| Everytime I go into the city and see someone I don't know, I fear they will hit me. |
Children's Express reporters investigate the story behind Londonderry's so called growing reputation for violence by young people on young people.
As young people looking at the situation we face in Londonderry today, is it any wonder we are sometimes afraid to walk our own streets. With violence "supposedly" on the rise and teenagers getting the blame we decided to look at the problem more closely. It was almost by magic when we had finished our story this week that the results of a report on CCTV emerged, which dispelled the myth that Londonderry is the most violent place in the north.
During our research and interviews it opened our minds to hear the opinions of people who have been involved in or have been the victim of anti-social behaviour. It is easy to lay the blame on "rebellious youths" and overlook the underlying problems that cause these attacks to happen in the first place.
We will admit there are a percentage of attacks carried out by youths but why are they getting involved in this behaviour in the first place? Where are the headlines about that? When starting this story we set out to prove a point but as it developed the need for information took over. Ignorance is a big factor in developing these stereotypes so the more we found out the better.
Ruth is 18. As she explains she got involved in anti-social behaviour at a very young age. "I suppose I started getting involved when I was 8 or 9, just in minor stuff, it just escalated from one thing to another and once you start you want to build a reputation for yourself and then you get stuck with that reputation. At the start it would have been boredom and then it just became fun"
It didn't take long for the problem to get worse however. "I just kept on going and thought f**k it. I honestly don't know how many attacks I have been involved in. I can safely say there wasn't a day that I wasn't doing something. I was being brought home by the police 2 or 3 times a day and a soon as they dropped me off at the door I was away again."
Ruth feels if she hadn't been taken through the courts she would still be caught up in trouble today. "Even now I still feel like it was just a bit of crack. I was facing jail at one stage and that didn't even wake me up. It was losing family members and reflecting on life and learning how crime affects your whole family, not being trusted. That all kind of kicked in and then I thought 'no' and walked away."
Peter McLone was first the victim of an attack in Londonerry 3 years ago, when he was only 18. He is still convinced that it was largely down to the fact that he was gay. "I knew of them (my attackers). My attacker knew I was gay because my friend and me were having a laugh, carrying on and then when my friend jumped over the fence to go home they attacked me."
It hasn't been the only time that he has been attacked. "I actually have been attacked after that a couple of times and I try to avoid it now. Every time I go into the city and I see someone I don't know I fear they will hit me. Its just a fear that goes through me 24-7."
Peter feels people cant just go on ignoring the problem. "My advice is if you ever were attacked don't just live with it go to the police or get counselling if you need it. There are support groups so don't let them get away with it."
Peter Quinn is a Project Manager for the Youth Justice Agency. He manages a small group of staff for a new project that has just been set up in the city and they work with young people under the age of eighteen who either are at risk of offending or have offended.
Peter is confident that despite common beliefs instances of a violent nature are decreasing. "I would be aware that from January this year up until present, just restricting it to the number of young people who are coming through the police cautioning system, I think the figure was 135 young people who came to police attention for violent offences since January and that has significantly gone down from the same period last year".
He points to possible negative stereotyping as being a reason for this common misconception. "Well there certainly is no doubt that there is a perception among the community that young people are troublesome, trouble makers and liable to be unpredictable, possibly violent and intimidating. I suppose that probably has never changed."
"The amazing thing is that if you read some of the literature that's about going back even decades ago you will see references to exactly the same things. Now in the current climate unfortunately that has been taken up a run and there is definitely a fear of crime. The reality is that certainly research and statistics down the line show that there isn't really the substance to back that up.
"In other words the actual numbers of crimes and the different types of crimes and the levels of crimes aren't substantially increased compared to even ten or twenty years ago when you take them pro-rata for the number of people in the area, but what you do have is certainly a much stronger conviction that crime is much more of an issue than it ever was in the so called 'good old days'."
Peter also points to changes in the youth justice system as positive moves being made to combat the problem. "They (young offenders) exist within a family so we look at the parenting of the young person. We look at the family of the young person. They exist within an education system so we look at the school or the education setting that they are in."
"We look at all the other sort of professionals that may be involved with them, we look at the community that they are actually working in and we work with all those systems and we try to add value to whatever system we actually become involved in. The reason behind this is that we very much believe that a large percentage that we see from the young people is symptomatic offending, in other words it's not the main issue, it's not the main problem".
Ruth advises any young person to think twice before getting involved in anti-social behaviour. "Think about it! Think about the consequences, when you go through life and you don't think and then your faced with them, it's not nice. Think about what you are doing, how it affects your brothers and sisters, your parents, your friends everybody!"
About the team
This story was produced by Nicole Lynch, 14, and Damien Duddy, 15. It was published by the Northwest Telegraph
