This is why young people in Birmingham get involved with knife crime

A youth worker in Birmingham who has been awarded with an MBE has explained why younger people in Birmingham are getting involved with knife and gang crime.

Darnish Amraz‘s work in the city mentoring young people involved in gangs, county lines and knife crime across his native Birmingham has been vital in helping youngsters escape from a potential life of crime. The 38-year-old father-of-three was recognised in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours for his work helping youngsters within Birmingham communities.

Growing up in a deprived area in Aston himself, Darnish told us how he got in with the wrong crowd as a teenager, mixing with groups who were up to no good. But he managed to turn his life around thanks to intervention from the city’s youth care workers.

Speaking to BirminghamWorld about his story, he said: “My father used to work unsociable hours making sure that we could get everything that we wanted which led him to have a heart attack. He had a bypass operation when I was just 14 years old which was a big shock for the family.

“I was ashamed to ask my father for money as he wasn’t working while recovering from the operation so I started getting involved with the wrong crowd and getting into trouble. But In 1996, Birmingham City Council’s youth service set up a project and they came and talked to us, explaining to us the types of consequences we would face getting into crime.”

This was a wake up call for Darnish, who was then invited to take part in some voluntary work with the youth service. He spoke to people in gangs, and the youth workers were impressed with his ability to use his experiences to relate to the youngsters, who respected him as he came from the same areas as he did. After encouragement, he decided to dedicate his life to the youth service.

After helping the Police and crime commissioner’s office set up a Mentoring and Violence Prevention Programme, Darnish went on to train 15 young people on how to deliver workshops on knife crime so they could go out and spread the positive messages.

These young people who he trained then delivered workshops to over 800 people in the 2019 summer holidays throughout the West Midlands and got over 10 schools to sign up to the programme. This led to the creation of the Birmingham aspiring youth council.

“I see myself in these young people when I speak to them because I was in their situation - coming from poverty. If these youngsters tell us their concerns, we as youth workers will take this forward to help.”

Knife crime

Knife crime has become one of the biggest issues across the UK in recent years. Lives across the country are needlessly lost through gang violence, with knife crime ruining the lives of families every year, and it’s a continuous problem in our region.

Darnish says knife crime has always been an issue, even when he was growing up in the 90s, although he says it gets highlighted more now due to social media and the rise of the internet. But he does say that more exposure to certain kinds of rap music today can influence younger children and teenagers.

Drill music especially, has been accused of glorifying gang culture. He said: “From experience, there are younger people from the age of 11 up who are listening to rap music and there are a lot of young people from that age making rap themselves. It’s a trend but I didn t know anything about rap until I was 16 or 17 as we didn’t have access to social media then. People listen to it from a younger age.”

He said it’s vital that young people today ared educated to know the consequences they could face being involved in knife crime and gangs.

“Education is important because it will make them more aware of the consequences they would face for these crimes, said Darnish. “At the moment many of these youngsters won’t know what the repercussions will be for their actions.”