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Gun violence terrorises our communities and neighbourhoods and has created an epidemic of fear amongst our young people in key cities across the UK.

I have witnessed over the past fifteen to twenty years the evolution of gun crime in the UK from crack cocaine to gangs; from informants to witnesses; from Jamaican nationals to British born blacks; from drug dealers to youths and disrespect; from backdoor execution style murders to the gunning down in public venues and places.

Guns have gone from being the tool of the crack cocaine criminal to the everyday fashionable accessory, easily accessible that young people want to be seen with. It is not even the image of '50 cents' that they are now mimicking, it has simply become for some people a way of life, part of the culture of being part of a gang and worryingly seen as a 'viable career option'. The gun is now a status symbol amongst too many young people demanding respect and power.

When our children are rolling off the mortuary conveyor belt our response is too late. We have a fundamental duty to protect our young people from crime and from the fear of crime.

Sadly British society has failed far too many of our young people and Black young people in particular have fared particularly badly, they are literally terrified on our streets and in our neighbourhoods looking for any means necessary to defend themselves.

The statistics are alarming, over 50% of homicides are of Black people, with murder being one of the highest causes of deaths amongst Black males, 20-29 years of age, increasingly as we have seen with the recent murders in London, those between the ages of 13 – 19 years of age feature high amongst the statistics.

The communities of Peckham and Streatham are in a state of shock, similar to that experienced in Birmingham after the shooting of Laetitia Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis in 2003.

I have spent over twenty years working at the frontline of inner city life, the past ten of which, as Vice-Chair of the Operation Trident Independent Advisory Group. Twenty years ago as a frontline community worker a significant issue that I had to deal with was the proliferation and growth of 'pirate radio stations' amongst the young.

Having the necessary street credibility meant that you would often be invited to see some of the 'positive work' with young people being done by them in the name of 'pirate radio', I was often shown this underground world, which paradoxically often transmitted conscious anti-crime messages.

It wasn't a world that I necessarily participated in or condoned and sometimes I was genuinely frightened by all the secret dark hideouts that I was guided into, but nonetheless it allowed me to work, from where they were at, with some very talented young people, whom had long been written off, guiding them to use that talent to their benefit and not to their detriment.

Apart from the police through their unfair use of stop and search, some of the other immediate dangers for this generation of young people included the proliferation of drugs and in particular crack cocaine dealers, almost exclusively adults who acquired guns to protect their criminal activity.

I viewed my role, along with others as protecting those young people from these dangers, standing shoulder to shoulder with them. My work was 'issue based' and firmly rooted on the streets and in the neighbourhoods of our inner cities.

Sadly, these days if I go back to some of those areas Chapletown, Leeds; Handsworth, Birmingham; Hyson Green & St Anns, Nottingham I am often confronted with a different more dangerous reality were the decimation of funding over the years has seen huge cut backs in frontline detached youth and community work, community campaigns and after school clubs etc…

A generation of young people have clearly grown up unprotected. Too many know where, whom and how to obtain a gun. Things could have been worse, faith based organisations and groups and other community volunteers had stepped up to the challenge to meet the social and care needs of young people in the fight against gun crime, in the same way that Black organisations had to develop their own self-help long before the statutory agencies and mainstream media took an interest.

Our young people present themselves to us with toxic symptoms of poor self-image, and lack of self-esteem. Their vulnerability has too often been captured by the power of the gun culture. Too many of our young people have been systematically lured over the years into a brutal, gun-wielding murderous lifestyle with promises of fast money, wealth, false glamour and the promise of 'respect'.

Gun crime has become one of the biggest topical debates within Black communities, for example, there are many rumours and theories abound as to why the police were caught sleeping on the night of the brutal murder of young Jason Fearon outside Turnmills nightclub in Islington, London, including the dangerous notion that this was somehow part of a deliberate psycho political campaign against Black people.

The police it would appear failed to act on the intelligence received via Crimestoppers from a member of the public who provided details, naming the target, venue, time, date, location, the motive and even the type of weapon likely to be used. The response from the police to deploy an empty marked vehicle outside the club was seen as a kick in the teeth, as though Black lives were cheap.

However, the question that often vexes those in the community most is what would motivate one Black person to take the life of another, through the violent use of guns. Controversially, Amos N Wilson the author of "the development psychology of the Black child" in his book entitled "Black-on-Black violence" argues that '….black men kill each other because they have not yet chosen to challenge and neutralise on every front, the widespread power of white men to rule over their lives..'.

Wilson argues that white supremacy and institutional racism lies at the heart of the problem. Other more sombre propositions from a wide range of sociologists and criminologists point to wider socio-economic factors of unemployment, lack of adequate education and skills, poverty, 'dysfunctional homes', lack of government commitment and lack of investment in youth provision etc.

Whatever the rational or reasons, it is clear that the culture of gun crime is all consuming and affects whole communities and neighbourhoods, nobody is excluded, the gun does not discriminate in its effect. Urgent multi-dimensional, multi-agency, cross sector action is required.

Tackling youth crime and prevention requires innovation, dynamism and risk in order to reach the hearts and minds of young people who are invariably media savvy and use mobile and internet technology with great precision. Only the sustained involvement of all agencies, communities and parents, working together across all nationalities will bring an end to this insidious growth.

Claudia Webbe

claudia.webbe@gmail.com