British riots

Trouble isn't over yet, says teenager 
who predicted riots

Riots not condoned by Chavez Campbell but says youths with no jobs, no money and no future were ripe for causing mayhem

Guardian

Friday 12 August 2011 16.08 BST

At 6ft 3in, with a loose gait and a large kit bag slung over his shoulder, 18-year-old Chavez Campbell is a striking figure as he walks past the boarded-up shops in Wood Green, north London. Last Saturday, riots erupted here, rampaging youths shattered shopfronts and filled their arms with anything they could grab.

A week before it began, Campbell, in an interview with the Guardian about cuts to youth services, predicted what would happen. Asked what he thought the future held, he said, simply: "There'll be riots."

Looking at his words again, he said: "I did see the riots coming and the government should have seen it coming, too. Jobs are hard to get and, when they do become available, youths don't get the jobs. There is nothing to do, they are closing youth clubs so the streets are just crazy. They are full of people who have no ambitions, or have ambitions but can't fulfil them."

Campbell, who has recently left college and is struggling to find a job, represents a voice that has been rarely heard in the maelstrom of recent days. He saw the riots explode, but went home to stay safe. He thinks the government has to take some responsibility, claiming cuts and poverty played a role, but he also thinks the rioters were wrong and should be punished. He is not an academic, nor an expert, just a young person from a disadvantaged area trying to get on with his life.

Being poor is not an excuse, he argues, but it might help explain why there was such widespread looting of goods such as trainers, gadgets and clothes. "It doesn't justify it but they think: 'I ain't got no money for this, I ain't got no money for that, I can't get a job but I need it.' The only way they are going to get it is stealing. They are going to be ruthless and do anything they can to get it. This was fun for them."

For him, the impact of this week's riots are immediate. Amid the destroyed shopfronts, he said: "I just feel like it's not a safe place sometimes. I just feel like I don't want to be here, like I'm an outcast because everyone is doing crime and I'm trying to stay on the straight and narrow. People have looked at me different, like 'what is he up to'. But I know I'm a good person, so it doesn't bother me."

He also worries about the impact on his area. "People were doing this to their own community, where they have to live. They were burning down shops where we shop. It's just making it harder for people to get jobs now. It wasn't like we were in a great position, but we are lower than that now."

Campbell, a promising amateur boxer, grew up in a single-parent family and has 12 half-brothers and -sisters. Walking to the Dale Youth amateur boxing club in west London, he says the sport turned his life around after he was excluded from school for fighting, aged 11. 


"These coaches are like my parents. The same level of respect I have for my mum, I have for them," he says. "They love me, they give me good advice. If I started going down the wrong path, they would tell me to sort it out."

Without the guidance of the men who worked, unpaid, in the club, things could have been different. "That could have been me out there," he said. "Kids lack confidence, they don't believe they can do stuff. You have to find something you like doing, not what everyone else is doing. They don't have enough courage to be themselves. I want kids to see that they can do something with their lives and not just run around the roads causing mayhem."

Sweating and panting after thwacking leather pads and dancing around the ring, Campbell does not worry about his own future. He has his eyes set on a Commonwealth Games medal in 2014 and a career in boxing.

But he does have concerns for the country. "I don't think it's over. Because everyone came together and created this massive war zone, I think it will happen again because there is not much controlling the streets, kids are saying the police ain't got it under control. They are outnumbered."

The violence could erupt again, he said. "The atmosphere is angry at the moment. And next year, when it's worse, people are going to think they haven't got anything, let's go out and take what we want. They've done it once, they'll do it again."