As with all grand political announcements, especially when an election is on the horizon, the devil is in the detail. And the Mayor of London’s visit to The Marcus Lipton youth centre in Loughborough Junction last week is a case in point.
There he announced a £30 million promise to set up a youth club in every London borough.
Sir Sadiq Khan says he hopes the £1 million investment in every borough will help stop at-risk youngsters from falling into a life of gangs and crime. But the announcement on April 8 came just days after 26-year-old Aurelio Mejia was pronounced dead outside a nightclub in Ruby Street, off the Old Kent Road and in same week as 14-year-old of schoolboy Eghosa Ogbedor lost his life on the streets of South London.
Just hours after making the announcement and just streets away from The Marcus Lipton Centre, that very evening, a 17-year-old was rushed to hospital in a triple shooting in Camberwell. What’s more nearby Clapham has witnessed rampaging teenagers and mass shoplifting overwhelming security guards.
So, despite the fact that latest figures show knife crime and homicides are down with the Mayor’s insistence that London is safe, you would be forgiven for fearing the worse, as summer fast approaches and crime traditionally rises.
Khan is right that the murder rate has dropped from last year, but as we found in our recent deep dive into the figures on knife crime, some of the stats show a worrying trend. While knife crime is down, knife-point robbery is on the up, which is obviously worrying, as it is more likely to affect people not involved in criminality than knife crime between gang members.
It also reinforces the aged-old analogy that poverty breeds crime. Khan rightly acknowledges that 81 youth clubs have closed in the capital between 2010-2024 and of course blames the previous Conservative government for ‘starving them of cash’. But will £1 million per borough make any real impact? Well of course not.
But, if this intension is backed up with more funding and working inline with his Violence Reduction Unit, set up in 2019, you’d hope it is just one piece of a much bigger jigsaw. A jigsaw which will focus on prevention by giving young people valuable things to do, while supporting police to enforce the law.
The Met’s recent focus on anti-social behaviour has gone a long way to smashing gangs who were targeting local businesses and stealing and threatening shop workers. This and incidents of emergency workers being abused has gone on for far too long.
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Low-level crime leads to fear and higher levels of crime further down the road. And this is true for youngsters having little to do or nowhere to go.
But, looking at this £30 million package you have to do worry about the detail. Part of the mayor’s ‘Youth Lates’ programme is that at least one late-night youth club will be available in every borough by sometime later this year. But there is no specific city-wide ‘closing time’ mandated.
All we know currently is that the programme is built to address the lack of safe spaces during “high-risk” late evening hours when traditional clubs typically close, offering a mix of sports, music production, mentorship, mental health support, and free food.
Here at Southwark News we will over the coming months look at exactly what this will mean and exactly where that money will be spent.
