The gangs of Glasgow may have their history in folklore but for too many youngsters in the city they are still a part of everyday life … and sometimes death.
On the first day of a major five-part series, JASPER HAMILL looks at today’s gang culture and what is being done to tackle the problem.
Hundreds of Glasgow youngsters are still trapped in the miserable cycle of gang violence across the city.
As many as 4000 young men are involved at some level with an estimated 170 gangs that plague the city.
Much has been done to reduce the number of young people involved, but gang culture still leaves many communities in fear.
Recent groundbreaking work by Strathclyde Police has cut the number of reported large-scale gang fights, but young men are still banding together to fight a never-ending battle to defend their territory.
And this week the Evening Times is carrying out a major investigation into gang violence, as well as its effects on communities and what is being done to combat it.
We will hear:
- Gang members in Easterhouse reveal the grim realities of day-to-day gang warfare, which claims victims across the city.
- A community describes its fears after street gangs from outside the area began descending in force to drink, fight and openly sell drugs.
- One man’s battle to stop the gangs that have dominated his community, and what the city could learn from his example.
Chief Inspector Robert Stevenson leads the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence, which tackles gang culture.
He said: “These are boys from impoverished backgrounds with really sad lives. The gang can often be all they’ve got.”
“They fight one another for pathetic reasons and during the course of that, someone will get seriously injured.
“Gangs often don’t have a hierarchy, don’t have a leader, don’t have someone instructing them.
“If someone tells you he’s the leader of a gang, that is only true in their imagination. Gangs will often feature Protestant and Catholic, Rangers and Celtic fans, who will fight in the name of the gang.
“They fight to defend their territory, not for any other reasons. They don’t exist for criminal enterprise, to protect a drugs market or prostitution or anything like that. They just engage in violence to defend their territory.”
This makes Glasgow gangs unique. Most organised groups in other cities, such as Manchester or London, are slightly older, with some sort of financial reason to get together.
Gangs in Glasgow simply want to hurt each other and they often don’t know why. Some have picked up the battle where their parents and even grandparents left off.
They tend to be young, white men, aged between their early teens and early 20s. Although girls are known to associate themselves with gangs, they do not tend to form significant groups of their own.
There is some evidence of asylum seekers forming into groups, but police are currently confident that they will not become Glasgow-style gangs.
Gangs in different parts of the cities are made up differently. In the north, for instance, they tend to have younger members than the east. Boys as young as eight have been seen with gangs, although the youngest are generally sued to carry weapons and do not fight.
Police have observed them running behind the other gang members, carrying bricks or other weapons to give to older fighters.
The police have taken steps towards eliminating gang violence. They have successfully turned gang no-go areas such as Barrowfield into “walk-through zones”, which rival gangs can walk through without fear of attack.
They have also taken strong action and arrested thousands. One of these successes was demonstrated by the reduction in violence at the notorious Castlemilk hole-in- the-wall.
Police successfully conducted surveillance operations and then made almost 20 arrests, meaning violence and anti-social behaviour dropped significantly.
They successfully monitor Bebo, the social networking site, and identify gang “hotspots” as they spring up and then watch the area using CCTV or undercover police. If there is a chance of violence, they flood the area with officers.
As a consequence of this new work, violence now tends to be impulsive and small-scale, rather than organised battles. But the sad legacy of violence using blades, fists or whatever comes to hand can still be seen among young men.
Ian Holland, a consultant maxillofacial surgeon and specialist in facial trauma at the Southern General, sees about five serious facial injuries a week, although he admits there is no reliable way of telling whether the victims were members of gang violence or just “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
Previous figures have claimed that up to a thousands people are slashed in the city each year.
The injuries Holland sees are often severe, disfiguring knife wounds. He said: “I saw one man that was cut by a Stanley knife from hairline to lower lip, across the whole aspect of the face.”
He added: “In some cases, today’s victim can be tomorrow’s perpetrator.”
Often the worst injuries come from machetes, which are weighty enough to smash bones as well as cut flesh. The scars they leave are horrific.
Holland added: “The ones that cause us the most problem are when nerves get cut. If you have a scar made by any sharp instrument, you will always have a scar, it will always be visible.
“There are often other underlying issues. If a nerve that moves your face gets cut, a bystander will clearly be able to tell your face is not moving properly.”
