SHOTTA-DEM ON ROADS: London’s gang violence – a personal commentary

(C) London Metropolitan University

By Vijay Shah

For two years, I was living in a rented terraced house in Forest Gate, east London. It was a tiny property built over an old graveyard and tucked away in the backstreets, and only a short stroll from the border with the neighbouring borough of Waltham Forest. It was a friendly enough area with a deep sense of community, but it was also very rough and ‘ghetto’. As is common with other inner city areas in London, there was a gang problem. While a local youth centre and an active grime music scene helped kept some teenagers busy, others remained loyal to their respective gangs or to the lifestyle of the streets, of the ” ‘hood”. There were tensions between the youths in our part of the ‘Gate’, some of whom I know personally, and gangs from the nearby council estates across the…