Ross Kemp on Gangs - Liverpool

[Gemma]

dont know if anyone watched it on sky1 but it was shocking for others
i know all that they said on there but thats the kind that i work with
they are kids fighting kids and they are messed up by their family's
they learn from their elders and its not on
some of those kids i recognised and heard talk about the programme
and it sickens me to think that im working with those sorts of people

dno what anyone else thought from a viewers opinion...

hi. my first post on here and was equally as shocked. I lived in norris green in the early 90's as a young man. It was always bad, and it does not surprise me that it has stepped up a gear from what I knew to what we have seen tonight. Unfortunatey the main cause for most issues in the area, be it gang violence, drug abuse, alcoholism, theft and the like lie predominantly with poverty. The area, as every other run down, urban place in the country that Ross Kemp mentioned at the end of the show, has for too long been left out due to lack of money from the government which itself has been the cause of depression. As these people have become more depressed, their anger has grown. So to blame the parents? I disagree. To blame the individuals? Yes and no. Obviously the focus now is how to make a drastic about turn.
Matrix is clearly not working. Fighting violence with a different type of force, is at the end of the day, force. Did anyone like being told what to do as a teenager? We rebelled and always will do. This was highlighted when the gang members where asked what they thought of Matrix.
The only solution I can see, and it is the best, yet most costly, and is probably completely unfeasable which is why in my opinion the problem will remain in the area for many years to come, is to do what they did with Southgate in Runcorn. A complete knock down of the estate, rehouse and rebuild. Like Norris green, Southgate when it was first built was considered a fantastic area to live, however was left to rot. As Croxteth and Norris Green have also been left. The council took incentive to flatten and rebuild and as far as I am aware, crime is no longer a focal point as it once was.
I feel for the boys concerned and know how it is to have to live up to the hard man image that is essential for survival on these estates. So much so that no longer is it just an image, that it has become culture. Engraved into their very DNA, and that is almost impossible to undo.
Lets for example take 1 family. Rehouse them on the Dorset coast. Give them a nice house, with nice neighbours and jobs. I suggest that that family may never see the inside of a prison cell again. However, a tradesman is only as good as the tools he has to work with and my heart go out to you and your team, and the wall you face in bringing back a city where we can say "There's no better people in the world than the people in Liverpool".
I wish you luck, and sorry for the essay