| Youths lacking adult role models |
Published By: Samantha Newman
On Friday 8 August 2008 |
UK youngsters are joining gangs because of a lack of adult role models, a leading charity has said.
The Prince's Trust suggests almost a third of young people do not have an adult figure to aspire to and are instead "creating youth communities" after The Culture of Youth Communities survey was carried out.
Some 22 per cent of the 1,754 young people questioned said they thought people joined gangs to find someone to look up to and 55 per cent said they were more influenced by their peers than by their parents.
But the report found that just 9 per cent of young people had joined gangs themselves and only 2 per cent had ever carried a knife.
The trust's Martina Milburn said: "Young people are creating their own youth communities and gangs in search of the influences that could once have been found in traditional communities.
"All the threads that hold a community together- a common identity, role models, a sense of safety- were given by young people as a motivation to join gangs."
