London by Victoria R. Williams

Author:Victoria R. Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2022-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Police officers on the beat in London. The city’s centralized police force (the Metropolitan Police) was established in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel. For this reason, London’s police are sometimes referred to as “bobbies.” (Mark Sepple/Dreamstime.com)

Recent data analysis reveals that young Black men are more likely to be affected by violence in London, both as victims and offenders. This analysis has not considered whether the men were also more likely to reside in areas characterized by high rates of violence. Across London, violence is most common in areas that experience high rates of entrenched deprivation. Historical data reveals a strong correlation between poverty and violence, and in London there does seem to be a link between area-level deprivation and violence: three-quarters of the London Boroughs that experience the highest levels of violence appear in the top ten most deprived boroughs and have higher proportions of children living in poverty than the London average. Additionally, analysis by the Greater London Authority (GLA) shows rates of youth violence highest in boroughs that have high rates of long-term unemployment, low educational attainment rates, high numbers of residents who receive universal credit (a UK state benefit for people who are unemployed or on a low income), a high rate of mortgage nonpayment, more people earning less than the minimum wage, and higher rates of homelessness. London’s high-violence neighborhoods also suffer greater barriers to accommodation and services, more health problems, and worse living conditions, including poorer quality housing and more air pollution.

The presence of gangs in some parts of London may explain the levels of violence in some neighborhoods, for in London, gangs exist in areas with the highest levels of poverty, higher numbers of migrants, lowest house prices, and lowest average education attainment levels. Poverty and a lack of community cohesion have led to gangs operating in these London neighborhoods and attract organized criminal activity from outside. Researchers have discovered that in London, knife crime may be especially associated with gangs and that the more gangs operate in an area, the higher the rate of knife crime, increasing the prevalence of knife crime between 15 percent and 35 percent.21 The deprivation of some parts of London and their vulnerability to the presence of gangs run deep, for around half of London’s poorest areas were also the poorest neighborhoods over a century ago. Similarly, the areas of London in which gangs operate today were identified as poor in 1898 and 1900. According to a commissioned government report titled “Violence in London,” in 2020, it is not possible to explain the seemingly established relationship between neighborhood poverty, weak social cohesion, and individuals’ vulnerability to involvement in gang activity. The report also could not explain concretely why some neighborhoods have a continued gang presence despite their populations changing significantly over time.22 Possible explanations for a relationship between local poverty, weak community cohesion, and a location’s vulnerability to gangs include poor planning of the built environment, a lack of access to transport, long-term underinvestment in services, and the

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