How we can fill the moral vacuum

For the first time in the 17 years since we moved to Brixton, I have thought seriously of getting out. There comes a point where you can't bear to hear the door close, knowing your child is going out on to streets where the gun rules. Many people in Brixton feel that way, and like me they have started asking themselves: why stay? The risks are too great. I really believe we could be heading for the American experience where those who can move, will.

Where would that leave London? Imagine a city where places like Brixton, Harlesden and Tottenham become islands of violence and criminality, abandoned by families who just couldn't take any more. Well, that is what is happening, and we may be looking at our last chance to stop it. The city is awash with crack cocaine and guns. They are the foundations of a vast economy that spawns a level of cruelty and violence the like of which has not been experienced in modern times.

In Brixton young black men will not get involved in confrontations or fights because they know that even if they win the loser will be back, but this time with a gun. More and more you hear of guns being produced right at the beginning. Sometimes they are fired, sometimes not. The Government has tried to play down the level of gun crime, but in places like Brixton it has become part of everyday life. The weapons - machine pistols and the like - are frighteningly available, and it's only a matter of time before something horrific takes place, probably involving the loss of innocent lives.

The overwhelming majority in the Afro-Caribbean community is innocent, and many are victims of gun crime. But there is a significant minority, a separate and unseen grouping, which is committed to crime. It became acute in the last half of the 1990s, when the many wrongs of the preceding years gathered to create the whirlwind we are now reaping. The explosion in teenage pregnancies in the 1980s created a generation of boys without fathers. The mature influence that most boys need was missing from the lives of these children. They grew up in a culture of exclusion.

At schools where they didn't fit the pupil template, they failed. In their early teens they found themselves marginalised, without work and unable to jump through the various hoops that stand between a youngster and benefits. There was only one recourse for these children - ghetto love. This is the street phrase for the underground welfare system that operates for those for whom everything else has failed. Ghetto love can provide the unwanted and destitute with a meal, a place to stay, a pair of shoes. But it is exploitative. The boy with nothing will be given a new mountain bike. He'll be told to make a delivery, usually crack cocaine. He'll get money, probably a lot of money, for the first time in his life. The dealer will say: "You did well. Here are a few rocks; see how much you can get for them." Soon he's buying the clothes, living the life of the gangsta. He has to get a gun.

This pattern is repeated over and over. But it has to be seen against the backdrop of what is happening in schools and in the workplace. There is a crisis in education that sees many black youngsters excluded from school, often from the age of 12. About 20 per cent of people from the Afro-Caribbean community are unemployed, more than double that in the white community. For those in the 16-21 age group it's worse. Black youngsters are four times more likely to be unemployed.

There is a sense of being disconnected, outside the mainstream. It leads to horrendous levels of violence. The bullied become the bullies, children from the age of eight are in fear of their lives on a day-to-day basis. And it is those in the Afro-Caribbean community itself who are most likely to be the victims.

The cycle of crime and violence is harming lives, and if the community is to survive it must break it once and for all. There is only one way to start filling this moral vacuum: black people must enter into a partnership with the police. Once, not so long ago, this would have been impossible. But I believe we have an opportunity now that must not be missed. The Metropolitan Police Service has changed since the murder of Stephen Lawrence. It is desperately tragic that it took the death of a fine young man to bring this about, but there is no doubt things have changed.

I don't go along with the view that racism has been eradicated, but there is an awareness now, a willingness to change that requires a response from the black community. We must play a part in something that can only be brought about in a partnership. It will require trust, an effort of will to put the bad old days behind us, but most of all it will require courage.

Most people in the black community are honest and law-abiding. They want to follow their instincts and report crimes and help police solve them. But they know they can bear witness in London and see their family murdered in Jamaica. We urgently need a witness-protection scheme that gives people the confidence to help the police. We are currently reviewing witness-protection procedures. The American model, under which people are given complete new identities and lives, is being looked at closely. If people can be made to feel secure they are far more likely to give police the evidence they need to clear the streets of this menace.

But Brixton, and other areas where the suffering is greatest, cannot be seen in isolation. Any time from Thursday night, throughout the weekend, I see smart cars from across the river drive down to the streets where the deals are done. Thirtysomethings from Chelsea and other affluent areas turn up to get their drugs for the weekend parties. These people should understand the damage they do by injecting the money that fuels the violence. The vast sums that change hands on the streets where our children walk are at the heart of this problem. When they drive off with their cocaine or whatever they leave behind a community that is hurting badly.

Yes, I've thought about leaving. But my instincts tell me if we stay, and work together, we can see it through.

Lee Jasper is the policing and community relations adviser to Mayor of London Ken Livingstone