\u201cIt wasn\u2019t that long ago these lads would have walked into apprenticeships at British Steel or ICI,\u201d says Middlesbrough\u2019s Labour MP Andy McDonald, lamenting the loss of the heavy industries which once employed thousands of people on Teesside.<\/p>\n
He is talking about the young men \u2013 aged between 17 and 23 \u2013 who were travelling in a stolen Volkswagen Passat with cloned licence plates that crashed head-on into a police car on the A66<\/a>. All five of them, and two police officers, died at the scene<\/a>.<\/p>\n He also means the young men who continue to be involved in tit-for-tat violence<\/a> in the area, ramming cars into homes or being in possession of firearms. And those who have been turning up to vigils wearing balaclavas, smoking cannabis, driving quads and motorbikes aggressively, spraying graffiti and torching cars in fields.<\/p>\n \u201cHow on earth is it that, for young men at such a crucial stage in their development, the most attractive option is to engage in this type of criminality?\u201d asked McDonald. <\/p>\n It is a question many in Middlesbrough<\/a> are now searching to answer.<\/p>\n Is it deprivation? A failure of the justice system? An underfunded police force<\/a>? A petty gangland culture turbocharged by the allure of social media?<\/p>\n Local residents, politicians and experts who spoke to The i Paper believe Middlesbrough\u2019s problems are a mixture of all of the above. <\/p>\n And crucially, they believe these are factors not unique to the north east industrial town \u2013 but are prevalent across many parts of Britain.<\/p>\n Concern over \u2018new gang cities\u2019<\/p>\n Crime in England is generally on a downward trend, with murders at their lowest level since records began.<\/p>\n But criminologist and author Dr Simon Harding told The i Paper he believes there should be wider concern about what he calls new \u201cgang cities\u201d.<\/p>\n These are smaller urban areas \u2013 mostly outside cities \u2013 not traditionally known for gang crime problems, but now starting to experience them more regularly.<\/p>\n As well as Middlesbrough, Harding suggested places such as Barnsley, Rochdale, Barrow-in-Furness, Blackpool, Ipswich, Coventry, Milton Keynes and Bristol could be put in the same bracket.<\/p>\n Most have pockets of entrenched deprivation. Gangs see them as easier to exploit than larger cities too, where policing and other public services may be more vigilant and better funded.<\/p>\n \u201cThese places that might have had quite a mild, manageable level of traditional crime \u2013 robbery, car crime that kind of thing \u2013 that\u2019s now changing,\u201d Harding added.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to see more of these Middlesbrough effects taking hold over the next few years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018These thugs have taken over\u2019<\/p>\n Cleveland is the police force covering Middlesbrough and other places such as Redcar and Stockton. It has the highest crime rate by population of any force in England and Wales at 123 crimes per 1,000 residents.<\/p>\n Violence against the person, robbery and theft are all well above the national average.<\/p>\n On Friday, schools decided to close early ahead of the funeral of one of the boys killed in the A66 crash amid fears of repeat anti-social behaviour and criminality witnessed at recent vigils. Six hundred extra police have also been drafted in. <\/p>\n \u201cCleveland Police are going to need all the back-up they can get,\u201d a local councillor, who asked not to be named, told The i Paper.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are going to need to close roads, they are going to have quad bikes driving through town. These thugs have taken over.\u201d<\/p>\n Harding, who spent years working with young people involved in criminality in Middlesbrough, said the recent flare up of gang violence \u201chas been coming\u201d.<\/p>\n He said \u201clong-established\u201d crime families in the town are recruiting \u201ca lot of young men or boys who are bored, kicking about on benefits, they ride around on mopeds and e-bikes usually doing the low-level drug dealing for these crime families\u201d.<\/p>\n Nationwide, there are nearly 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (NEETs)<\/a> \u2013 a situation described as an \u201curgent national crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n