"19 year old male, ? Heroin overdose, history of violence *LOCATION MATCH"
First job of the day, it was early on a sunday morning, we were tired and a tad grouchy. As soon as the job came down our radio started ringing.
"Don't approach, police on route, the patient is violent. Hold for police"

As a result, we end up with our patient. A 19 year old male, high on drugs, unemployed with a criminal record longer than the ancient scrolls of Jerusalem. He had no education, his mum was an alcoholic and his dad was in prison. His 3 brothers were all in the same boat as him. We entered the block via the large metal door, a small window hole showed the remnants of the glass that had once been there, bloodied tissues lied in pools of urine and tinfoil stained with crack drifted around the stairwell like autumn leaves. As we climbed the stairs, passing the masses of graffiti we could could hear the commotion. He was smashing up the flat. He was high on MDMA and Trips. He was hallucinating and being violent towards neighbours and his family. We didn't get near him. The police brought him to us already restrained. There wasn't much for us to do other than monitor him. He needed to be sedated at the hospital so for us it was a bit of a non job but it highlighted the problems we, the police, the government and the residents of council estates face.
This job was symptomatic of the problems that are common place all over the country. There are over 6 million people living on council estates in Britain and a large percentage of these people are living in properties that are rundown, isolated and abandoned. In the heart of every thriving city in Britain is a second city. A city hidden from visitors. A city hidden from public view. A city the government would like to forget. A city where more often than not, good people are kept prisoners by the fear of gang rule. And what chance do the police have? A few years ago on this estate, there were 6 officers and a sergeant dedicated to patrolling the area. Admittedly that isn't much for the size of it but dropping it to just 2 beat officers under the Tories has seen a lot of the good work undone. Despite the £12.5 billion flurry of initiative under recent governments promising the 'big society', promising community improvement, promising re-galvanisation, promising criminal justice and promising more policing the mish-mash of projects has produced very few results and have made little to no dent in the growing level of violence and drug abuse in deprived urban areas. Street violence, drug dealing, robbery and burglary have risen and the much vaunted Anti-Social-Behaviour-Orders have become a prize more than punishment.

Poverty in the UK
- Worst in the EU, longest working hours, lowest social spending
- By EU decency threshold the minimum wage should be £7.87. It's £4.98
- Three times more UK children fall beneath the poverty threshold than in 1970
- The base wage for the bottom tenth of the population is worse than 30 years ago (relative)
Crime in the UK
- 1% of the population suffers 59% of all violent crime
- 2% of the population suffers 41% of all property crime
- Most criminals commit crime within 1.8 miles of their home. 92% of these criminals live on council estates consumed by poverty and criminalised by war against drugs
- A lone 18 year-old woman with a child is five times more likely than average to suffer from crime
Homes in the UK
- Almost 6 million people - 10% of the population live in Britain's 2.9 million council homes
- A further 3 million live in homes that have left council control since 1988 through 'Right to buy schemes'
- Since the public sector reforms in the 70s many traditional jobs done by council tenants have been contracted to private companies making tenants less secure and worse paid. 62% earn less, 73% have fewer holidays, 53% have worse sick pay, 51% have worse pensions and 44% have less security
The longer these council estates are left to rot, the bigger the social disparity will become, the higher the crime rates will be and worse off this country as a whole will be. Lets get our own house in order before we try and fix others.
I recently had to move to an adapted council house after renting privately all my adult life, I have to say getting the council to come out and actually FIX any of the many problems is like pulling teeth!
ReplyDeleteA private landlord is governed by laws to maintain their property (& the ones I lived in actually saw that it made sense to them to do so) whereas the council seems oblivious. We have a (badly) adapted bathroom where there's a 1/4 inch dip halfway across the floor & the shower leaks, my husband has fallen several times & at 6'1" isn't exactly easy to help up..... It's been like that for a year and that's AFTER they 'fixed' it. Grrrr!
This says everything thing that needs to be said about modern Britain ! Shame that Cameron and Co are not listening !
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