As Met prepares to launch taskforce, commander says there are around 250 gangs active, with 60 causing greatest harm
A gang expert warned on Thursday of the unprecedented "toxic potential" for increasing numbers of young people to join gangs in the UK as the economic downturn bites.
Comments by Rob Owen, chief executive of the St Giles Trust, were echoed by a senior police officer in London, who warned there was no end in sight to the issue of serious youth violence within gangs.
Commander Steve Rodhouse spoke as the Metropolitan police prepares a major announcement on the creation of an anti-gang taskforce. The initiative will see Trident — the Met's specialist unit responsible for investigating shootings and gun homicides within the black community — overhauled to be at the centre of the operation, as revealed by the Guardian.
In preparation for the launch of the taskforce, detectives from Trident and the homicide command have been on specialist training this week in Coventry, the Guardian understands.
The focus on gangs comes as Home Office figures revealed police numbers have fallen by 6,000 in a year, and are now the lowest for a decade. But there is no new Home Office money for the Met police's gang project, despite the prime minister calling for the focus to turn to gangs following the summer riots.
Rob Owen, whose St Giles Trust works with ex-gang members, said the conditions existed as never before for more young people to join gangs.
Owen was speaking at the inaugural meeting of the police and crime committee, which was set up with the creation in London of the office of police and crime commissioner.
"Never before has there been such a toxic potential to see gangs expand," he said.
"With what's happening in the economy right now and with the polarisation in London and across Britain … with groups in society breaking away; that's fertile ground for more gang members to get involved and that is a great concern."
Rodhouse, who is at the forefront of the Met police's new anti-gang taskforce, told the committee that in London there were around 250 gangs active, with 60 causing the greatest harm.
Serious youth violence rose by 9.5% over six months compared with last year.
Met figures show 88% of gangs are involved in violence and individuals linked to gangs are responsible for 16% of the capital's total drug supply, nearly a fifth of stabbings, half of all shootings and 14% of all rapes.
Almost one in five of those arrested in London during the riots last summer were gang members.
"I don't see any forseeable end (to the problem)," Rodhouse said. "It is going to be an enduring challenge."
The Met police will draw on its existing gang initiatives, which have taken ideas from the Boston ceasefire project — and put them together to create a more "ambitious" approach, he said.
But the leader of Waltham Forest council, which with the police runs a pioneering project to offer young people an exit out of gangs along with tough enforcement action, said the reductions in police numbers did matter when it came to tackling the problem.
"Numbers of police officers are important. If you are talking about a taking 10% off the streets in my borough it will have an impact."