This article points to a primary reason why violence is so rampant in developing countries & increasing at a fast rate in developed countries, too. The primary reason for youths & young people to join gangs, or simply be involved in street violence, is the spreading hopelessness for their future, which in turn, is happening because of increasing poverty & a lack of respectable work opportunities.
There's a saying that an empty mind is a devil's abode. As long as a person, especially a young one, keep himself / herself busy, they will be happy. Problem is with what are they keeping themselves busy. Is it something constructive or destructive?
Many of these youths are uneducated. It's not because they don't want any education, but because, the education system has become so expensive everywhere around the world that, even in the developed countries of North America & Europe (except a few countries), a youth & his / her family has to think twice before going to a post-secondary institution. Due to economic reasons, if he / she chooses something else over education, then cycle of violence starts. Heck, even if he / she is educated, he / she may still chooses to be involved in violence. And it's for a simple reason that he / she & his family needs food, clothing, & a roof over their heads.
Jobs, even for educated youths, are becoming scarce all over the world. Everywhere it's all about connections & networking. That doesn't help a large swath of young population who may not have the right connections because their parents & friends only know of people who are in the similar circumstances as they are.
Economic situations, the wrong result of capitalism (hoarding of wealth by a few rich individuals), the increasing social & wealth gap between rich & poor are all leading towards more misery & poverty for the billions around the world. Austerity measures in the name of economy is only creating more misery for the poor, while wealth is actually increasing for the rich. Wealthy families are simply sitting on their giant piles of cash instead of investing in the economy to create more jobs, which in turn, is only going to create more work opportunities for the youths.
Many youths, who are already involved in violence, also want to get out of that violent life, but they see no future in earning a honest buck. Because, there's more hopelessness in their future going down that route. In one of earlier posts, ex-convicts in US told how the justice & prison systems is made to trap a convict in a life of continuing violence. No one wants to take a chance on a youth who might have done something wrong in their life. If nobody offers them a second chance, they will of course re-offend & goes back into the for-profit prison system.
Furthermore, if the youths are busy with the right kind of "work", instead of killing & looting their fellow compatriots, they will not only be putting food on their families' table, clothing their kids, & putting roof over their families, they will also be feeling satisfied & fulfilled to be earning compensation from a non-violent line of work. Governments, & of course, the wealthy people, will also be reaping rewards with fewer criminals out on the streets & more tax-paying individuals. It is a win-win result for everyone in a society.
But the problem is how many rich individuals are willing to take that first step of investing in the young populations of their countries?
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It is Sunday morning in San Salvador & San Rafael hospital's accident & emergency department is full.
People are lying in the corridors on spare hospital beds waiting their turn.
Those who can sit up are in wheelchairs ... .
...
June saw 677 murders in El Salvador, more than any other month since the country's civil war ended in 1992.
Juan - not his real name - is lucky not to be another number in those grisly statistics. 37 years old, he runs a recycling business & a carwash. 4 men arrived at his work & opened fire: 40 bullets.
"Thank God just one bullet hit my arm," he tells me from his hospital bed.
Juan says in the 20 years he has had his own business he has never given in to gangs trying to extort money from him. ...
The police never came to see him to find out what happened. And did he go to them to report it?
"What's the point? I don't believe in the system," he says. He is now making plans to leave the country with his wife & 2 children.
...
Faith
On the outskirts of the capital, San Salvador, is a factory that is trying to pick up the pieces ... . It is not long after dawn & all the workers at League Central America are gathered outside. Everyone listens intently to a motivational speech followed by prayers.
Once that is over, work begins. Most of the more than 400 employees are sat behind sewing machines, sewing on labels or cutting material that is used to make sweatshirts & shorts.
All the clothes here are branded with American university logos such as Harvard & Brown & sent to the US.
Just over one in 10 are former gang members, from both the rival gangs - the Mara Salvatrucha & the 18th Street gang. You can tell their affiliation by the tattoos that some of them still have. Up until a few years ago, it used to be standard if you were a gang member.
But tattoos apart, they have started new lives here. One of them - I'll call him Jorge to protect his identity - came to work here through a church group. That is a prerequisite to work here.
After years of robbing, extorting, attacking & even killing several people, he decided to give it all up.
"It didn't make any sense, I was bored of it," he tells me. "I was fed up with suffering. I was in the street all the time.
"My daughter was born and I didn't want her to go through the same thing I had gone through."
The only thing left of his gang days is the tattoo. He pulls down his lower lip to show it to me - carved out with a knife, it is inked with the words MS - to mark him out as a Mara. He says though that gang violence is getting worse.
"They go around killing police, soldiers," he says. "It's partly because of the lack of work, the poverty.
"There are lots of former gang members who want to change their lives but they don't have a way out, nobody gives them an opportunity. So they go back to what they used to do."
Jorge was lucky. He is now one of the chief pattern cutters at League Central America & is thankful for another chance at life.
'No choice'
"People join gangs because they have to. They join because they have no other choice," says Carly Gerstman, the development manager at League Central America.
"We've found that they have the motivation and they have the drive and they have the appreciation that, you know, we are bringing them back in and we are giving them this opportunity, and they take it and they run with it."
Company boss Rodrigo Bolanos says businesses need to play a part in solving the cycle of violence.
"The war between the government and gang members is already here, it's already started," he says.
"In the process of suffocating the economy and the country the private companies need to take a position to look for a dignified way out."
I've talked about how young Muslims, growing up in the West, feel alienated, in one of my previous blog posts.
The parents of these young Muslims immigrated to US, from their own troubling countries, & have first-hand knowledge of what goes on there or how bad those countries are; Somalia, Sudan, Middle Eastern countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc.
Then, after immigrating to the West, those parents had 3 options of how to raise their kids; strict Islamic & within the boundaries of their own cultural background, take a balanced approach between Western & Eastern values & cultures, or take the proverbial "do as the Romans do while in Rome" approach. All these approaches have their own pros & cons, but all in all, they all will work until their kids are younger than teen years & haven't started building their own identities.
Once, their children get into their teen years & start developing their own identities, with the help of their peer groups, their own understanding of Islam, & depending on the level & kind of support they got from home, then those children start to either see the hypocrisies, discriminations, & biases in the Western societies against Islam & Muslims, or they become just one of many ignorant Westerners.
Now, this article, in itself, is flawed, in the sense, that we all know that you cannot take a very small sample (a little slice of the Somali community in only one American city, Minneapolis) & extrapolate it to all American Muslim children. You are going to get shocking, & certainly wrong, results, if you do do that.
Having said that, & depending on what kind of Muslim children we are talking about here (as I explained above), the results may completely surprise you or they may not. For example, there are many children of Ismailis in the West, who are second or third generation Westerners, & they don't want to go back to Uganda or Kenya. Looking at these people, a person who knows & understands Islam, would never recognize that these Ismailis are Muslims, since, they don't have a problem with drinking, pre-marital sexual relations, dating, wearing clothes that even respectful non-Muslim Westerners would hesitate wearing etc.
These "children" consider themselves South Asians but they don't want to go back to an Islamic country, since their parents took the proverbial "do as the Romans do while in Rome" approach in raising them. There are also new generations of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nigerians, Arabs etc. who have the same attitude towards Islam & they will never give away their freedoms to go back & live in the countries from where their parents originated.
On the other hand, there are Somalis, Pakistanis, & children of people from Middle Eastern countries, who are completely opposite on the spectrum. They are very strict in abiding by the rule of Quran, or Shariah, & would not consider otherwise, regardless of how much it benefits or harms them.
The attitudes of these latter kinds of Muslim youths become a problem for the West when these youths are alienated by the society. Their friends become other Muslim friends who think like them, & not the "white" ones, who drink & party. When these Muslim youths grow up further & become of age where they start looking for jobs, they are again made to feel alienated by the labour market, which discriminates based on name & appearances. Western labour markets are heavily based on "networking." While "laissez-faire" Muslims change their names & appearances to network & mingle in the labour market, Muslims, who are strictly following Islam, are left behind. This happens regardless of merit or education or skills background. That further alienates & angers those Muslims who follow Islam & Quran by the book. They start to feel that those noble values their parents & teachers led them to believe while they were young that the West is fair, just, honest, & people in the West respect honesty & truth, & the jobs are based on objective merit, etc. are all a façade.
These feelings of alienation & anger lead to believe these Muslim youths that they won't feel such alienation in their countries where there is Islam & Shariah-based laws. Since, they have not lived in those countries, themselves, for a long time, they have not experienced some harsh realities of living in those countries. These feelings of alienation & anger are also currently making many Muslim youths to join such groups as ISIS.
So, not all young Muslim Americans want to live under Shariah law. There is a wide spectrum. Some do & some don't. The ones who do want to live under Shariah law are made to think like that by the false promises the West made itself to these people. The West portrayed a very noble picture of a honest, fair, just, & an objective society, but fell far short of it. And whenever, reality falls far short of the expectations, anger & disappointment follows.
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A US film maker, Amy Horowitz, went out onto the streets of Minneapolis to speak to young Muslims & found that most of those questioned would rather live in the Muslim countries they came from & under Sharia law than in the US.
Horowitz asked the simple question: “Do you feel more comfortable living under American Law or do you feel more comfortable living under Sharia law?”
The majority of the people answered that they’d rather live under strict Sharia law. Sharia law gives women virtually no rights at all, they can be married at the age of 9, & is a literal interpretation of the Quran, which governs all aspect of life.
Horowitz then asked Muslims in a predominately Somali area of Minneapolis if they would rather live in the US or Somalia.
Somalia, which has been engulfed in civil war for 3 decades, is one of the poorest countries in the world. Yet most of the Somalians Horowitz spoke to said they would prefer to live there than in the US, except for one young boy who said he wanted to live in Saudi Arabia.
Horowitz believes that many young Muslims he spoke to answered the way they did because they feel alienated from US society, despite being born or growing up in the US.
“What we find among the Muslim immigrants in Europe & the United States is that the first & second generation are more radical than their parents, they’re not integrating as time goes by & there’s a larger alienation,” he told RT.
One young Somalian wearing a baseball cap & speaking fluently in a strong American accent said he did not feel American.
“I speak fluent [English] & I can articulate what I’m trying to say, but other than that, as far as my culture & my preferences & everything I’m still Somali,” he said.
Horowitz explained that it is this generation of immigrants that has become problematic to Western countries.
“The fact that the vast majority of young people I asked would rather live in Somalia or Saudi Arabia as opposed to the United States, it blew me away,” he said.
Although, this opinion piece in Reuters is discussing an issue unrelated to the migrant crisis & Gulf Arab's deafening silence on this issue of the day, it does point out some problems / threats that Saudi Arabia, the richest Gulf Arab country, is suffering from. I think these are some of the threats which are also causing leaders of the Gulf Arab states to remain silent. Of course, it is oversimplification of the complex issues.
These threats, as the opinion piece points out, are:
1. a high number of youths in its population: "more than half of the country’s population of 29 million is under the age of 25. Two-thirds of the population is under 30. The estimated unemployment rate for Saudis aged 15 to 24 is about 30%."
That stats is pretty much same all across the Gulf Arab states; UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, & even Egypt. Universities are opening up in these countries & youths are getting education, but their unemployment rate is still quite high. This was one of the primary reasons why Egyptian youths started protesting against Egypt's Mubarak's regime & ultimately took it down.
These Arab states are fearful that if they let in thousands upon thousands of Syrian, Afghani, Somalian, Sudanese, & Iraqi refugees in their countries, the country's youths may rise up against the regime when they are still unemployed & may see refugees working. By the way, Syrian & Iraqi refugees are not allowed to work in Jordan & Turkey.
Some may say that refugees only want a safe place to live. Not exactly. Refugees also want to work. Unless, a country can cope with letting thousands of refugees in the labour force, most countries will stop the refugees from working, & that will be the next thing refugees will want to do; to work.
2. high dependence on oil revenues for government coffers: when 90% of government coffers are dependent on oil revenues & oil prices being so low for the foreseeable future, these governments will not want more people in their country, esp. when such people will need help; the help which will cost a whole lot of moolah. Having said that, Arab monarchs are full of money, which Western leaders are not.
Western countries, on the other hand, have diversified economies. Their economies are not dependent on only one industry. So, to help out millions of refugees (& yes, there are millions of refugees), Arab leaders have to dip into their own personal pockets, which they most likely don't want to do & won't do it.
3. No tax policies in Gulf Arab states: these Arab countries don't have any tax policies, so they can't exactly raise taxes on the public & businesses to absorb the costs of housing refugees.
However, the Western countries can, & will, raise taxes on the public to absorb the costs of housing refugees. Of course, that's assuming, that Western countries accept millions of refugees. A few thousands neither would cost Western countries & nor would affect any of the GCC countries' government coffers.
At the end of the day, housing refugees is not a permanent solution. It's a Band-Aid solution. It's a temporary solution. A permanent solution is to work towards ending the conflict altogether. That's where, the Arab countries have the most influence & can do the most. Up to now, these countries are also the ones who were supplying weapons to Iraq & Syria; essentially, igniting the flames further. They need to do the opposite, but will they? I don't think so because those actions will clash with their vision of controlling the region & turning its politics in their own favour. End result: many more refugees will keep producing in middle east.
A good opinion piece.
It asks a key question that if crime rates are decreasing & racial intolerance among Americans is also decreasing, & esp. among the millennials, there's pretty much no intolerance, then why are we still seeing such wealth gaps & unemployment problems among African-Americans? Why do American cities which are predominantly African-Americans, demographically, are burning, even though, those cities have African-Americans in the political arena & other influential areas of the city / region?
Although, the opinion piece gives the answer that "once an institution (a city, a police force, a school system, an economy) is set up to create a racial divide, it will continue to do so, regardless who’s running it, unless there’s a dramatic intervention," I'd further add into that answer that those institutions only bring those people up through their ranks who have been successfully molded into that institution's thinking / culture. That "culture" is still of racial discrimination against "coloured" people, be it Africans, Latinos, South Asians, Asians, etc.
To have a dramatic intervention, the institution needs someone who will think radically different & have the full support to bring about that radical changes. We have multiple examples of these "radicals" successfully changing corporate cultures in the business world. We need the same in the public / political arena.
But the problem in public arena is that politicians think short-term & how will it affect their political prowess. If the answer is negative, then either an absurd action is taken or no action at all. Final result is that the society keeps itself on a downhill spiral & problems keep snowballing to the point that the general public then takes dramatic steps, which then, result into violent protests & riots.
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You can’t help thinking that the US has gone back to 1965. You see it in the fury over racially charged killings by police in Ferguson, Baltimore, Staten Island & Charleston – the latter of which even involved that staple of sixties old-boy racism, the “broken tail light” police stop.
You see it in the mass protests provoked by that fury & the riots that often ride the coattails of those protests, making Baltimore & Ferguson resemble Watts & Detroit. And in the barren, boarded-up streets of those cities, so shocking in an era when “the ghetto” has all but disappeared from larger cities. And in the broken, isolated, impoverished lives of the young men taking part in those protests & riots. Has America regressed?
On one hand, it hasn’t: The past decade has seen the US move sharply away from that divided era. Crime rates have plunged to record lows & crime rates among black Americans – including violent crimes – have fallen even more sharply, to well below where they were when measures began in 1964. Many other social measures – teen pregnancies & school-dropout rates, especially among African-American youth – have dropped to all-time lows.
Attitudes have changed even more. Racial intolerance, by almost any measure, is more rare in the US today than it has ever been; among Americans in their 20s today, acceptance of interracial marriage & dating (a key measure of tolerance) is now nearly 100%. American white millennials are growing up without measurably racist attitudes.
But if the attitudes are becoming a thing of the past, the outcomes aren’t. Black Americans are, on average, even further apart from white Americans in income (where black people earn $27,000 [US] a year less than white people, up from $19,000 in the sixties) & wealth (an $85,000 gap, up from $75,000 in the eighties). African-Americans face double the unemployment rate of white people, poverty rates are higher & the incarceration rate is shockingly high, cutting holes in half of black families (& having almost nothing to do with the fall in crime rates).
“When it comes to race relations, America is better than it’s ever been,” the Washington journalist Jamelle Bouie writes. “With that said, we shouldn’t confuse optimism about race relations (or, again, how whites view blacks & other groups) with optimism about racial progress, or how groups fare in relation to each other. There, the news isn’t just bad – it’s bleak.”
Why have the huge improvements in American racial attitudes & general social measures not brought about an improvement in racial equality? Why do police attack & discriminate against black Americans disproportionately – even when, as is the case in Baltimore, most of the police force, its chief, its mayor & its president are African-American?
This is the paradox of the US today: A population of voters & leaders who have largely moved beyond racial discrimination continue to produce often grotesquely racist results. Why does the reality not change with the attitudes toward it?
The answer is found in the cities & towns where these explosions of violence & deprivation are taking place: Once an institution (a city, a police force, a school system, an economy) is set up to create a racial divide, it will continue to do so, regardless who’s running it, unless there’s a dramatic intervention.
Too many Americans don’t see these institutions, but only their victims, who then get blamed for the outcomes: It has become popular again on the North American right to claim, in pseudo-scholarly language, that “that’s just how they are” – that African-American culture, or families, must be to blame (even though culture & family structures are always consequences, not causes, of larger ills).
This view has been decisively disproven this month in a vast & expensive study by economists Raj Chetty, Lawrence Katz & their colleagues at Harvard University, in which thousands of randomly selected low-income (mainly black) families were given vouchers in the nineties to move out of deprived neighbourhoods (& thousands more stayed put as control groups).
The results, a generation later, found that poor, crime-addled families prone to intergenerational poverty & broken homes become, within a generation of leaving their context, prosperous, educated & marriage-prone families, with outcomes similar to those of average Americans.
The Obama administration has attempted the sort of big interventions (such as the ones of the sixties & nineties) that are needed turn around this trajectory of inequality. The post-2008 stimulus & the “Obamacare” medicare system have stopped the rise in inequality & poverty. But many large urban-policy & education programs have been blocked by a recalcitrant US Congress. It might take flames from the cities, as it did 50 years ago, to provoke a change.
That headline may give a thought that this news is about police brutality & racism in US, but you would be wrong. This news is about Portugal.
So, if Europeans are thinking that "our European societies have grown out of such uninfluential & petty social issues as racism", then they would be very wrong.
Similar to the people saying, in regards to the police brutality & hate crimes against African-Americans in US, that American society is still very much racially divided, Europe is also still very racially divided. Over the years, I have read news how young black soccer / football players are discriminated against in Italy, or how Russian & Italian professional football matches are marred by racist chants & slogans, or how African migrants are treated badly in Scandinavian countries, or immigrants are treated badly in France (Paris) or the London riots etc.
We recently saw how African migrants are abused & hated in Europe, when they are trying to flee their war-ravaged homes in Middle East & Africa. Even though, those wars are the handiwork of Europeans themselves, by selling billions of weapons to the known corrupt governments of those conflict regions.
So, instead of successfully integrating these migrants in their societies, European countries are essentially rejecting these migrants & making them feel like that they are not wanted in their countries, by treating them "like animals".
So, as the world is seemingly becoming "modern," we, humans are moving backwards in our thinking of other human beings, & social diseases like hatred, racism, violence, & geopolitical conflicts are increasing on a daily basis.
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Jailza Sousa's young son is afraid when she hangs out the washing on their first-floor balcony.
"He's traumatised," says the 29-year-old from Cape Verde. "He says, 'Don't go there because you're going to get shot.'"
Looking down the narrow, potholed streets, she remembers what happened one day in February, earlier this year.
It was noon in Cova da Moura - a ramshackle suburb on a hill on the outskirts of Lisbon built by immigrants from Portugal's former African colonies.
It's a colourful, friendly place by day, but it has a reputation for drugs, crime & violence. It's a place that taxi drivers refuse to go at night.
On 5 February, a team of police officers had a young man called Bruno up against a wall. They were searching him & started beating him - his blood stained the wall & street for several days afterwards. Bystanders started protesting, & the police reacted with shotguns loaded with rubber buckshot.
"They treat us like animals," Sousa says of the police. "It's a black neighbourhood - they treat us like we're all here to be exterminated."
Sousa was taken to hospital while 2 people who work for a local human rights organisation, Moinho de Juventude, or Mill of Youth, set off for the police station to find out what had happened to Bruno.
The two men, Flavio Almada & Celso Lopes, were accompanied by about 5 other young men who had witnessed the incident.
When they arrived at the police station, they say 3 police officers were blocking the entrance.
"Suddenly about 15 or 20 cops came with sticks, with shotguns, & started trying to kick & punch us, trying to hit us with batons," says Lopes.
"And I said 'OK, I'm leaving,'" claims Almada. But he says one police officer cocked his shotgun. "And quickly, he shoot."
Lopes was hit in the leg by rubber buckshot. He, Almada & 3 others were then taken inside the police station, where they were handcuffed. They allege the beatings continued accompanied by extreme racist abuse.
Almada says one officer told him, "You don't know how much I hate you. If I had the power, you would all be exterminated."
He says he was terrified. "I will never forget his face. I will never forget his words."
The men claim other police officers told them they should join Islamic State.
Lopes says for 5 hours they received no medical attention. Eventually all 5 men were admitted to hospital.
Almada says he suffers from terrible nightmares & some of the injuries have still not healed.
4 separate investigations are underway into what happened. Both the Interior Ministry & Portugal's racial discrimination commission are investigating the conduct of the police.
Almada, Lopes & their friends face charges of invading the police station, & they in turn are pressing their own charges of torture & racism against the police.
"When the police come the police are the law," says Lopes. "You are no longer living in a democracy, you are living in a police state."
At the time, the media reported that Bruno had thrown a rock at a police van, breaking a window & injuring an officer. Bruno & eyewitnesses deny this.
It was also reported that the men had tried to storm the police station & that the 5 who were detained had suffered "minor" injuries after resisting arrest. There were later reports that a police officer was taken to hospital with a broken arm.
This incident re-ignited long standing claims of police brutality & racism - a story told in the graffiti on Cova da Moura's walls.
A video circulating on social media shows another recent police raid in Cova da Moura which was filmed by a resident. In the early hours of the morning, police with shotguns & wearing balaclavas can be seen walking through the streets, & shots can be heard.
These police are part of what's known as a Rapid Intervention Team - highly trained & heavily equipped, & normally only called in when a situation escalates beyond what the regular police can handle. But Almada says they are a common sight.
He introduces me to Whassysa Magalhaes, a teacher & part of the management of Moinho de Juventude. One day the police stopped her and asked for her ID.
"I was late & said I had to go to university & they said, 'Black people study?'" she recalls, adding that they used a derogatory term for black people.
Others tell stories of being called monkeys or having their ID cards destroyed by police.
"Here, police just ask you to stop & if you don't stop or you ignore them, they shoot at you, start kicking you, hitting you with sticks," says one young man, Fabio.
"They hate black people."
In another part of Lisbon, Quinta da Lage, the side of one house is painted with a mural of a young black man, & the words "RIP Kuku, let justice be done."
The house belongs to Domingas Sanches. In 2009, her 14-year-old son Elson, also known as Kuku, was driving with friends in a stolen car when they were stopped by police. They started to run away, but Elson was caught by one of the officers. He managed to break away, & was then shot in the head at point blank range by the policeman.
"It's difficult but life goes on, sometimes I cry, I miss him," says Sanches.
The policeman was tried for gross negligent manslaughter & acquitted after claiming he heard a sound like a pistol being cocked, & saw a metallic object in Elson's hand. A weapon was recovered at the scene, although Elson's defenders say it had no fingerprints on it & claim it was planted.
"I felt a great disgust," says Sanches. "If it were a 14-year-old kid killing a policeman, then someone would be found responsible."
"The only thing I wanted was that justice be done, but it probably won't be."
This sense of injustice is widespread. Activists claim that 14 young black men have been killed by police since 2001, & that no police officers have been held responsible for those deaths, though the numbers include some deaths where police responsibility is disputed.
One person who remembers the first of those shootings is Lieve Meersschaert. Born in Belgium she came to Cova da Moura in the early 80s where she co-founded Moinho de Juventude, the organisation that Almada & Lopes work for.
In 2001 a police officer killed a man by shooting him in the back, she says, prompting an escalation of violence.
Eventually Moinho arranged a dinner for local police commanders to meet young people from the neighbourhood - including the sister of the man who was shot.
"It was very funny when the 35 police station commanders arrived, they didn't want to come in. And afterwards we almost had to kick them out, because they didn't want to leave," she says.
After that meeting the police commander of the local area, Antonio Manuel Pereira, worked on improving relations between police & residents. They held football tournaments & children spent time with the officers.
But Pereira retired in 2012 & his replacement put less emphasis on community policing, says Meersschaert. Around the same time a pilot programme called the Critical Neighbourhoods Initiative, which promoted closer co-operation between police & residents, was cancelled by the newly elected conservative government.
Meersschaert says brutality has got worse since then, & that the government ignored warnings.
The BBC made several requests for interviews to the Interior Ministry & the Prime Minister's office, which were all turned down. Eventually the Ministry provided a statement about the police, referred to here as the PSP.
"We reject the suggestion of the existence of police violence & racism. Community policing was, & will continue to be the basis for the deployment of police resources, with a view to ensuring the safety of people & property & to prevent crime. [Community policing] has never been abandoned by the PSP, either in Cova da Moura or in any sensitive urban area. On the contrary, the PSP carries out, on average, more than 15,000 community or neighbourhood policing operations a year, & in sensitive urban areas, interventions of this nature have been increasing. It is not correct to establish a correlation between the reduction of police officers in recent years & purely economic measures."
Almada feels that the problems in Cova da Moura come from a deeper attitude in Portuguese society.
"Racism is beyond the police, it's the whole frame of society, it's a big issue & I don't believe they want to change all these things," he says. "If you see Portugal receiving a prize for well integrated immigrants it's a big lie."
But Portugal's High Commissioner for Migration, Pedro Calado disagrees. "We don't have this big problem of racism in our society," he says.
Calado - the head of the government body tasked with promoting integration, & dealing with racial discrimination - points to the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX). This global study ranks countries according to how successfully they integrate migrants. Portugal currently comes second, behind Sweden.
Portugal's defenders also point out that it hasn't had riots like London or Paris, & that there's little anti-immigrant political rhetoric in Portugal.
"I have this clear perception that what happened in Cova da Moura is not the general situation of the country. This was an exception," says Calado.
He also oversees Portugal's Commission for Equality & Against Racial Discrimination, which handles racial discrimination complaints.
"We don't have many complaints," he says as he shows me a report containing the data. It indicates that from 2005-13, there were 75 complaints against the security forces.
I ask how many of those complaints were upheld.
"We would have to look at the data," says Calado. "I cannot tell."
Despite several weeks of emailing back & forth after our interview, the High Commission wouldn't tell me the number of complaints upheld against the security forces for racial discrimination. They say they lack the resources to process the data.
But piecing together the data that is available, it seems that fewer than 10 racism complaints against the security forces have been upheld in the past 10 years in the whole of Portugal. In places such as Cova da Moura, this is seen as evidence of a broken system which doesn't hold police accountable.
Although Portuguese officials deny a deep, systemic problem with the police, the recent incident involving Almada and Lopes has led to some changes.
The Interior Ministry met people from neighbourhood organisations, including Moinho de Juventude & promised to set up a new Early Warning Commission to avoid conflict.
Almada says he hopes that what happened to him might make a small difference, but he's cautious.
"I want to see the results," he says. "I'm like that guy the disciple of Jesus, I just want to see."
Thanks to US & its allies' activities in further destabilizing sensitive areas of the world, not only we have groups now, conducting physical violence, we also have a booming drugs trade. What did US & NATO achieve in Afghanistan when Taliban are back there & apparently, 80% of heroin is being produced there? What did US achieve with its covert war tactics against Colombia & Nicaragua where, apparently, 100% of cocaine being produced there?
It seems to me that all those billions of $$$, which the world was led to believe that that money would be spent on war & reconstruction efforts, went into pockets of defense department's top generals & contractors.
Ironically, the losers are American general public because they are increasingly turning into drug addicts because of lack of spending on welfare, healthcare, education, infrastructure, job creation etc. Sort of like a double whammy for the general American public.
Adding further insults to injuries is that not only criminal organizations are earning trillions of $$$ through their drugs trade, but they also help fuel more crime, e.g. due to a lack of jobs & increasingly expensive post-secondary education, youths turn towards dealing drugs, human trafficking, prostitution, arms smuggling, & terrorism etc. to make a living. Authorities can't turn them towards non-criminal activities, since those activities don't provide the kind of lifestyle criminal activities do.
So, essentially, all those wars US & its allies initiated in foreign lands are, & will, increasingly raise their ugly heads in North America & Western Europe. And rich business & political elites, who are the ones starting, & profiting, from the wars will not feel the effects but the poor general public will be adversely affected by those crimes.
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The dark underworld of drug trafficking will soon be bigger than the world’s $3.7 trillion oil & gas market, & is already bigger than the global auto industry, the director of Russia’s drug control agency said.
“We see that drug trade is a significant part of the global economy. Unfortunately we have to state today that the drug traffic market is bigger than the automotive industry & its volume is approaching that of the oil & gas sector,” Viktor Ivanov said during a ministry meeting with BRICS countries to discuss the war on drugs.
Ivanov singled out Afghanistan & South America as major drug production hubs, noting that more than 80% of heroin is produced in Afghanistan & 100% of cocaine in South America, by his estimates.
“Unfortunately, production has once again started to increase in the so-called Golden Triangle of Thailand, Myanmar & Laos,” said Ivanov.
Before, Ivanov estimated that underground drug dealers in the informal sector inject $1 trillion into the global financial system per annum. Many of these drug revenues end up being funneled to criminal organizations, & often terrorism.
Sales of autos in the US alone was $1.1 trillion in 2014. Revenues from the top 10 car retailers already surpassed $1 trillion in revenue, not even counting some of the smaller players like Kia, Chrysler, Renault or Mazda. The global oil& gas market in 2015 will see more than $4 trillion in revenue, according to IBIS World’s Global Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Market Research Report released in March 2015.
It is difficult to precisely quantify the exact figure of the illegal drug market, as most transactions are kept off the books due to their illicit nature.
I'm sharing this article not to share the story of murdered elephants in national parks because human lives are not sacred anymore, so animals are way down the list.
What I am actually trying to share with article that if you may recall the social media campaign, from 2012, I believe, when Kony's face was plastered all over the social media, with the message to stop this guy in his tracks. Everybody from Alaska to Timbuktu & Sweden to Australia was feverishly sharing this guy's pics on social media, without sparing couple minutes to think how this campaign is going to help.
Problem is that if a sane person say anything against these kinds of moronic social media campaigns, that sane person will be shut out like he/she got the plague.
Well, the end result of all that sharing is what ... that Kony guy is not only alive but, apparently, doing very well ... killing elephants for their ivory tusks, which in turn, are financing his army.
On a side note, the trade for ivory, & consequently, Kony & his army, cannot be stopped until influential & rich elites of the developed world stop buying these Ivory tusks. Kony & any other poacher is simply a supplier. Simple business sense is that a supplier only exists as long as the customer exists (i.e. supply exists because of demand). If demand stops, supply itself will stop.
Be it trying to end the killings of elephants by Kony (or any other poacher) or stopping Kony from murdering humans, influential elite must be involved through political means to bring about any meaningful change, instead of young & naïve millennials trying to do something through social media.
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Warlord Joseph Kony's bloodthirsty Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is slaughtering elephants at an unprecedented rate & trading their valuable tusks for bullets.
The poaching of elephants in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is increasing rapidly, with more than 130 killed in the southern region in less than 12 months.
Poaching is not uncommon in African parks, but rangers at Garamba have made a worrying discovery - the ivory is helping fund the LRA's war.
Mr. [Sasha] Lezhnev, who returned from the DR Congo last week, has learned that a single elephant tusk can be traded for 18,000 bullets.
'They don't need guns, they have plenty of available guns, it's really bullets they need,' he added. 'It takes only one bullet to kill an elephant.'
The LRA - a violent rebel group led by Kony - is renowned for being one of the most brutal forces in the world.
They have become notorious for murder, mutilation, rape, widespread abductions of children and adults, & sexual slavery.
As well as the rebel group, a recent report by the Enough Project revealed renegade elements of the Congolese national army & armed poachers from Sudan are responsible for the recent upsurge in poaching.
In the past, poachers have used very basic methods to slaughter the elephants, killing just one or two at a time.
Now, heavily armed groups are using professional techniques & are bringing down 3 to 8 of these majestic animals at a time. Their tusks are then cut off with chainsaws.
There is also evidence of at least 9 of the 131 elephants killed in Garamba in the past 12 months being shot from helicopters.
In May last year, 10 elephants were murdered in one day alone in Garamba, according to African Parks, a conservation group that manages the park with Congolese authorities.
At Virunga National Park, also in the DR Congo, the elephant population has decreased by 90% in the last 20 years, according to UNESCO.
One of the reasons for the increase in elephant poaching is likely to be the rise in the price of ivory, which is at a record high because of demand in parts of Asia, according to the Enough Project.
On the black market, elephants tusks are valued at between £13,300 & £117,000 depending on their size.
Since the 1980s, the Garamba elephant population has fallen to about 2,400 from approximately 20,000, largely due to poaching.
Although, it was good to read this article that US has started to look into reforming its prison system, I don't have much hope of something actually happening. Reason being that US prison system, similar to its medical system, is becoming profit-driven.
Some states have contracted out the prison system to private contractors. Those private contractors benefit from prison population's almost-free / "slave" labour & they also get subsidies / tax breaks from the government (similar to several other companies / industries). Of course, if the contractors are profiting from the labour, they need more of that "free" labour. So, of course, they lobby hard & get the judiciary (judges, attorney generals etc.) on their side of the table.
Result is harsh sentencing laws, e.g. minimum mandatory sentence, are then passed. By the way, there was a good crime drama 2013 movie on this issue, "Snitch," starring Dwayne Johnson, & based on a real story. Anyway, so contractors need to keep a certain level of beds fill in their prisons. They may even be getting tax breaks or subsidies based on prison fill-rate (sort of like how hotels operate their business). On top of that, attorneys' successes are measured based on their conviction rate. So the more they put people behind bars, the more they are considered as making the public safe. That perception comes in very handy if those attorneys are dreaming of getting into government one day.
So who suffers in all of this self-serving agendas, fiasco & corruption? The Public.
1. Taxpayers: As the article states, millions of taxpayer $$$ are spent in housing these prisoners. Those same millions which could have been spent on improving infrastructure, putting food on the poor family's table (by increasing the budget of food stamp program, instead of cutting it), improving schools in poor, urban areas so kids of disadvantaged families also get the same quality of education as the kid from an elite family.
2. People: Those people who get snared in this prison system. As recent incidents have widely shown how much racism is still existent in the American society; African-Americans, who are usually on the disadvantaged spectrum of the general population, face the brunt of these harsh laws. They get locked up for minor offences, assuming they did commit an offence in the first place.
Once they caught up in that cycle, there is no exit out of that maze. Even when they do get out, they have a hard time securing employment and/or housing. Result is they may not have enough money to pay alimony or provide a suitable place to live for their kids or live in a safe & secure place just by themselves.
So, if, due to unemployment, that person, who was not a violent offender in the first place, but has an "ex-con" label now, doesn't pay child support, then he is put into prison. If that person, due to unemployment, can't secure housing, & starts living on the streets, where he/she can easily become a drug addict, & if he gets caught with a drug, he/she visits the prison, again. What happens with all these prison visits? That person is labelled a multiple offender, & has much longer sentences.
Essentially, that person, who was wrongly / perhaps, harshly convicted of a minor offense, becomes a hardened criminal. Who gets the blame then? That person him/herself.
My solution:
1. Be extra careful in sentencing a person in the first place. Don't make stupid harsh laws, which, in effect, make the net bigger, so more "fish" are caught.
Try to make laws which focus on catching violent criminals in the first place, rather than, making one out of a non-violent offender.
2. I'm a proponent of capital punishment. That's why, I said in point one above, that try to make laws to catch violent criminals in the first place.
Once those hardened criminals are caught, the hopes of those criminals ever becoming good guys again are slim to none. So, execute them swiftly.
What these two points will do in tandem?
1. Improve relations between the public & law enforcement, since the law enforcement is focusing more on violent criminals & not catching any & all people. Arresting violent criminals will be looked at appreciatively by the general public, since then, the perception would be of a just society.
2. Law enforcement will also become more efficient & their efforts more effective, since their conviction rates will go up, since they are focusing on violent criminals, who will, most likely, get convicted, & since, they are focusing more on few people, they will get more efficient.
3. Law enforcement agencies will focus more on less people, so they may also need fewer cops, which in turn, will result in decreasing the tax burden on the public.
4. Decreasing tax burdens from keeping few people, if any, in prison, fewer cops, fewer prisons, & a less clogged judicial system, where cases are moving faster.
5. Seeing the end result of what happens to a violent criminal, other people, e.g. misguided youths in the public, will also avoid pursuing that lifestyle. Currently, they see that the worst happening to them, if they do pursue that lifestyle, is going to jail & perhaps, staying in there, & in return do some work & get free housing & food, & make friends with life-minded individuals. Life is sweet.
That mindset will get a jolt that no, if you commit a serious crime, you will get the lethal injection. No free lunches & friend with a gang leader.
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Since 1990, Missouri’s Hedy Harden has been lobbying for criminal justice reforms in the Midwestern state. On March 11, the 70-year-old chair of the Missouri branch of CURE—a national criminal-justice-reform organization founded in 1972—joined other like-minded activists for a lobby day in the state capital of Jefferson City to pressure lawmakers to pass a handful of bills aimed at reducing the state’s mandatory-minimum laws & other reforms.
Missouri’s prison system cost state taxpayers some $680 million in 2014—up from $220 million in 1994 after the state brought in harsh sentencing legislation that curbed early prison release. Its prison population has since increased nearly 9 times over the past 3 decades, mirroring similar trends across the US.
And while Harden has 25 years under her belt advocating for changes to Missouri’s justice laws—& is growing increasingly skeptical that proposed legislation will ever make it into law—the case for criminal-justice reform is riding a wave of support across the US.
That support has been spurred by a combination of budgetary constraints, prison overcrowding, shifts in public attitudes & a media spotlight trained on events such as the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in August in Ferguson, Mo., by police officer Darren Wilson, & the subsequent nationwide protests & scrutiny of policing & the criminal justice system. “Definitely, we all had some really high hopes because of Ferguson,” Harden says, “& we know the legislature has to deal with the whole issue of Ferguson.”
The results of the federal justice department’s investigation into the Ferguson police force in the wake of the shooting ... uncovered a municipal justice system rife with racial bias & geared more toward generating revenue for the St. Louis suburb than any concern for public safety. The federal probe found that, according to the police department’s own statistics, between 2012 & 2014, blacks accounted for 85% of traffic stops, 90% of citations, & 93% of arrests made by Ferguson police, despite making up 67% of the city’s population. They also faced significantly more citations for minor offences & bore the brunt of documented force by police. The municipal court, meanwhile, routinely ordered arrest warrants for residents who failed to pay fines for minor infractions such as traffic tickets & parking violations.
President Barack Obama cited Ferguson—as well as other recent high-profile police-related deaths in New York & Cleveland—in his March 7 speech in Alabama on the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights marches. “We can make sure our criminal justice system serves all, & not just some,” he said. “Together, we can address unfair sentencing & overcrowded prisons, & the stunted circumstances that rob too many boys of the chance to become men, & rob the nation of too many men who could be good dads, & good workers, & good neighbours.”
In Washington, Obama isn’t alone in calling for change in how America handles matters of crime & punishment. Criminal-justice reform has turned into a rare point of bipartisan consensus in a Congress that’s become synonymous with partisanship, gridlock & division.
The US is currently the world’s largest jailer, with roughly 2.2 million people behind bars. According to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), maintaining that prison system cost American taxpayers $80 billion in 2012. In 2013, the US had an incarceration rate of 716 prisoners for every 100,000 Americans. (By comparison, according to stats from the Sentencing Project, Canada’s incarceration rate is 118 per 100,000.) And, since 1980, the federal prison system grew nearly 800%, with some 219,000 people behind bars.
Policy-makers such as outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder are now increasingly likely to talk about being “smart on crime” instead of “tough on crime,” & there is a raft of proposed legislation meant to fix the system. The Smarter Sentencing Act, introduced in February in the Senate by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee & Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, & in the House by Republican Raul Labrador & Democrat Bobby Scott, would reduce the mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, along with other measures.
A prison-reform bill also introduced last month by Texas Republican & Senate majority whip John Cornyn & Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, aims to shrink the federal prison population by offering incentives to low- & medium-risk prisoners to participate in recidivism-reduction programs. And, last week, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul (a potential presidential candidate), along with New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, introduced the Redeem Act. That sweeping legislation would reduce the collateral problems former prisoners face when voting & seeking housing & employment. It would also make it easier for juveniles & adults convicted of non-violent offences to seal their criminal records, among other provisions. These & similar bills have been introduced in prior sessions of Congress in the past few years, but failed to gain real traction.
Groups such as the ACLU say increasingly harsh sentencing & parole policies, the war on drugs & rising parole revocations are behind the spike in the US prison population over the past 3 decades. Recently, however, sentencing reforms at the state level have helped to spur the first drop in prison populations in decades—a modest overall decline (2.8%) between 2009 & 2012.
Those state-level successes ... mean advocates for criminal-justice reform are optimistic. “I do think something significant will happen this year. I think the stars are really aligned,” says Marc Levin, co-founder of the advocacy group Right on Crime, & a prominent voice in the conservative criminal-justice-reform movement. “[It] is such a rarity in a gridlocked system [to find] actual agreement. I think there’s a desire on the part of many Republicans, & many of the consultants to Republicans, to show they’ve got a positive agenda, that they can govern & get something done. There’s a real breakthrough, where there’s something in it for everyone.”
Levin also has prominent conservatives lined up behind him: Big-name Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, presumptive 2016 frontrunner Jeb Bush, & Arkansas governor & former US Drug Enforcement Administration head Asa Hutchinson have all signed on to his organization’s statement of principles. Jesselyn McCurdy, who works with the ACLU in Washington to get members of Congress on board with criminal-justice reform, agrees the timing is right. “Any successes we have at the state level we’re hoping to translate to the federal level,” she says.
In November, the ACLU netted $50 million from liberal billionaire benefactor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations to push at the state level to reduce prison populations. Soros has also joined forces with the conservative Koch brothers & other groups (including the ACLU & Right on Crime) to form the new Coalition for Public Safety, billed as “the largest national effort working to make our criminal justice system smarter, fairer & more cost-effective at the federal, state & local level.”
... in a January op-ed in Politico magazine, Charles Koch made the case for reform, writing: “Overcriminalization has led to the mass incarceration of those ensnared by our criminal justice system, even though such imprisonment does not always enhance public safety. Indeed, more than half of federal inmates are non-violent drug offenders. Enforcing so many victimless crimes inevitably leads to conflict between our citizens & law enforcement.”
Still, while there’s broad agreement that the current prison system isn’t sustainable, not everyone agrees on the proposed blueprints for reform. In Congress, those skeptics include Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who, as head of the Senate judiciary committee, holds sway over which reform bills end up on the legislative agenda. On the Senate floor this past week, Grassley voiced strong opposition to the Smarter Sentencing Act, saying the arguments for it “are merely a weak attempt to defend the indefensible,” & pointing to examples such as growing heroin use in states such as Vermont. He also expressed misgivings that the legislation could impede efforts to curtail major drug-trafficking operations, or that it would allow repeat offenders to avoid serious jail time.
In California, Proposition 47—a ballot initiative passed last November with nearly 60% support that reclassifies some drug & theft crimes from felonies to misdemeanours—is also facing opposition from critics who argue it’s a flawed & dangerous measure. David Bejarano, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, argues that Prop 47 has: scrapped felony charges for possession of substances such as the date-rape drug; created a loophole for handgun theft; & removed a legal tool used by law enforcement to force people into drug rehab in lieu of jail time. “Other states are watching what California does. What we’re trying to do now through our legislature is correct some of the most obvious concerns we have,” he says.
In Missouri, there’s another campaign building to pass House Bill 657, which would reduce the state’s so-called “85% law.” The Republican-sponsored bill would lower the threshold of time served before being eligible for parole for certain dangerous felonies (arson, robbery, & assault) from 85% of the sentence to 50%. Even with that push, & a slew of bills aimed at reforming everything from those mandatory minimums to juvenile justice & the death penalty, Harden called the state legislature “a tough nut to crack.”
As I have blogged before with the story about French ghettos of immigrants & their children who feel marginalized, & are ready to follow anyone who make them feel like family & falsely promise a future, for committing violence, in return. Sweden is also going through the similar problem.
Primary problem is once again marginalization of immigrant youths from the mainstream society. Be it North American or Western Europe or Northern Europe countries, immigrants are welcome with both arms, but they are made to feel second class citizens. Older immigrants accept their fate. But the young ones, who are growing up with their mainstream / indigenous friends start to see the discrimination when they see their friends moving onwards & upwards, & those kids of immigrant backgrounds feel left behind.
The main reason is that they were always come to expect that their new homes are in fair & just societies. But then the ugly head of discrimination rears up, which is very much rampant in these societies. They see the garbage hiding under the nice carpet. Some immigrant youths drink the Kool-Aid & will vehemently oppose any such idea that there is any discrimination in their new homes, but most don't.
Those youths then either suffer silently & become mentally & physically ill, or they hit back. Violence is never the answer to resolve these problems, but then problems cannot be solved from merely saying nice words to immigrants, either.
These problems, which will only going to get worse, since more & more immigrants are flowing in North American & European countries, can only be solved in 2 ways:
1. North American & European countries completely ban the sale of any & all arms & weapons sales to corrupt, authoritarian, & developing countries in Africa & Asia. A blanket ban on all such sales, no ifs & buts.
The immigrant wave will start to abate by itself, since their corrupt governments don't have weapons to kill innocent civilians.
2. Whatever immigrant populations are already in their countries, help them integrating through objective, merit-based qualification process; be it for education or jobs etc. Abolish the practice of networking. That will in itself help diversify the talent pool & the economy will improve. Immigrant youths will see a bright future that if they work hard, they will achieve something in the mainstream society, instead of working hard & achieving something in a gang or radical religious group.
These suggestions are simple & will only help the North American & European societies. The question is are the leaders willing to take such steps, since arms sales increase GDP & exports of the country, & immigrant populations create a silent 2nd class of people who will do the dirty jobs, while nice cushy jobs to the indigenous population.
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As drinkers watched the final minutes of the Barcelona versus Manchester City football match in the Vår bar in Gothenburg on Wednesday night, all hell broke loose. Two masked men opened fire with automatic weapons, killing 2 & injuring a dozen more.
Petar Petrovic, 20, a Swede of Serbian origin, died in the storm of bullets. A DJ at the bar, he was due to start university in London this year.
The other dead man, aged 25, was a leading figure in a local gang, the Vårvädersligan, named after the square where the shootings took place. With a string of convictions, including drug offences, he had only recently left jail, according to press reports.
Sweden has been shocked by the barbarity & indiscriminate nature of the Gothenburg shootings. Gang violence has featured occasionally in local news, but this was the first time an innocent bystander had been killed. Regional police chief Klas Friberg called it a “heartless attack with no human feeling”.
The tragedy has also shone a spotlight on a hidden aspect of Swedish society that reads like the sub-plot of a Stieg Larsson novel, in which poverty, racism & segregation are driving young men from immigrant backgrounds into gangs & gun crime.
A few days before the shooting, police had arrested another member of the gang after he was observed in a railway station handing over a shoebox stuffed with 500,000 krona (£39,000). A third figure in the gang had left the Vår bar shortly before the shooting took place.
The killings broke a 9-month period of relative calm in Gothenburg. After a double murder in early 2013, police poured resources into Biskopsgården, the deprived borough where Wednesday’s killings took place, which has high levels of recent immigration & overcrowding. Entitled operation Safe Gothenburg, the police targeted 9 gangs across the city involved in turf wars over drugs, weapons & contraband.
... After 57 shooting incidents & 8 fatalities in 2013, there were 4 deaths last year, while arrests led to the jailing of key gang leaders. The trend seemed to be clear.
In December, a dozen members of the Bergsjö gang were jailed & only last month, the leader of Bulls motorcycle gang started a 10-year sentence for violence. He had an earlier conviction for “crucifying” a man by strapping his wrists to a plank & leaving him hanging.
However, fears of a flare-up of gang crime lingered when the leader of the Bandidos gang was released from jail last summer after a 7-year sentence for a bomb attack.
“We have groups that are really marginalised, cut off from mainstream society, dropouts with no work,” says Sven-Åke Lindgren, professor of sociology at Gothenburg university who last year authored a report on gang crime. He sees Wednesday’s attack as a show of power in a battle for supremacy between gangs.
“These are ‘radical losers’, more desperate, more angry & frustrated, who are prepared to use weapons & violence that is really shocking to Swedish society, to compensate for their loss of status,” Prof Lindgren said.
Gang crime is not confined to Gothenburg – 22 Swedish cities are affected, said Magnus Lindgren of the Safer Sweden Foundation. This is a “new Sweden”, he said, which means new methods of crime fighting are needed.
I love this area, but we have a problem with young people feeling they can’t share the aspirations of the majority.
“The main problem is the Swedish model of crime prevention which dates from the 1960s, trying to build a good society with good education & child care. That’s all very well, but we are fighting the crimes of yesterday, not necessarily the crimes of today or tomorrow.”
Friberg, the police chief, said police were working “to do as much harm to the individual criminals as we can” while trying to halt the trade in illegal weapons. Interior minister Anders Ygeman called for a doubling of sentences for gun crime.
... There was also a sense of fear – the library was quiet because parents had kept their children at home, locals said.
“This is a ghetto,” said Nora, 25, who was born of Saudi parents who moved to Biskopsgården when she was just a few months old. “There is racism & young people can’t get jobs; they feel they have no future in Swedish society.”
Now studying to be a nurse, she is worried what may happen to her brother, aged 10, when he gets a little older. “The gangs make boys feel like family, they look after them,” she said. She wants her brother to go to a school outside the borough where there is no drug dealing.
Katarina Despotovic, a researcher who has chronicled what she calls the neglect of boroughs such as Biskopsgården, said Gothenburg was concentrating resources in the city centre, creating suburban satellites “that no one cares about”.
“I love this area & its people, but we have a problem with young people feeling they can’t share the dreams & aspirations of the majority,” said Ulrika Stöök, 45, who works for the local council in Biskopsgården.
“We need to give young people hope. We can do a few things locally but now we need help.”
