Imprisoned in my postcode

Streetlife: south London rap artists Snoop (real name Craig, with baseball cap) and Face pose next to SW8 road signs

10 April 2012

At the age of 14, London should be his oyster. In reality, Reggie's boundaries extend no further than the half-dozen or so streets around the small Tulse Hill housing estate where he lives with his mother and two younger siblings.

"There are places you just don't go," he explains. "Not unless you know someone there really well or you're travelling as part of a much bigger group. If you're on your own and you're a new face, people will rob you, take everything you have. The only way to stop it happening is not to go to those places."

The notion of so-called postcode wars may have slipped from the headlines recently but the territorial divisions continue to exert a powerful influence on the lives of thousands of young Londoners. The more deprived the area, the more they try to assert control over the one thing they can lay claim to: the streets.

According to "Face", a former gang leader, one way round the problem is to have a "hood pass" that allows you to move through otherwise forbidden areas without being harassed.

"You don't actually get a piece of paper but it's as good as," Face explains. "It means someone in those bitz [that area] with a big reputation has vouched for you and people know that you're associated with him. Whenever I go anywhere south of home, I'm using my hood pass the whole time. But you have to be careful who you use the pass with. If the people you run into are enemies of the person who gave it to you, then you can just end up in even more trouble."

So far this year a total of 17 youths have been murdered in the capital. Many of the deaths have been attributed to inter-gang rivalry but even those who try to avoid being drawn into that world can still experience considerable problems. "My brother had a link [girlfriend] he wanted to see in Norwood but I told him not to go. I said, You don't know no one, you ain't got no hood pass. It's not worth the risk'.

"Some of my youngers can't even go to probation," adds Face, who still uses the gang term for the most junior members of his social group. "If the probation office is outside their territory, they just can't do it. I know one guy who decided to risk it because the office was right on the edge of the next area, just one street in. But he went there and got caught and got badly beaten up. He refused to go back again so he had to go back to court, but they refused to change the office. The people who are in charge of these things don't understand just how much of a problem this can be."

Similar issues have occurred with youths sentenced to community service inside "enemy" territory. Last July, 19-year-old Joshua Owens, linked to a gang in the E8 region of London, was shot five times while doing community service in E5. Owens survived, and, as a result of the incident, the probation service now tries to ensure youths do placements only in their own areas.

But there are also tales of young people having to take a series of lengthy detours to get to school or visit friends, simply to avoid travelling through areas they feel are unsafe.

Staff at trauma centres across London report that some victims of stabbings and other violent attacks are unable to attend physiotherapy or outpatient treatments because they are too scared of being attacked again, and the journey to hospital would involve crossing through too many danger zones.

Reggie is not part of a gang and has no intention of joining one but because gangs "control" both his own area and those adjacent to it means he has no choice but to abide by their rules. He talks wistfully about a recent event in Hyde Park he felt unable to attend because there was no way for him to get there and back without passing through areas he would rather avoid. The nearest Tube station is just outside his "safety zone".

"Would I ever go to, say, Peckham on my own? No way. I don't know anybody there. I wouldn't be safe. People from Peckham don't like people from Tulse Hill," he says, as if no further explanation were needed.

"Some people try to lie when they get stopped but you can never really get away with it, unless you know someone. If you pretend to live in a certain block they will just ask you who you know or what the name of the building is or what school you go to and who teaches there. You always get caught out.

"If people think you are moist [weak] or that you're from a moist area, they will try to get you. There are people out there who want money and power, and they think that robbing and beating people is the way to get it."

Although they are commonly described as postcode wars, in many cases the disputes can be far more localised. "If you fall out with someone on a particular street, then it's not just the next postcode, even the people on the very next street will have a beef with them," adds Reggie. "It doesn't matter where they are, only that they are somewhere different to where you are. You get people saying, Oh, someone from that street over there did what? Right, next time we get hold of one of them we are going to make them pay'. They think we have got to back him up' or we have got to get revenge' and that's how it starts."

Rivalry between different areas is often stoked by videos posted on YouTube and various social networking sites. Shot on mobile phones or cheap camcorders, they feature youths "spittin" or rapping about their areas and exploits. Many are filled with taunts and threats to attack rivals, should they dare to journey into a rival gang's territory. The videos usually feature plenty of footage of local landmarks as those behind the camera seek to clearly mark out the boundaries of their turf.

Police routinely monitor and download such videos and several have been used in evidence at numerous court cases, including several murders.

According to Face, exerting control over a particular area is also a way for individuals to enhance their street credibility. "It's all about stripes," he says. "If you mug someone, you get a stripe. If you go to jail, you get another stripe. There are people out there who want as many stripes as they can get.

"You can't rob people who live where you live and you can't go to places where there are other gangs, so the only people that leaves are strangers who come into your manor."

With so many gangs active in the drug market, there are also commercial reasons for retaining control of an area. "If you are shotting [selling drugs] on a street, you have to be seen to be invincible," says Face. "Otherwise people will run you out and take over."

Face has left the gang scene behind and now assists at Code 7, a south London charity that helps to get young people out of a cycle of crime and violence by encouraging their talents in music. But even some of the youths travelling to Code 7's Oval offices have difficulty getting there, having to run a gauntlet of rival gangs simply to attend their studio sessions.

Asher Senator, CEO of Code 7, regularly sees the problems at first hand. "The other day I took a couple of youngsters to a meeting and stopped off at a shop. When I came back they were lying down in the back of the car, hiding. They said it was a peak [dangerous] area for them and they couldn't be seen there.

"I grew up on an estate in Wandsworth. There was another estate over the road and we all used to link up and do things together. Now the people on my old estate can't go there at all. They literally cannot cross the street without putting themselves in danger. We need to tackle the mindset of this generation. We need to introduce more London-wide initiatives so that youths from different areas have the opportunity to interact in a way that brings them together instead of pushing them further apart."

In many ways such problems are nothing new. Children from one school have always been at risk of attack from pupils of another and battles between rivals still occur. But 10 years ago, the average 14-year-old carried nothing of value; today, mobile phones and MP3 players make them worthwhile targets.

Another change is the increased use of weapons. Reggie will not say if he has ever carried a knife for his own protection but admits he knows plenty of others who do, purely out of fear.

Concepts such as hood passes and stripes may seem alien to anyone over 21 but are considered normal by an entire generation. Craig, 19, compares travelling to certain parts of town to playing a game of Russian roulette. "If you have a bad enough reputation, then people will back off. They will know that you are not someone to mess with. But it depends on where you are and whether you have a rep there. If you're a stranger, then you're a stranger and you're fair game."

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Imprisoned in my postcode

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