"After riots, London police move to stem gang violence" November 25, 2011|By Karla Adam, Washington Post
LONDON - The predawn raid last month was part of the London Metropolitan Police’s new antigang strategy, and the sheer size of the overall operation, 200 officers fanning out to 17 homes of suspected gang members, drove home a new seriousness on the part of authorities about tackling gang violence.
It's always something, isn't it? Any justification for the club.
Ever stop and think that the POLICE are the BIGGEST and MOST-ARMED GANG?
Britain’s gang problem shot to the top of the national agenda in August after riots in which mobs torched town centers and looted shops in major cities around England.
Makes you WONDER WHO was REALLY BEHIND THOSE ACTS, cui bono?
As shocked Britons began a heated debate about how best to combat disorder, Prime Minister David Cameron declared an “all-out war on gangs,’’ although fewer than 20 percent of the 2,914 people arrested in the riots have proved to be linked to the violent groups.
How many wars you have going now? But the British social safety net needs shredding so banksters can get paid?
Some critics have called Cameron’s approach misdirected. But British officials have defended it, arguing that gangs bore a disproportionate responsibility for the mayhem and that their influence has proved devastating in poorer communities.
Why is there such poverty in the West, huh?
Britain has a long history of gangs, but street gangs similar to those in the United States began to emerge prominently only in the 1970s.
Experts say that gangs in London tend to be less hierarchical than those in the United States and that many are driven primarily by fierce loyalty to their neighborhoods, particularly public-housing sites.
The strategy being used by London police draws heavily on lessons from the United States, including a 1990s police project in Boston called Operation Ceasefire that coincided with a spectacular reduction in the city’s homicide rate.
That's actually been rising over the last decade, but who cares about facts when a police-state agenda needs a shove?
London’s Operation Connect is an expansion of a pilot program that began in April. It calls for authorities to present reputed gang members with an ultimatum: exit the gang or risk the full weight of the law, such as the early morning raid, whose targets had dismissed the hand-delivered warning sent a week earlier by the local police commissioner.
Under the plan, those who agree to leave gangs would be offered job training and other assistance, including family relocation.
But at least one former gang leader in London has warned that the new outreach effort could fail because of tensions between police and the minority community.
The police have “done so much grief to the community, especially the black community, they aren’t never going to get trust from anyone,’’ said Elijah Kerr, who once led one of the most feared gangs in Britain.
Same over here.
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Related: Blessed British Protesters
