www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2515989/Martina-Cole-on-girls-in-gangs.htmlSaturday, July 4, 2009
Martina Cole on girls in gangs
Word on the street ... crime writer Martina Cole with a girl gang in LA for her TV documentary
Figures that should shock Britain
FEMALES account for a quarter of all violent assaults in England and Wales, according to the latest statistics from the British Crime Survey 2007/8.
240 - The number of female thugs arrested every day over the course of a year.
Violence in girls under 18 has quadrupled in the past seven years.
The most common reason girls are arrested is assault.
There were 23,000 violent offences by girls aged ten to 17 in a year, including stabbings and murder.
87,200 - The number of girls and women arrested for violent offences. The number of women arrested every year for "violence against the person" has more than doubled in ten years, from 37,000.
By KATE JACKSON
Published: 03 Jul 2009
HER novels are set in a dark, seedy, violent underworld - but Martina Cole believes real life is far more terrifying.
The crime writer is horrified at the state of teen violence on our streets today, especially in girl gangs.
And she worries about the world her 11-year-old daughter Freddie will grow up in.
Martina, whose book The Take has just been dramatised on Sky1 and is available on ITV DVD from Monday July 6, says: "My fear is if we don't get something done now, I don't want to live in that sort of world ten to 15 years from now.
"If something doesn't get done here, we might find ourselves with a really big problem ten years on.
"It's so awful with the knife crime but if we're not careful we'll end up like LA with guns."
While filming two shocking documentaries about girl gangs in London and LA, she met girls who carry knives, saw young female gunshot victims and heard how girls in LA are being raped in gang initiation ceremonies.
She also met a young girl in London whose OWN family were threatening to kill her because she had left the gang.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Martina, 49, says: "The first night filming in East London they all started fighting.
"The way these kids talk to one another is really violent. They say things like, 'Your mum's got Aids' and this boy really punched one of the girls. Years ago a man would never hit a girl."
Martina, mum to young Freddie and son Chris, 31, fears Britain's own feral youths will copy those in the US.
She says: "It takes a lot to shock me but¬filming the documentaries was a real eye-opener.
"London was shocking enough. These girls are very hardcore.
Handy ... Martina Cole talks gangs with UK teens
ITV
"The way they talk is very aggressive and they talk about attacking people on the bus. You have to step back and think, 'Bloody hell, these are just kids'.
"Then we got to LA and I spoke to girls who had been shot in drive-by shootings. One girl went on her first drive-by when she was ten with her dad. Her mum and her sister beat her to force her into the gang.
"A doctor there told us about girls who had been beaten up and raped in initiation ceremonies. There's a theory our young girls want to be like them."
The documentary Martina Cole: Girls In Gangs London is on at 11pm tonight on Sky1. The LA show was screened last week.
Martina is very aware of what sort of pressures and influences surround young daughter Freddie.
In her own youth, Martina admits she was in a gang but says it was nothing like the packs of teens prowling the streets today.
She says: "We were a gang of kids who ran around together. We never harmed anyone. We had a couple of fights here and there but that's par for the course growing up. It's different now.
"The girls in England talking about attacking people on the bus - you're thinking, 'Why? When did you start thinking like that?'"
Figures released in May show females are now involved in a QUARTER of all violent attacks, according to the Home Office's British Crime Survey.
In the latest figures, from 2007-8, 13 per cent of assaults were committed by women, with a further 11 per cent blamed on mixed groups of men and women.
Just a couple of weeks ago, two teenage girls were jailed for stripping a 16-year-old victim naked and whipping her with belts for supposedly "disrespecting" the gang leader's mum.
The 17-year-old leader of the Girls Over Men gang was jailed for four-and-a-half years for kidnap and assault of the girl in Stratford, East London, in October, and a 16-year-old was given three years.
Sophia Austin, 18, was given a six-month suspended sentence in a young offenders' institute for taking pictures of the attack.
Mean streets ... Martina Cole meets teenagers
ITV
Judge William Kennedy said the attack was "ferocious, deliberate and chilling".
Martina, a self-confessed feminist who lives in Kent, says: "Why is it more shocking with girls? I think women can be just as violent as men. Why are we so shocked? It's like reverse sexism. 'Yeah, Ian Brady could kill kids, but how could Myra Hindley?'"
And she says no parent can be complacent. She adds: "People say, 'It's not going to affect our kids is it?' and I say 'Maybe not - but one day they might be on the same bus or train as a gang and then it could affect your kids.'
"Freddie's just a regular person and my son grew up in rough places - but he never grew up a criminal. He was always too frightened of me."
Martina, who has written 16 crime thrillers in 20 years, believes the responsibility lies with the parents.
She says: "The only way to protect them nowadays is to make sure you know where they are and what they're doing.
"The thing that amazed me is that a lot of women in America think that so long as their kids are with the people with guns, they're safe."
She also blames TV and films for our knife crime problem - which might sound strange coming from the mouth of a woman whose novels revolve around violence.
She says: "Children watch so many films with people dying. When you're very young you don't realise that once you're dead, you're dead.
"None of my children watches soaps. I don't let them. Have you ever listened to the children in EastEnders and the way they talk to their parents?
"If any of mine spoke to me like that, they'd be looking for somewhere else to live.
"My books aren't for seven-year-olds to read. It's not ITV or Channel 4 or Sky1's job to police your children. That's your job. You shouldn't have kids watching things like that."
Martina knows how to stop all the violence too.
She believes it is crucial that we provide things for teenagers to do to keep them away from crime - and impose tougher sentences on those who break the law.
She says: "It's not just a generational thing. There's nothing for them. If every pub and restaurant closed at 8pm, what would we do?
"The amount it costs in a unit for a week, in a borstal or whatever, they could keep a youth club open for a year. And I think they would go there.
"I think there should be harsh penalties. That's what I've always argued in my books.
"Property means more than life in this country. If you murder a child, you're out in four to seven years. Rob a bank and you're looking at 19.
"I believe the punishment should fit the crime. If you take a young life like that, you should never be allowed to see the light of day for a long time - to teach a lesson and to make others realise that could happen to them."
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