The Big Society starts here!
THEY pick up thousands of broken bottles in city centres every year, preventing them from becoming weapons. They distribute flip flops – 35,000 pairs to date – to young women too inebriated to walk safely on their stilettos after a night at the pub. They’ll call you a taxi if you’re too drunk to find one for yourself, and an ambulance if you’ve been mugged or had your drink spiked. They’ll hand your firearm to the police, no questions asked, as part of their gun surrender scheme. And you can deposit unwanted knives and swords in their knife bins.
These are the Street Pastors, an army of 3,000 Christian volunteers dressed in distinctive blue uniforms and caps who choose to spend their Friday and Saturday nights taking their message of caring, listening and helping to streets around the country. It’s the sort of can-do attitude that underpins the Prime Minister’s attempt to transfer power from the state back into people’s hands. These pastors won’t try to convert you – they are non-evangelical in their approach – but they may try to support you if you’re open to their approach and it looks like you could use a hand.
And they’ve seen some remarkable results during the eight years they have been in operation, including drops in crime in areas where the teams are working.
When their first “Word for Weapons” knife bin was emptied by the police in London a couple of months ago, it contained more than 200 weapons. There is now demand for the bins – repurposed clothing dumpsters provided by the Salvation Army – from across the country. The next challenge is to look at ways of making them bullet-proof to cope with the guns that are also being deposited.
The Street Pastor scheme sounds like something imported from the USA but it’s a home-grown charitable enterprise set up by the charismatic Les Isaac, a former Rastafarian involved in London’s gang scene who went on to work as a church leader for over 20 years.
Even when he ran a church his focus was always clear: to find practical ways to engage with the same hard-to-reach communities that he came from. In 2002 Les, 53, set up Street Pastors as a practical solution to rising crime and to the gang culture that was becoming worryingly endemic in parts of the UK. Now he has written a compelling book about his work. In an age where the Church is often derided for being out of touch with modern life, Les is a refreshing alternative. He couldn’t be more in touch.
“Eight years ago I started talking to the police about how we can use churches as safe places for gang members to deposit their guns and knives. I knew this would help people give up anonymously,” he says.
“For me it’s about being creative and coming up with practical solutions to the issues involved,” says Les, who is married and has two children in their 20s and who still spends time on the streets living out his message of caring. Last week he spent Friday night in Lambeth, South London, the same night that five people in the borough were shot.
“I go out there with a holistic approach,” he says. “I will engage people and I won’t judge. If they want an exit strategy out of a gang, if they want to get off drugs, if they want an ambulance or a mini-cab, if they are bereaved and want to pour out their hearts, if they are feeling aggressive and need to let off steam by swearing at someone, we are there to help. We do not say, ‘Come to our church tomorrow’ – although we will give them a list of local churches if they ask for it.”
Street Pastors have been on hand at the scene of stabbings and have been able to administer life-saving first aid. They also receive frequent phone calls. “We’ve had people calling to tell us they’ve left a firearm in a phone box somewhere as well as mothers who have found a gun in their home and phone us in a panic to asking us what to do. They know that they can’t throw it in the bin, but they are frightened to tell the police. They worry that their front doors will be knocked down and about what their neighbours will say. We have a reputation for being discreet. We’ve even put firearms in a church safe. It’s all about being creative.”
But there have been certain sticky situations. On one occasion Les took a call at home from parents in a suburban area where the Street Pastor scheme didn’t have an agreement with the police. “They had found a bag of drugs in their son’s bedroom. I advised them that they should find the money and give it to the son so he could avoid serious consequences, then I left, taking the drugs with me. So there I was, a black man with a boot full of skunk weed. Imagine explaining to officers that I was a reverend and was just on my way to the police station.”
What he did was phone one of the officers he’d been dealing with in Lambeth before driving away from the house, so the time and location of that call was logged on both phones. When he couldn’t get hold of his contact he was forced to leave the drugs securely in the drawer of his office desk. “I can’t tell you how that office smelt when I came back in on Monday morning.”
L es arrived in Britain from Antigua in 1965 at the age of eight. It was nothing short of a nightmare. “I was called a nigger and beaten up,” he recalls. “I experienced so much hostility. I remember saying to my mother, ‘Why did you bring us to this awful place?’
“For me, it was a difficult time and it brought out a very negative aggressive side that manifested into violence. I was in a gang with black and white guys and we did a lot of things we shouldn’t. But in time I became a Rasta, searching for peace. By 18 I came to faith following lots of discussions about evolution.” Twelve years ago Les began to research urban gangs and journeyed to Jamaica. What he saw there made him determined to prevent the same things from happening here.
“I met 11- and 12-year-olds there who were gunmen. They wouldn’t blink to kill someone. Then I began to walk the streets of the London boroughs, this led to a meetings with chief executives, church leaders, police and community leaders, and open discussions for residents.”
He did the same thing in Manchester and was shocked to meet 14-year-olds excited because they were wearing bulletproof vests of their own. He met an eight-year-old and when he asked where the boy’s mother was staggered to hear the child reply: “Don’t worry about that b****”.” He says it is now not uncommon to meet eight- and nine-year-olds on the streets.
All this spurred Les to act. “It’s what I call ‘the urban trinity’ – the police, church and local authorities, all playing their role. We have to put aside our differences and seek genuine partnership. This problem is too big and too complex to be divided.”
