YouTube videos that glorify the evil of violence

I was shocked to read in last week’s Mail on Sunday how YouTube is profiting from horrific gangster music videos that glamorise knife crime and gun attacks and are made by convicted criminals.

YouTube should hang their heads in shame for allowing these evil music videos to potentially brainwash our vulnerable youngsters at the same time as lining their own pockets. Escalating violence in London has horrified the nation.

What YouTube – owned by tech giant Google – should be doing is focusing on prevention, not glorifying the culture of violence.

Sadly, many of the dead youngsters in London have simply been caught in the unrelenting crossfire between gangs. But the escalation of street violence is also a symptom of society’s failure to offer any better future to our young people, a tragedy in itself. David Courtney, Weston-super-Mare

I don’t think YouTube should be blamed for the recent surge in knife crime just because they show these videos. Every social media company makes huge money from advertising and gangster rap is popular among the young. It’s more likely that the increase in violence is as a result of police cuts.

The real question lies with the record companies – the content of these videos is shocking, so why do they agree to make videos that feature violence? V. de Bheal, London

The murder rate in London is now higher than in New York. The once-proud British police have become nothing more than a reactionary force as there are insufficient officers to deliver the tried and tested methods of patrolling beats. The police do not interact with the public at large, instead going from one incident to another, with time for little else. Public confidence in the police is at an all-time low.

The totally ineffective Police and Crime Commissioners should be abolished and the money used to recruit and train police officers. Without doubt this would result in crime being reduced and a rise in confidence in the police. Only then will our police service once again be the envy of the world. Noel Wright, Gateacre, Liverpool After years of the United Kingdom’s systematic radical liberalisation by both Labour and Conservatives, this is where we are. Open-all-hours cheap boozing, the supply of drugs operating on a massive commercial basis with only token curbs. The irreparable damage to young and vulnerable minds is swept away and dismissed.

Then there is the dismantling and undermining by the state of the traditional family, combined with additional loss of basic discipline standards in schools. Add the disastrous removal of police patrolling our streets, and the result is murders and violence using guns and knives and acid attacks increasing.

Burglary is up and public perception of crime and punishment is at rock bottom .

How could we have been left to drift down further and further? Peter Bryant, Ramsgate, Kent