Boys would get a pitbull and train it to bite, they'd batter people, rob them for their watches. "I've seen people get dragged out of their cars and beaten up because they're not meant to be in that area, I've seen people get shanked. Lisa began to realise the extent of the violence and criminality she had witnessed over two years. Who's selling drugs, who's got firearms." But I was more scared because that's when people turn against you. "What I was doing started to become awful. When Lisa turned 17 her endless nights spent in the "traphouse" began to take their toll. If I was seen by myself something would have happened to me." I couldn't go to my mum's house and when I did see her she had to meet me somewhere. "There were areas I couldn't go into because of him.
Interview i am gangster crack#
"Then there is the baby mothers, the wifeys, the crack heads, a posh girl that wants to fuck a hood, and there's always a traphouse."Īs Lisa became more embroiled with the gang her life became more dangerous. "There'll always be the boy who no one fucks with because he's a madman, there'll always be a beg friend, a boy or girl that isn't really down with gang violence but want to be one of the cool kids, there'll also be a pagan, a snake, who's known to have some connection to the other side. "There's what's called a hood slag, it's the girl who's not anyone's girlfriend, however she fucks with every boy. It's all very fiction, but it's not real love … you don't realise how deep you're in until it's too late."Īs she got to know more people in the gang she realised everyone – boys and girls – had a different role. "You're made to believe that it's a way of life and that's as good as your life will get. You don't love him but you're made to believe you do. "Boys can work a girl out, fold her up and put them in their pockets. The relationship with Jerome continued as she was drawn deeper into gang life. If I got caught I would have said no comment and took the bird with me." "It never crossed my mind that if I'm walking from A to B anything could happen in the middle. "In my eyes it was normal because I was just helping my friends out." She would drop off packages which included ferrying Jerome's gun. Soon Lisa was carrying drugs and weapons. At first it involved taking messages, then she was asked to help cut up the drugs. Boys are paranoid, they think their girlfriends will set them up."īut he began asking her to "help out". "During the first six months he was building up trust. To begin with she had a "normal" relationship. He had been committed of knife-point robbery and she had been found guilty of common assault. The couple met at a youth offending service. Young people think, 'If I'm in a gang no one can touch me because I'll have friends to back me up.'" No one can touch me if I'm going out with him. I wanted to get off with a bad boy, it was a thrill. "If you have a boyfriend you'll be automatically gang-related. However, it was not until she began a relationship with Jerome – a well-known gang member – that she acquired her "pass". "Start with answering back to the teacher and you'll get a little bit of respect thieve something from the shop, get a little bit of respect rob someone, you'll get a little bit of respect punch someone up, you'll get a little bit of respect, until eventually you're in it so deep you don't know how you got there." And you basically get ratings, respect from your peers. You mix with Year 11s and you don't want them to bully you. "When you start secondary school everything's new because you're mixed with the older kids. "It starts at secondary school … it's a cycle."įrom an early age Lisa says she was aware of gang rivalries, realising that people from an estate a few hundred yards away were considered deadly rivals.īut she says it was not until she moved from junior school that she began to be drawn in.
Central to the scheme will be an attempt to help young people escape gang life.īut Lisa reckons it will be harder than the authorities think to break the hold gangs have across large parts of the capital. Last Wednesday the Metropolitan police launched an initiative to crack down on the rise of gangs amid a sharp rise in serious youth violence. "You can't make much noise and you don't chat unnecessary shit," she remembers.
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Four years on and Lisa admits this still sounds like the stuff of American crime shows. The flat had been turned into a "traphouse" and Lisa's then 16-year-old boyfriend, Jerome, led the operation. "Occasionally other girls knock on the door and offer blow jobs to the boys and then smoke a rock in the kitchen as an exchange." "It's the girls' job to cut up and the boys' job to deliver," says Lisa, who is now 19. Other boys would come and go to make deliveries. She said that as they worked in silence there were always two boys smoking cannabis, who watched their faces and hands "making sure they didn't fuck up".
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