Inside Scotland's brutal gangs

CHILDREN as young as ten are running in Scottish gangs where drink, drugs, weapons and violence are commonplace, new research has revealed.

• Gangs are most prevalent and active in the west of Scotland Picture: TSPL

More than 150 gangs operate in Scottish cities, some of which are more than 50 members strong and up to 60 years old, with their names passed down from generation to generation.

Glasgow alone has 110 gangs, including 20 classed as Type A - the biggest and most criminally active group.

The Scottish Government said gang violence in the country's biggest city has fallen by 46 per cent in 18 months, since the launch of a Community Initiative to Reduce Violence.

The pilot scheme, which is modelled on similar initiatives in the US, brings rival gangs together, shows them intelligence gathered on individual members, tries to break down the gang leadership, uses health workers to illustrate the injuries suffered by gang members, and invited a mother of a boy badly injured in a fight to explain the impact of violence on their lives.

It may now be rolled out across Scotland, although gang problems are less prevalent in the east of the country. Both Edinburgh and Aberdeen have gangs, but none is as criminally active as those in Glasgow, where a typical senior member of a Type A gang would have been in a youth offenders' institute or prison three times or more.

The youngest gang members are only ten, but Jon Bannister, of Glasgow University, who was among the research team behind the Troublesome Youth Groups, Gangs and Knife Carrying in Scotland report, believes intervention needs to take place at an even younger age.

He said: "The children are born into it. Because this behaviour is ingrained in them at a very young age you have to target not just their behaviour but also their life choices, from pre-school."

However, he was also keen to stress that not all children should be tarred with the same brush. "Just because they hang out in a group does not necessarily make them a gang, and if they are a gang that does not necessarily mean they are involved in crime," he said.

Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, said: "We are determined to take action."

Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan, head of the violence reduction unit, which covers the whole of Scotland, added: "We know from experience there is no one solution to the problem of gang violence - what encourages one person to turn away from that lifestyle may not work with another.

"The same can be said of violence generally."

Richard Baker, Scottish Labour justice spokesman, said: "Minimum, mandatory sentences will send a strong message that there is a certainty of jail if you carry a knife."

But Robert Brown, the Scottish Lib Dems' justice spokesman, said: "This report shows gang culture is not stopped by the fear of jail sentences, as some people claim."