Modern English - After The Snow
52 minutes ago
Friday, 12 August 2011
rorylawless Rory Lawless
@evgenymorozov South Sudan's main export will be domain names for European neo-nazi organisations.
Glasgow gangs chose route to peace in face of tough crackdown
The Barlanark area of Glasgow is one of a number of neighbourhoods where gang crime has dropped significantly in recent years. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
It was, said one witness, a day of great theatre but also of great underlying menace. Scores of battle-scarred gang members, bitter rivals in their home territories, were marched by police in stab-proof vests in to a courtroom in Glasgow for a unique and highly charged confrontation.Faced with the mothers of their victims and graphic medical slides of faces disfigured by blades, the gang members were given a blunt choice: end it now or face an unrelenting crackdown by Strathclyde police and the judiciary.With the courtroom packed with church ministers, youth workers, criminologists and an American basketball star whose gang-member brother suffered a violent death, the gang members – dismissed by some as feral thugs – listened. And it worked.The Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV), cited by David Cameron in the Commons on Thursday as an example to all cities, has seen a near 50% reduction in gang-related violence in the east end of Glasgow and the blighted housing schemes on the city's eastern and northern fringes, particularly in Easterhouse, Barlanark and Shettleston.
The scheme provides mentoring tailored to individual needs, with advice on finding work, how to behave at interviews and access to education and training.
Peter Donnelly, a professor who recounted that dramatic day at Glasgow sheriff court, writing in the British Medical Journal in 2008, said his detailed study of the CIRV's work had found that violent offences by gang members on the scheme had fallen by 46% in the two years since then. Other figures suggested even greater success for the worst offenders: a 73% cut for those on the most intensive programme.
Many of these young men, brought up on estates with multi-generational unemployment and raised on violent territorial wars defending just a few blocks of housing, came from "really disrupted backgrounds", Donnelly said.
What the programme did was gave those people a second chance, he said.
"This isn't a softly, softly, approach. It's very much tough love. Access to the good stuff is contingent on them signing pledges not to carry a weapon and not to be involved in violence. And if they do go back to that they get withdrawal of all these things: I think that aspect is very important."
Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan, head of the Scottish violence reduction unit which set up the CIRV, said the method, adapted from a proven US system tested among the gangs of Boston and Cincinnati, was actually "incredibly straightforward".
Both Carnochan and his deputy, Karyn McCluskey, are in regular contact with English colleagues, sharing experience.
Funded with £1m from the Scottish government, the programme involves close coordination by all the services: police, prosecutors, the courts, trainers, social workers, young workers and teachers. What it does not do is break up gangs. Tested in the north and east of the city, it is now being rolled out across Glasgow by Strathclyde police.
Working with members of 55 gangs, it attempts to give its members greater self esteem, and a diversion away from the often arranged street fights.
Carnochan said: "We're not trying to bust gangs up. We don't mind them being in gangs – we're all in gangs. We all gather together around a common purpose now and again, but these guys get together for a rather dangerous thing, which is recreational violence.
"We can't break the gangs up because they do get something from gangs, a sense of identity, a sense of sociability, so it's about the positive elements of that.
"They defend their areas against another area and stand in very dangerous situations alongside their friends. If you're in the British army in Helmand province these things would be valued, but it happens on housing schemes in the 21st century." And that, he said, "we bloody do" care about.
The programme has got two key ingredients: offering hope and much greater help finding work, and, most immediately, an alternative to the grim routine of an arranged knife fight every Friday night. On many Friday and Saturday nights, the gangs have been brought together to fight it out on the pitch, with a football.
"What really matters to these guys is a job," Donnelly said. "Part of the programme is about personal development but it's also about getting job training and experience; there's no doubt that's the incentive."
While clearly flattered by Cameron's applause for the project, Carnochan would not be drawn on whether it would work elsewhere in the UK. "I don't know the inner city challenges facing Birmingham, Manchester or London but I do know it has worked in Scotland … it's for others to judge what's applicable. I wouldn't want to be told from 300 miles away what to do." .
What Carnochan does believe, however, is that the current system has clearly and patently failed.
"More cops, more prisons, more sentences, will make you feel better for a couple of days – and we haven't made a blind bit of difference to equality or inequality and the gangs are still there, gangs that were there when I was a young cop 35 years ago.
"This is about a cultural change and attitudinal change, which is as much required within professional service providers, police, health and social workers, as well as a cultural change within the communities that think it's okay to do this. It's everybody's issue."
Severin Carrell @'The Guardian'
Jihadists flood Web with anti-British messages
Jihadists have flooded internet with anti-British messages inciting rioters to take further action, US-based terrorist tracking group SITE Intelligence has said.
Postings on jihadist websites have urged Muslim militants to incite the rioters via social media that could possibly lead to Arab-style protests in Britain, SITE said.
In a message on the Shumukh Al-Islam website, an extremist said the riots could be "useful" for the jihadist cause. He suggested Britain could withdraw troops from Afghanistan and send them to London to quell the violence.
Another post on the website advised jihadists to "infiltrate the British Facebook and Twitter" pages with catchy slogans such as "We are all Mark Duggan".
On another website, Ansar Al-Mujahedeen, users provided links to the Facebook pages of top British football clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal, urging militants to post key slogans there, SITE said.
The SITE group constantly monitors internet and traditional media for material and propaganda released by jihadist groups and their supporters.
The death of Mark Duggan, taxi-driver and alleged drug supplier ina police shootout, sparked the violence in the country. Police have held over 1,100 people over the looting and unrest, which analysts say were largely organised by young people using the Blackberry smartphone's messaging service, micro-blogging website Twitter and other social networking websites.
@'The Times of India'
Postings on jihadist websites have urged Muslim militants to incite the rioters via social media that could possibly lead to Arab-style protests in Britain, SITE said.
In a message on the Shumukh Al-Islam website, an extremist said the riots could be "useful" for the jihadist cause. He suggested Britain could withdraw troops from Afghanistan and send them to London to quell the violence.
Another post on the website advised jihadists to "infiltrate the British Facebook and Twitter" pages with catchy slogans such as "We are all Mark Duggan".
On another website, Ansar Al-Mujahedeen, users provided links to the Facebook pages of top British football clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal, urging militants to post key slogans there, SITE said.
The SITE group constantly monitors internet and traditional media for material and propaganda released by jihadist groups and their supporters.
The death of Mark Duggan, taxi-driver and alleged drug supplier ina police shootout, sparked the violence in the country. Police have held over 1,100 people over the looting and unrest, which analysts say were largely organised by young people using the Blackberry smartphone's messaging service, micro-blogging website Twitter and other social networking websites.
@'The Times of India'
A social media crackdown is the wrong response to riots
The government is contemplating tactics against the UK riots that set dangerous precedents.
In parliament today, prime minister David Cameron said authorities and the industry were looking at "whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality". Well, at least he did post it as a question of right and wrong.
It would be wrong, sir. Who is to say what communication and content should be banned from whom on what platform? On my BlackBerry? My computer? My telephone? My street corner?
Cameron also said, according to a Guardian tweet, that he would look at asking online services to take down offending photos. Again, who decides that content is offending? If you give authority to government and telco and social companies to censor that, what else can and will they censor?
Beware, sir. If you take these steps, what separates you from the Saudi government demanding the ability to listen to and restrict its BBM networks? What separates you from Arab tyrannies cutting off social communication via Twitter or from China banning it?
This regulatory reflex further exposes the danger of British government thinking it can and should regulate media. Beware, my friends. When anyone's speech is not free, no one's speech is free. I refer the honourable gentleman to this . Censorship is not the path to civility. Only speech is.
There is also debate about tactics to restrict anonymity in public. Cameron wants police to have the authority "in certain circumstances" to require face masks to be removed: instead of a burqa ban, a hoodie ban. One MP in the current debate also suggested rioters be sprayed with indelible ink. In addition, Cameron said that CCTV pictures – and, one assumes, pictures on social networks and the afore-derided BBM – would be used to identity and arrest rioters. I understand the motive and goal to control crime. I don't necessarily oppose the moves, for I argue in Public Parts that what one does in public is public.
But again, be aware of the precedents these actions would set. Be aware how they could be used under other circumstances. In Public Parts, I compare the use of social media to identity Egyptian secret police from ID photos taken from their liberated headquarters with the use of social media to identity protestors in Iran. A tool used for good can be used for bad.
The bottom line of these debated tactics would be this: anonymity would be banned in public; it would require that one be public in public.
Right now, online, we are having many debates about anonymity and identity .
So now we need to look at how the public street in London compares with the public street on the internet, on Facebook, Twitter, BBM, blogs and newspapers. What government does on the streets it could do on the internet, and vice versa. Each is a form of a public.
I was just writing a post defending the need for anonymity and pseudonymity online for the use of protestors and whistleblowers and the oppressed and vulnerable. I was also writing to defend social services that try to require real identity as their prerogative to set the tone of their services (rather than discussing that in the context of Facebook or Google+, look at it in the context of, say, LinkedIn, where pseudonymity would rob it of its essential utility and value). I was going to suggest that services such as Google+ find a middle ground where real identity is encouraged – even with verification of true identity as an optional service – but pseudonymity is permitted, with more power given not to the service but to the user to filter people and media and comments on that basis (allow me as a user to, for example, read the comments of people who have the courage to stand behind their words with their names). There is much nuance to be grappled with in these issues and in these new circumstances.
But now come the UK riots and the debate over what to do about them, raising these same issues in a new context – the street – with a new player: the government. The proper debate, I argue in Public Parts, should be held not in the specifics of these matters but instead as principles.
Restricting speech cannot be done except in the context of free speech.
When debating public identity, one must decide what a public is.
These are not easy issues, any of them, in any of these contexts. So I would urge my British friends to be careful about enabling their government to impose restrictions on the public.
Jeff Jarvis @'The Guardian'
In parliament today, prime minister David Cameron said authorities and the industry were looking at "whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality". Well, at least he did post it as a question of right and wrong.
It would be wrong, sir. Who is to say what communication and content should be banned from whom on what platform? On my BlackBerry? My computer? My telephone? My street corner?
Cameron also said, according to a Guardian tweet, that he would look at asking online services to take down offending photos. Again, who decides that content is offending? If you give authority to government and telco and social companies to censor that, what else can and will they censor?
Beware, sir. If you take these steps, what separates you from the Saudi government demanding the ability to listen to and restrict its BBM networks? What separates you from Arab tyrannies cutting off social communication via Twitter or from China banning it?
This regulatory reflex further exposes the danger of British government thinking it can and should regulate media. Beware, my friends. When anyone's speech is not free, no one's speech is free. I refer the honourable gentleman to this . Censorship is not the path to civility. Only speech is.
There is also debate about tactics to restrict anonymity in public. Cameron wants police to have the authority "in certain circumstances" to require face masks to be removed: instead of a burqa ban, a hoodie ban. One MP in the current debate also suggested rioters be sprayed with indelible ink. In addition, Cameron said that CCTV pictures – and, one assumes, pictures on social networks and the afore-derided BBM – would be used to identity and arrest rioters. I understand the motive and goal to control crime. I don't necessarily oppose the moves, for I argue in Public Parts that what one does in public is public.
But again, be aware of the precedents these actions would set. Be aware how they could be used under other circumstances. In Public Parts, I compare the use of social media to identity Egyptian secret police from ID photos taken from their liberated headquarters with the use of social media to identity protestors in Iran. A tool used for good can be used for bad.
The bottom line of these debated tactics would be this: anonymity would be banned in public; it would require that one be public in public.
Right now, online, we are having many debates about anonymity and identity .
So now we need to look at how the public street in London compares with the public street on the internet, on Facebook, Twitter, BBM, blogs and newspapers. What government does on the streets it could do on the internet, and vice versa. Each is a form of a public.
I was just writing a post defending the need for anonymity and pseudonymity online for the use of protestors and whistleblowers and the oppressed and vulnerable. I was also writing to defend social services that try to require real identity as their prerogative to set the tone of their services (rather than discussing that in the context of Facebook or Google+, look at it in the context of, say, LinkedIn, where pseudonymity would rob it of its essential utility and value). I was going to suggest that services such as Google+ find a middle ground where real identity is encouraged – even with verification of true identity as an optional service – but pseudonymity is permitted, with more power given not to the service but to the user to filter people and media and comments on that basis (allow me as a user to, for example, read the comments of people who have the courage to stand behind their words with their names). There is much nuance to be grappled with in these issues and in these new circumstances.
But now come the UK riots and the debate over what to do about them, raising these same issues in a new context – the street – with a new player: the government. The proper debate, I argue in Public Parts, should be held not in the specifics of these matters but instead as principles.
Restricting speech cannot be done except in the context of free speech.
When debating public identity, one must decide what a public is.
These are not easy issues, any of them, in any of these contexts. So I would urge my British friends to be careful about enabling their government to impose restrictions on the public.
Jeff Jarvis @'The Guardian'
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