KIDS OF 14 GROOMED AS STREET DRUG DEALERS
CHILDREN are being groomed by crime gangs to peddle drugs. Children’s charity leaders also told how a group of young kids were making their own money from dealing in the Govan area of Glasgow.
Crime Reporter ORGANISED crime gangs are damaging the reputation of Glasgow and squeezing every penny they can from its citizens, according to the director of a children’s charity.
Tough talking Paul Carberry hit out at the Glasgow gangs when he spoke at the Safe City Glasgow summit, saying children as young as 14 are being recruited as street dealers.
The Action for Children Director for Scotland, who is also a member of the serious and organised crime taskforce, discussed how partners including Police Scotland and Glasgow City Council, have changed their approach to tackling the issue in recent years.
At the meeting on Tuesday, he said: “These groups have one purpose and that is to squeeze out every penny they can from the citizens of Glasgow.
“They impact on the reputation and image of the city. There is a story every other day about who is trying to shoot who and people getting shot outside schools. It is unacceptable.”
There are 166 serious and organised crime gangs in Scotland with 69 per cent of them based in the west of the country. Those groups are involved in everything from the supply of drugs to money laundering.
Mr Carberry explained that the police came to him in 2011 and said that they were good at arresting serious and organised crime groups but they could not stop the flow of young people getting into them.
He spoke of how the serious and organised crime groups were ‘grooming’ kids as young as 14 to be street dealers.
Those at the meeting also heard that a group of young kids were making their own money in the Govan area of the city.
A new project was set up, the first of its kind in the UK, to intervene and stop these kids getting involved in serious and organised crime.
Now years after its launch, Mr Cranberry told the meeting that 75 per cent of the young people stabilised through the project did not reoffend.
He also said that an estimated £1million of savings were identified by social work by preventing entry to secure care.
In addition, the Glasgow model has been adopted by the Home Office and Manchester, and there is even international interest in UN Communities.
He said: “It is a success story for Glasgow. In terms of the future, early intervention is the key.
“There is a narrative about organised crime that it is glamorous and it’s benign gangsters. It is a dirty business. We need to have a counter narrative and call it for the dirty business that it is.”