Page 42 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

The Gangs Violence Matrix

When I was labelled a gang member I lost my victimisation straight away –
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participant in a Criminal Justice Alliance Policy Forum on BAME victims of crime
2.38 The GVM is an intelligence tool the MPS uses to identify and risk-assess
individuals – often children and young adults – across London who are
allegedly involved in ‘gang’ violence. It also seeks to identify those at risk of
victimisation, and can include individuals who have simply been victims of
serious violence themselves, with no prior convictions. Other forces, such as
in Manchester, use similar databases. In 2017, it was described by Commander
Duncan Ball as “a way for us to order our intelligence and our information
where there is corroborated intelligence that people are involved in gangs.” In
addition, “it’s a violence matrix”, resulting in individuals on it being scored
“according to the level of violence [that they] have shown.” 123

2.39 The GVM’s demographic breakdown shows approximately 90.1% being non-
White, of which Black individuals make up the majority. One consultee
explained to us that 99 out of 100 nominals on a version of the GVM he had
seen for Haringey were Black. This is despite the largest so-called ‘gang’ in
the borough being the Green Lane Turks.

Matrix Demographic Breakdown

White 'Dark European' African/Carribean
Asian 'Oriental' Arabian/Egyptian

122 Criminal Justice Alliance, ‘CJA/MOJ Policy forum on BAME victims of crime’, 2019.
123 Amnesty International, Trapped in the Matrix, (2018), p. 6.

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