The future violent gang member next door

This week a guy I grew up alongside was found guilty of shooting a bloke while robbing a drug house. Quelle horreur – he’s a gang member too. Now he’s rejoining our blossoming prison population.

His name’s Rory Manuel. When we were growing up I was a mate of his brother Cade. I used to love going over to their house where parental supervision was looser and we were allowed to launch skyrockets from our hands and ride motorbikes up the street sans helmets.

I knew Rory well enough that when I saw him in the paper I thought ‘‘poor bastard’’.

I know where the commenters head with this: ‘‘Really? You’re defending a guy who robbed a drug house and shot a guy?’’

I’m not defending violence. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling sympathy for a guy whose path from cradle to prison was pretty well mapped out.

I don’t doubt Rory’s as bad as his reputation suggests, but that doesn’t stop me thinking about that kid who used to play on our trampoline.

Now I’m of a personality these days that is baulking against liberalism. I feel like I’m up politics creek without a bank to head for. But when I think of the path of Rory Manuel it reminds me that my liberal upbringing must have rubbed off.

Because I can’t help but think of the luck and privilege I enjoyed, while a kid right over the fence was having the opposite experience.

I was lucky to have a warm, loving house with parents who were together and committed to raising a family.

Rory, on the other hand, came to live with his nana next door when his mum was murdered. Some tit-for-tat between Black Power and Mongrel Mob meant Rory and Cade were left without a mother and were at the start line of life with a distinct disadvantage.

Bad things followed those boys, even as they did their best to get on with life. It was always Cade who would hurt himself when we were horsing about.

Then, a few years into our friendship Cade and Rory were visiting their old man when his rottweilers savaged the poor kids almost to the point of death. Rory had most of his thigh removed by the dogs and it was a long time before we saw that wee boy smile again.

Then he grew up, got into gangs and found the best way to get ahead was to be tough as nails.

Now I’m aware of how violent and dangerous Rory’s crimes have been. I’m not defending that. I’m just saying that it’s easy to look at the court pages and write someone off as a list of criminal offences.

It’s easy to look at prison populations as a bunch of numbers on a page and conclude – as some enlightened economist did this week in The Press – that while prison populations are growing, they’re mainly gang members. Ergo what’s the problem?

Lock ‘em up.

Well I’m here to say that even gang members are people with complicated back stories and even violent offenders are fathers and brothers and sons and taking the approach of treating gang members as inhuman is anathema to how we should act as a society.

Sometimes when the social welfare system fails young men, they find something in gangs that we’ve failed to provide them with.

It doesn’t make a guy doing bad things right. It just provides some context.

The failure in this story isn’t Rory Manuel – it’s us, the society that let that wee boy whose mother was murdered take the only path that seemed available to him.

Shame on us all.

I’m not defending violence. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling sympathy for a guy whose path from cradle to prison was pretty well mapped out.