INTERVIEW - Cracking down on UK gangs not sole answer to riots

Looters carry boxes out of a home cinema shop in central Birmingham, central England August 9, 2011.

LONDON (Reuters) - Responding to England's worst riots in decades, Prime Minister David Cameron this week declared war on gangs. But talking tough and jailing offenders won't solve the problem in the long term, says one youth worker with long experience in inner-city London.

Darren Way, 43, has been working with gang members in the deprived east London borough of Tower Hamlets, a hotbed of teenage gang violence, for more than 15 years. The district has one of the highest ethnic minority populations in the capital, consisting mainly of people of Bangladeshi origin.

"There's no easy answer to the issue which has been ignored for too long. All I know is someone has to engage the youth. You can't just lock them up and throw away the key," Way told Reuters from his group's new headquarters, a dilapidated warehouse converted into a 4,000 square foot (370 square metre) space where gang members and ex-gang members mix freely.

"You have to know how to rehabilitate sections of society that have dropped their moral compass," Way said.

Way, white and working class, grew up in an area of grim housing estates and tower blocks, but within the shadows of the gleaming towers of the financial district in Canary Wharf.

Having left school without qualifications and troubled by the violence he saw around him, he set up a community-based group called Streets of Growth to tackle the gang problem.

Initially working from above a shop in the rundown area of Poplar, which he describes as being on the frontline in trying to reintegrate gang members and ex-gang members into society, Way works intensively with more than 300 offenders a year aged between 12 and 22.

Youths kicked out of school for gang activity and referred to the centre by the courts, by schools, or parents themselves are given a chance to escape the lifestyle, he said.

"Even kids who have been in gangs come to us to say 'hey he's involved, get him out like you got me out'," he said.

Way, who has won awards for his work, and whose organisation now boasts eight staff, a trustee board, a director and runs hundreds of training and educational programmes to rehabilitate offenders, is concerned about what he says is the government's knee-jerk reaction to a deeply embedded social problem.

CAMERON TAKES ON GANGS

Prime Minister Cameron has blamed gangs for much of last week's orgy of burning and looting and has flooded the streets with police to stop the disorder flaring again.

He has decided to seek advice from William Bratton, a U.S. police chief who has worked in Boston, New York and Los Angeles and is considered an expert at tackling gang culture.

On Tuesday Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May threw her weight behind police chiefs using tougher tactics in riots and said they could get new curfew powers.

She also said police would get stronger powers to enforce gang injunctions and make youths remove face masks.

London's acting Metropolitan police Commissioner Tim Godwin said an analysis of the backgrounds of the close to 1,700 suspects arrested so far in the capital's riots showed that around 20 to 25 percent were "gang affiliates".

But Way -- who does believe in getting tough with gangs when they are threatening or out of control -- said gang injunctions, stronger dispersal orders, tougher sentencing and increased police numbers were only part of the overall answer.

"What you are seeing is immediate quick fixes. They are not long-term solutions," Way said, pointing out that suppression orders or gang injunctions were nothing particularly new.

"It's either all carrot or all stick. There isn't a holistic approach to tackling gangs in this country...It's either prevention, or intervention, or going in very hard with suppression," said Way, who helped police when rioting broke out in the London area of Hackney last week.

"You can't keep throwing police at it, that's just not the answer. You can't sustain it. It damages community relations with more stop-and-searches and it doesn't make communities more accountable."

In one of the centre's numerous units, where youths are engaged in re-skilling, is Koyes Ali, 26, a former gang member from a Bangladeshi family who is now employed by Streets of Growth as a youth worker in gang prevention.

"I've grown up around gangs since I was about 12. I've been a bit in and out really. Then from about 16 I started to properly participate in gangs ... selling drugs and stuff," he said.

Ali said his life turned around when he met Way and was mentored by people like him.

Way showed pictures of gang members aged between 17 and 19, some with very difficult backgrounds, involved in robbery, muggings, violence and disorder who had transformed their lives with the help of Streets of Growth.

"One now works for a construction company another has become a brick-layer and another is a heating engineer," he said.

In another room, a group of Bengali youths all associated with gangs or criminality were learning how to set up their own businesses using different creative talents and interests.

"Rather than them learning to roll a joint and sell dope they are making mosaic artwork they can sell at the local market," Way said.

Some return to crime and the gang lifestyle, but Way is proud of the centre's success rate.

On its website the centre says that in the gang-related incidents it has dealt with, 90 percent of the individuals had not reoffended, while 60 percent of those who joined classes at the centre had secured part- or full-time jobs.

Way, who runs the centre on local government grants of just over 200,000 pounds ($330,000) a year and who says many of his staff haven't had a pay rise in 20 years, is apprehensive about the future.

The coalition government's austerity-driven budget cuts might mean that funding for the project dries up down the road. The centre itself is to be knocked down in two years' time to be converted into luxury flats, Way says.

At the entrance, an oil painting done by some of those at the centre seems timely. It depicts a bird's-eye view of a riot with rows of riot police in one corner and an angry mob in another.

($1 = 0.604 British Pounds)

(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; Editing by Alistair Lyon)