggro rhetoric, those in power should actually be asking the hoodie two-shoes in society for help in finding the way out.
The report's publication is timely. This month sees the first Children's Commissioner for England sit down at his desk. Professor Al Aynsley-Green argues that government needs to stop consulting young people and start properly involving them in society as citizens, albeit young ones. It's a view shared by Demos' John Craig who says the approach needs to be applied to volunteering.
"Young people expect to be able to engage and participate in communities on their own terms," says John Craig. "They don't want to sit on a committee and so on. Now that's a challenge for politics and politicians because some of the things that they may want to do are difficult to measure in terms of what they do for a community.
"But that's why we called this report Start with People because much more needs to be done to go to young people and challenge preconceptions that we may have.
"There's this desire [in Whitehall] to 'build capacity' into communities. I think that communities and people are pretty capable already and it's the politicians and policy makers who have to learn from them, not the other way around."
Saturday 21 November 2009
On and Off Screen Representation
On and Off screen representation on my critical investigation..
On and off screen representation is something will affect the audience in how they percieve the text and the opinion they get. I will need to consider this during my critical investigation and linked production. When doing my critical investigation I will notice that the representation on teenagers will be affected because off screen their are many moral panics occuring because of knife crime, gangs and the violent culture so during my linked production i will need to analyse this and on screen i will go against the streotype in the ways not all teenagers are gang related but are still young and whill hang around in groups. For example, black and asian teenagers are representated negatively and dangerous. These are both ethnic minoroties as well which shows that it is usually looked at from a white perspective so because of this the public will view teenagers like this, so i will go against that view and represent in a more positive aspect. For my critical investigation, i will be discussing the issues in newspaper articles and how they create moral panics over teenagers. I will be looking closely at the institution and whether it is a white person perspective and will be analysing why they see ethnic minorities as being violent, involved in gangs and crime, i will be going against the streotype but still looking at reasons for why they could be looked at in this way. On and off screen represention of young teenagers are negative as the opinion given is usually by an older white male that gives the public the image of all teenagers to be like this and makes all teenagers not allowed to hang around together of be in a larger group than three, the teenargers represented are all of aethnic minority (black and asian) and this suggests that the public will see teenagers like that.
On and off screen representation is something will affect the audience in how they percieve the text and the opinion they get. I will need to consider this during my critical investigation and linked production. When doing my critical investigation I will notice that the representation on teenagers will be affected because off screen their are many moral panics occuring because of knife crime, gangs and the violent culture so during my linked production i will need to analyse this and on screen i will go against the streotype in the ways not all teenagers are gang related but are still young and whill hang around in groups. For example, black and asian teenagers are representated negatively and dangerous. These are both ethnic minoroties as well which shows that it is usually looked at from a white perspective so because of this the public will view teenagers like this, so i will go against that view and represent in a more positive aspect. For my critical investigation, i will be discussing the issues in newspaper articles and how they create moral panics over teenagers. I will be looking closely at the institution and whether it is a white person perspective and will be analysing why they see ethnic minorities as being violent, involved in gangs and crime, i will be going against the streotype but still looking at reasons for why they could be looked at in this way. On and off screen represention of young teenagers are negative as the opinion given is usually by an older white male that gives the public the image of all teenagers to be like this and makes all teenagers not allowed to hang around together of be in a larger group than three, the teenargers represented are all of aethnic minority (black and asian) and this suggests that the public will see teenagers like that.
Research for my critical investigation
Last Updated: Tuesday, 1 March, 2005, 16:07 GMT
Gang culture threat 'overblown'
By Justin Parkinson BBC News education reporter
British children 'rarely carry weapons' Gang culture is seen as a problem by one in five of England's secondary schools according to a report by the education watchdog Ofsted.
It comes amid concern over levels of disruption and even violence in the classroom and playground.
Stories of weapons checks and drug tests at schools do little to alleviate fears.
But criminologist Simon Hallsworth thinks Britain's political parties are fuelling a "moral panic".
'Fuelling suspicion'
Attitudes to young people - particularly those from poor or ethnic minority backgrounds - had been negatively affected, he told BBC News.
Levels of violent crime had actually fallen but politicians had attempted to out-do each other to appear "tough on crime".
Mr Hallsworth, director of London Metropolitan University's centre for social evaluation and research, said: "The idea of gangs can be dangerous.
"Young people here are only doing what they have always done.
"Only America has an established gang culture. Young people here carry guns very rarely indeed.
Kids are suffering. It's like we are criminalising being young
Simon Hallsworth, criminologist
"Even where there are gangs, such as in parts of south Manchester, members tend not to join until they are 18 to 21."
Mr Hallsworth has carried out research in deprived parts of Hackney, east London.
He found that, although young people hung around together, there was no "gang culture".
He said: "Standing with trousers down to your crutch and your hood on does not make you a member of a gang.
"Some of the poor kids I spoke to were excluded from everything. They were living in homes they shouldn't have to live in and were being called anti-social. Police were moving them on.
"Now we have Asbos [anti-social behaviour orders], which are draconian and politicians are competing to see who can seem the most 'anti-crime'.
"Kids are suffering. It's like we are criminalising being young.
"People branded the usual suspects as gang members. There were black kids and Bangladeshi groups being labelled.
"Young kids are doing what they have always done. Nowadays, when there are three or more of them hanging around they can be moved on."
Mr Hallsworth said that in Moscow - unlike London - groups of young people who spent time together in public were not bothered by police and that this had not resulted in higher levels of gang activity.
Some commentators have linked "tagging" - daubing personalised graffiti on walls - with gangs marking out their "turf".
But, Mr Hallsworth said, the practice had been happening for more than a decade and had only recently been linked to violent group behaviour.
He added: "We've had these panics before with mods, rockers, goths. This is the latest.
"Maybe we should understand more and condemn less."
Gang culture threat 'overblown'
By Justin Parkinson BBC News education reporter
British children 'rarely carry weapons' Gang culture is seen as a problem by one in five of England's secondary schools according to a report by the education watchdog Ofsted.
It comes amid concern over levels of disruption and even violence in the classroom and playground.
Stories of weapons checks and drug tests at schools do little to alleviate fears.
But criminologist Simon Hallsworth thinks Britain's political parties are fuelling a "moral panic".
'Fuelling suspicion'
Attitudes to young people - particularly those from poor or ethnic minority backgrounds - had been negatively affected, he told BBC News.
Levels of violent crime had actually fallen but politicians had attempted to out-do each other to appear "tough on crime".
Mr Hallsworth, director of London Metropolitan University's centre for social evaluation and research, said: "The idea of gangs can be dangerous.
"Young people here are only doing what they have always done.
"Only America has an established gang culture. Young people here carry guns very rarely indeed.
Kids are suffering. It's like we are criminalising being young
Simon Hallsworth, criminologist
"Even where there are gangs, such as in parts of south Manchester, members tend not to join until they are 18 to 21."
Mr Hallsworth has carried out research in deprived parts of Hackney, east London.
He found that, although young people hung around together, there was no "gang culture".
He said: "Standing with trousers down to your crutch and your hood on does not make you a member of a gang.
"Some of the poor kids I spoke to were excluded from everything. They were living in homes they shouldn't have to live in and were being called anti-social. Police were moving them on.
"Now we have Asbos [anti-social behaviour orders], which are draconian and politicians are competing to see who can seem the most 'anti-crime'.
"Kids are suffering. It's like we are criminalising being young.
"People branded the usual suspects as gang members. There were black kids and Bangladeshi groups being labelled.
"Young kids are doing what they have always done. Nowadays, when there are three or more of them hanging around they can be moved on."
Mr Hallsworth said that in Moscow - unlike London - groups of young people who spent time together in public were not bothered by police and that this had not resulted in higher levels of gang activity.
Some commentators have linked "tagging" - daubing personalised graffiti on walls - with gangs marking out their "turf".
But, Mr Hallsworth said, the practice had been happening for more than a decade and had only recently been linked to violent group behaviour.
He added: "We've had these panics before with mods, rockers, goths. This is the latest.
"Maybe we should understand more and condemn less."
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