The church has a crucial role to play in putting a stop to gun and knife crime in the UK, says a leading criminologist.
Dr John Pitts told the Baptist Union’s Bite the Bullet conference on Saturday that gun and knife crime was affecting particularly young black people on deprived social housing estates.
“The world is very different for a black family than a white family,” said Dr Pitts, who directs the Vauxhall Centre for the Study of Crime.
He said, however, that many young people only joined gangs “reluctantly” and that it was not uncommon for young people to avoid going outside because of the pressure from local gangs to “rep [represent] their end”.
“Social and youth workers say they and parents feel powerless because of the lure of life in gangs,” he said.
Dr Pitts said there was a direct link between the global drugs trade “and what’s happening on our streets”, with many gang members involved in selling drugs and even non-gang members finding themselves in some way dependent on the drug trade.
“In some places drugs sustain families and that is a serious problem,” he said.
People living on the estates, he continued, were reluctant to report their activities to the police because of a longstanding distrust towards the authorities.
“Hostility to the police and authorities means that many people, while not condoning gangs, won’t go to the police … they feel blamed by police.”
Dr Pitts called for a political shift, saying that politicians in areas affected by gangs needed to start listening to the concerns of their constituencies.
He said local churches could act as a “bridge” between alienated communities and the politicians serving them.
