Gangs and Knife Crime

bristol | drugs and crime | event notice Thursday August 12, 2010 20:44 by Dave - Bristol SWP

Who is really to blame?

PUBLIC MEETING

7.30pm Wednesday 18th August
@ Easton Community Centre, Kilburn Street

Speaker: Matt Clement

Two Bristol teenagers, one Afro-Caribbean and one Somali have died from knife attacks over the last year.

Bristol, like many other UK cities, has seen a rise in teenage violence - particularly knife crime - since the onset of the 2008 recession. As jobs for young people become harder to find, those likely to have been excluded from school and lacking the socialisation of education find their chances of legitimate careers are marginalised. In poorer parts of cities the informal economy has filled the gap with a growing phenomenon of a minority of young people 'ganging together' in territorial contests for control of local markets.

Matt Clement, a worker with young offenders, recounts his experience and ideas about this growth of poverty and 'advanced marginality'. Does America's more extreme situation herald the future in the UK and Europe?'

Organised by Bristol SWP