This radio programme examines the effect of gang culture on young people today, focusing on a North London estate, Stonebridge. He visits the estate he had previously been to 20 years earlier whilst looing into drugs and gangs, but this time he goes with an academic colleague of his, Suzella.
Suzella's son Zane is involved with a gang himself. She uses him as a subject for her own research, she lectures on criminology. Zane has been excluded and put in a young offenders institute following a stabbing. Suzella blames herself for encouraging him to make friends in the local area and says there was no option but for him to get involved with a gang - the pressure on him as a young black male in that area was incredible.
The physical landscape (introduction of low-rise buildings and the boarded-up shops) is discussed, as in Heale's book.
They meet a local 'moving on' figure who discusses how easy it is to get hold of a gun now, it's just part of everyday life. Young people now have grown up around violence, they don' know any different.
Interestingly Zane and Suzella say that there's nothing wrong with gangs being a 'surrogate family' - it's about protection and is not a negative thing. She feels helpless that she can't protect her son when he's out on the streets.
A pioneering programme, EXIT, set up by Julia Walton in Brixton after a fatal incident. It aims to inspire and empower young people to achieve better things. Julia discusses the prejudices facing young people in society today.
Suzella discusses how kids are seen as feral, but they actually feel that it is about self-defence and there's a breakdown of social and moral boundaries in their lives.
Zane's response to the punitive government reaction to violence is very negative; he says that life for him is already restricted as he can't move around London freely, so prison is just an extension of this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search/?q=gangs,%20guns%20and%20families
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