The Leader of the Council's online diary - November 2007
5 November 2007
Residents in Lambeth are worried about the recent gang-related shootings across South London. I met Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to talk about Lambeth's approach to tackling the problem.
As Leader of the Council, I've set up a Commission into Gangs and Guns chaired by my colleague Councillor Lorna Campbell. The commission includes members of the community as well as representatives from the police and other public sector agencies. Their report is due to publish later in November and will form the basis of an action plan that we're hoping to agree with all our partners at a summit in January. We hope to agree an over-arching strategy on guns and gangs that has support from the whole community.
The commission is looking at how to curb the violence through tougher action against drugs and more visible policing in hot spots as well as dealing with the social issues of exclusion and alienation that push a small minority of young people into gang-related violence. The themes the commission is exploring include tackling the drugs trade and reducing the supply of guns, as well as how we can give more children from deprived backgrounds access to better education and job training. I explained to the Home Secretary how we're investing in better youth services to give young people more positive things to do as well as targeting support at young people drifting into crime. She shared my view that by working together we can and must stop the upsurge in gang-related violence.
Jacqui Smith was particularly interested in our proposals to tackle street drug-dealing by issuing anyone convicted of buying or selling drugs on our streets with an ASBO and then naming them publicly to deter others. She offered to send her top gangs advisor to talk to us and help with some of our projects and offered to come down herself to see some of the work we're doing to make Lambeth safer. I was very impressed by the Home Secretary's positive and helpful approach. We can now look forward to even closer cooperation between Lambeth and the Home Office to tackle violence on our streets.
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