Contextualising Bullet Boy - 2004

2000: Schoolboy Damilola Taylor dies in stabbing

A schoolboy has died after being stabbed in the leg by a gang of hooded attackers in Peckham, south London.

Operation Trident

In 2000, a fresh commitment by the Met to improve its performance in tackling black community murders gave Operation Trident renewed impetus.

Since 2004, Trident has further expanded beyond the black communities to cover shootings in all the capital's communities.

Gun crime spreads 'like a cancer' across Britain

As the number of weapons on the streets grows and shootings become the norm, gun law is back at the top of the political agenda

Film 4 Review

Back in 1980, Franco Rosso's Babylon, starring Aswad's Brinsley Forde, told the story of young black Britain under siege. Filmed around Deptford, Lewisham and Brixton in south London and financed by the National Film Council, it drew a fundamentally honest, unsentimental portrait, employing a rich, unsubtitled patois. Understandably, much of the film also dealt with racism - white on black - and its tragic repercussions.

Twenty-five years on, the most significant (and depressing) thing about Saul Dibb's study of black Londoners is its frank recognition that the hate and violence has since turned inward - manifested in gun crime.

Black Youth Crime

'People with no past have little present and absolutely no future' Trevor Phillips, Labour's own appointment to the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, says: "Britain is by far the best place in Europe to live if you are not white." Conversely in 2005,  Phillips also said: "We are heading towards a New Orleans-style Britain"  In 2006, the CRE held a conference where "Rivers of blood: did Enoch Powell get it right?" was the title of one workshop. Where lies the truth? The articles below have helped me ponder.