I was getting a bit desperate when I was doing this.

I could pay for my own food as well, so I wouldn't be so long.

You don't know when mom gonna, you know, find a job.

You don't know if that is going to come home.

People like me don't get opportunities.

I didn't think that someone like me could ever become anything.

When I was doing this, I felt like I was smart.

It had been lost since I felt like I was good at anything.

It's hard.

I've been stopped five times.

One minute, You know, you're this.

Innocents can't harm anybody.

Are they just playing football?

Next minute.

You're this potential criminal.

What does the roads do?

The roads.

They kill you.

You know, they make sure that you go jail for life rolls.

Make sure that your future gets caught.

Short the road.

Still your dreams and ambitions.

People like outside would would call us like a gang or whatever.

But we're just a group of letters that went to the same school from the same area, like my friends that I grew up with these people were similar to me.

E could relate to them more.

So it was nice to show with people like me are Environment has just made us like this, you know, we walk in big groups, you know, way that's just that comes with the territory that comes with the territory that comes with living on an estate.

History tells us something interesting about these things these groups that we call gangs so that sense that that that that that sense of grouping together contributes a sense off of security their experiences tell them that for them, the world's a little.

The world exposes them to vulnerabilities.

And and so they form clusters because it helps them started really In the seventies.

For many of us, especially young black men at that time, I could go back to when I very first heard a racist word from a police officer.

In 1974 where I was only 10 years old, I was frightened.

I'm not gonna be afraid to say that I was really kind of scared because I I thought police officers were supposed thio protect us, really?

To be honest, and I know some people like to think it was just the police, but it was the system.

We couldn't get any decent jobs.

Everything about the system was against us as black men.

It made me realize for the first time that we were pushed into this gang lifestyle.

When I became a teenager, that's when it started feeling a bit different.

That's when I started getting eyes.

That's when you know the stopping searches started happening on things like that.

It was just such a drastic change in such a quick amount of time that I just wasn't ready for.

I couldn't prepare myself.

No one could.

The proportion of all stopping searches on black people has increased by 69% over five years.

The average custodial sentence for a black person is almost 10 years longer than a white person.

The relationship between the police Andi young boys is so fragile, in fact, is non existent.

Labor fragile is just totally non existent.

Young, black and poor are recognized as risky right into the vulnerable because those who are recognizing them is risky.

They understand that they lived their gang adjacent.

They live in the same areas as dangerous criminals.

When you come out your house.

You know, You see, um, your friends, older brothers, you see, you know, their cousins or whatever and you know, because everyone knows if you want there saying hello to your mom when they're coming in and out of the shops and things like that.

It's quite family, Nick.

But what you don't what you know, but you don't really realize is that some of these are drug dealers.

At the end of the day, they were asked to meet you, not just to buy or sell something just to lend control in it.

Bonnie Zoo on.

When you're both bonding above, mash up, talking about life in your own stuff and then you tend to open up a lot more, you become close friends.

And that's how it happens.

School days for me was very hard because it's like they gave up too quickly.

I then got caught up in like the wrong crowd.

I started going out on the road, robberies and stuff.

It's like it just went left like so quickly when, when I was training to become a teacher, no one ever taught me the correct way to change.

Addressing on a stab wound on a child's thigh or leg.

I've done that a lot of times since 28.

Now in six years we've seen a lot of stab wounds.

How street gangs have changed and progressed.

They had to come up with a model that would ensure the longevity, which was Children.

It will start with like a sponge and then, like it makes you feel like their friends.

Basically, that's how you get drawn in.

There was an older I had that he was selling, so I thought maybe he could give me a chance.

Trust me, I could trust him.

He could help me make some money, and over the years we had less and less money, and I was getting a bit desperate, and I thought I could pay for my own feet as well.

And then I wouldn't be so hungry.

When I went to prison the first time of 15 years old, I got of 12 month sentence.

Originally looking back now 15, I should have never done that time because you know what?

The first time was really heart, but you know, because I got so immune to it for being so long inside e kind of come out and not that I missed it, but it was like, you know, it wasn't the same againt.

Their futures are a long way off, but at this young age, sometimes they are placed in that system and it's almost impossible for them to break out of it.

So when they end up in these situations, how do they ever put that right?

But then all I needed was like someone toe really pushed me to drag me in that right direction.

I believe all young boys, especially living in areas such as where I've come from, definitely need the mentors whether they exhibit in, you know, bad sort off choices or not some of the kids that come to box up crime.

They've been kicked out of school, they've been expelled.

Some of them just come out of prison, you know, because if we're not there, where do they fall into?

They fall into another safety?

That which is the vote.

The roles had another plan for that young person.

How many people did you stop?

Are you the drill of the year?

How much time did you get in prison?

How many times did you get stabbed, you know, And thes are negative realities that the streets have for these kids.

See that we look just like them.

They see that we talked just like them.

They see that we've got experiences just like them.

They understand that we've got kicked out of school.

We went prison just like them.

And they see familiar faces that have all made mistakes.

But I've turned it around, you know?

And what happens is they start Thio.

See, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

They start to realize that this hope Yeah.

E started speaking to my family first back when he told more people about certain stuff.

I felt a little bad about that.

You know, I wanted to write opportunity for me, you know.

And thank God I was given it.

I took you.

I'm still out.

That's fine.

To be a better person every single day.

God.

Mhm.