"Even in the late 1980s, heyday of the Inner West drug gangs, most within- and between-gang disputes, as also reported about gangs elsewhere, emanated from interpersonal disputes regarding friends, family and romantic relationships."

Tomorrow the Government is to unveil its £100m youth crime action plan, elements of which were announced by the Home Secretary over the weekend. However, research published six months ago is quoted on the front page of today's Guardian that suggest core assumptions informing government policy are seriously flawed. The two year project, which included interviews with more than 100 gang members, revealed that violence was far more likely to be triggered by disputes over relationships than by control of territory or drug markets. Further undermining stereotypes, the researchers also found that for many of the young people involved, "references to violence and exposure to violent events as victims, perpetrators and witnesses, was part of everyday conversation and of growing up." In other words, those usually portrayed as offenders are themselves repeat victims of serious crime.

This does not excuse their criminal behaviour, but it should challenge us to consider the broader social context of our nation's escalating problem with knife crime when seeking justice in such cases - for both victims and offenders. Forcing teenagers caught with knives to visit victims in hospital may achieve very little if their exposure to traumatic violence has helped drive them to the point where they feel the need to carry a knife.

Equally, given that locking up increasing numbers of knife-carriers is proving to have no deterrent effect, perhaps we ought instead to be investing in relationships education, to equip affected communities how better to respond when interpersonal disputes arise, as they inevitably will.

Perhaps we need to ask how we can help, rather than always being first to ostracise, demonise and criminalise.

Source: Aldridge, Judith et al (2007). Youth Gangs in an English City: Social Exclusion, Drugs and Violence: Full Research Report ESRC End of Award Report, RES-000-23-0615. Swindon: ESRC