Gangs at Finsbury Park Station

Donna

Just seen this [story](http://www.thecnj.co.uk/islington/2009/031309/inews031309_01.html) OUTHS TO BE BANNED FROM TUBE STATION Police bid to tackle youngsters intimidating staff and passengers GROUPS of youths look set to be banned from Finsbury Park station following reports of a campaign of intimidation against staff and claims that gangs are recruiting members from Islington schools.

Donna

Sorry - that should have been YOUTHS not OUTHS!

injoke

christ alive, reading that article you'd think finsbury park was south central LA. love the bit about recruiting from schools too - really pushes those parental worry buttons, classic local paper stuff. if the police really wanted to make finsbury park a less intimidating place they'd tell arsenal to move back to woolwich and take all the violent pisshead football fans with them instead of pandering to the traditional well-to-do white area fear of young black people.

IMHO

David

_"violent pisshead football fans "_ ?? It's not South Central LA, but its not Milwall either.

Reg

I particularly like this bit in the article: "Gordon Kerr, who has been campaigning against the proposed demolition of the nearby Sobell Sports Centre, said the rise of gang culture in the area was another reason why the centre must not be closed for two to three years for redevelopment. He said: “How many children are they going to condemn to death as a result of violent crime as a result of the loss of the Sobell?” " Personally, I have not had any trouble around the station but I had no idea I had the Sobell to thank!

injoke

i didn't intend that remark as a dig at arsenal fans in particular, it's not just arsenal fans that go to the emirates.

perhaps with all the cctv cameras at finsbury park it would be possible for the police to do a comparison of the number of actual (rather than feared or imaginary) crimes committed at FP by "gangs" and crimes committed by football fans? if this gang problem is so bad i assume there would be evidence from the abundance of cctv at the station, that article fails to actually provide any for some reason. if there's a crime problem then fine deal with it as a crime problem, if it's a "lots of commuters are scared of young black men" problem then the police surely have better things to do.

ooh i'm getting all ranty.

Colette

@injoke - just how many incidents have you come across involving "violent pisshead football fans" in the area? I'll give you pisshead, but violent?

injoke

more than one, but perhaps i'm not explaining myself all that well. i'm a football fan who drinks too much myself, i don't think there's a serious problem with football related crime at finsbury park, but nor do i think there's a problem with "gang" related crime at finsbury park. my point is that this article isn't about actual crime, it's about perceptions and fears and paranoia. personally i find walking through a crowd of angry arsenal fans who've just given up two goals in five minutes against spurs and want to yell and chuck beer about it more intimidating than walking past a group of youths hanging around as youths have always done in public places across the globe. i'm pondering as to why one type of subjectively intimidating behaviour by one group is treated as a criminal matter and another type of subjectively intimidating behaviour is tolerated and even charged for by the local police.

David

The only slightest bit of sense in that article is by youth worker Desmond Riley: _"It has always been the case that children were recruited into gangs from school. But I don’t actually think that these are always gangs in the criminal sense. Often they are just young people hanging about with nothing better to do. The answer is not to introduce dispersal areas around Finsbury Park. That’s merely going to push the problem somewhere else. The answer is to give these young people something to do – that means work."_ It's apples and oranges but if you really want to hold up gang behaviour and football fan behaviour, there is a heavy police presence on match days which always move fans on from around the immediate station. Right or wrong, a dispersal zone for certain groups displaying anti-social behaviour at night around the station isn't that different. The only thing I really take from that article is that Gordon Kerr and councillor Phil Kelly sound like sanctimonious bell-ends.

ChangN4N6

I see the cops are back in force tackling this problem . Is the sports centre open still? The refurb never happened. Chang

gardener-joe

...

ChangN4N6

That's a good idea. Specially on match days.