Smart way to tackle gangs: Junior Smart, founder, SOS Gangs Project

Ex-offender Junior Smart has been employed by the St Giles Trust since 2006. Since then, he has helped to establish the SOS Gangs Project, an ex-offender-led gangs intervention project that works across 12 London boroughs and offers support to young people who are caught up in gangs and weapons crime.

What were the motivations for founding the SOS Gangs Project?

I had been sent down for 12 years in my early 20s and while I was in prison, I could see that young offenders were just getting younger - they were being sent down for really serious offences.

Towards the end of my sentence, I came across the St Giles Trust. They didn't just say they worked with offenders, they actually advocated the employment of ex-offenders.

The problem is when you come out of custody, they send you back to the same area with the same associates. I had no parents, so it was just me and my sisters and I didn't want the same cycle to happen again.

Then, thankfully, some funding became available, I was released on a temporary license, sat my interview at the trust and got the job.

The SOS Gangs Project celebrated its 10th anniversary in October, having helped more than 3,000 young people. What makes the initiative stand out?

We are the largest ex-offender-led project of our type. We employ about 30 full-time staff including volunteers and we are working with the hardest to reach young people.

It is also important to point out that it is not just ex-offenders we work with, because the whole ideology that the St Giles Trust advocates is the peer adviser model. The idea is not just to train them so they can be seen as professionals, but to put them in the best position to offer that credible and consistent one-to-one support.

What challenges has the project faced in its 10-year history?

Every January through to April, we are competing for funding and this is really shocking because a minor cut in our funding can really decrease the number of young people we are working with.

There has also been a change across the sector in what funders are willing to do. We had a lot of issues over the past few years around other organisations going out of business and this meant there have been fewer people willing to donate.

The issues around young people are also becoming more embedded because there have been fewer services to help them. We have seen youth services cut, so our work has had to stretch to fill that gap.

Where do you see the SOS Project heading in the future?

The St Giles Trust has given us the backbone and the foundations, so I think it would be easy for us to expand. It is a shame we haven't expanded further because the need is so out there, but I would like to see us working across the country because I think it is needed.

A recent report warned that serious youth violence in London is at a four-year high. What can the government and Mayor of London do to combat this rise?

The first concern is that the mayor has extended funding for the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime, but we do not know by how much and for how long, and organisations like us are dependent on that money reaching the councils in order for work to be done.

Serious youth violence is a topical issue. Off the back of the riots in 2011, everyone turned their focus to young people and big pledges were made. Thankfully, there hasn't been any more rioting, but my biggest fear is it will slip off the agenda.

The problem is these young people come from deprived communities and policy makers think "it isn't happening in our back garden or our communities, so it isn't our problem". The policy makers are not coming into the areas where these young people are, so these policies are often made without the knowledge and with that comes a lack of understanding.

What impact do you think the introduction of the four-month minimum jail sentence for second knife possession has had since being introduced last year?

The young person who carries a knife today could have been a victim yesterday. When we go into schools, you can tell a young person the statistic that 64 per cent of young people get stabbed when they carry a weapon - but that really doesn't mean a thing.

There is no easy option or answer. You can talk to them about how they'll be sent down, but you tell that to the girl who was forced into doing a [sexual] line up.

I definitively stand with the victims of those who have lost their son or daughter to knife crime. However, it needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. There is a difference between those who carry a knife and brandish it with the absolute intention of creating fear and more victims.

We need to be careful that we don't capture those victims by a universal policy that actually will criminalise a young person who is carrying a knife out of fear. There is a very big difference and the policy makers need to understand the reality.

JUNIOR SMART CV

• 2013 to 2015 - MA in youth justice, community safety and applied criminology, Middlesex University
• 2010 to 2013 - BA Hons in youth work, Middlesex University
• 2009 to 2010 - NVQ Level 3 in youth work, Lambeth College
• August 2006 to present - team leader, St Giles Trust SOS Gangs Project