St Matthew's

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Contents 1 St Matthews estate 2 history 3 recent history 4 gangs 5 Crime on the Estate 6 Leicester city council scheme

[edit] St Matthews estate

St Mathews is an inner city council estate in the city of Leicester its residents are mostly Afro-Caribbean and east African Somali the council estate is made out of double story flats and the flats are very unclean inside. st Mathews is statistically the second poorest council estate in the UK and the most deprived in Leicester^{[citation needed]}

[edit] history

St Mathews was built in the late 1960s and when the white flight occurred and white people moved to the outskirts of the city, the afro Caribbean immigrants settled in the council estate and made it the first African Caribbean community in Leicester along with st peters highfields. there were a lot of problems in st Mathews the black community on the estate felt neglected by the city council and fell isolated from the rest of the city.in the late 70s the community held protests along with the south asian community which were beginning to settle in.in the late 80s a pakistani and south Asian influx began in the uK and slowly started dominating st peters highfields and fights between the 2 ethnic groups started which calmed down after one year. st Mathews remained a black community and wasn't getting much attention from the outside^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] recent history

St Mathews had an ethnic war recently in 2003 till 2005 immigrants and refugees from east Africa started settling in the council estate and were not received welcome by the afro Caribbean community and tension started to builtfights between the 2 ethnic groups has already started in st peters highfields and tension in st Mathews is beginning to rise^{[citation needed]}. the tension exploded when a Somali boy was stabbed on the estate by afro Caribbeans and the Somalis started to form gangs to fight the afro Caribbeans police didn't pay much attention to the tension and it soon fell out of hand the council estate turned into a warzone and no children and women were to be seen walking on the estate instead you had large gangs all carrying weapons and are ready to get violent soon after there would be a violent incident every day and the residents were in fear with no help from the police or the council after 5 people died in the violence a truce began established by Caribbean and Somali residents the tension cooled and there were no more fighting between the two. The gangs have now also merged and exist of both ethnicity's.

[edit] gangs

gangs are very common on the council estate on every corner you can find a gang. Gangs have been on the estate since the late 70s and have been passed on to children^{[citation needed]}. Leicestershire have mentioned st mathews along with highfields st Peters as the most troubled council estates in the city. Police of highfields whom also cover st Mathews confirmed there are 25 gangs in st peters and 30 in St Mathews^{[citation needed]} which is huge for a council estate that small. in st Mathews you can only find 2 different ethnic gangs which are afro Caribbean and east African Somali gangs highfields gangs are much more complex as there is more crime and more gangs involved. the east African Somali gangs are the newest gang on the estate but have got a fearsome reputation as they were involved in shooting incidents around highfields

[edit] Crime on the Estate

Most common crimes on the estate are drugdealing, prostitution, robbery and firearm possession, police have been trying to crack down on drugs and have found some weed factories but Class A drugs are still at large and being sold on every corner of the estate^{[citation needed]}. Police have put CCTV cameras on drug hotspots but they have been broken and some of them even stolen. They have also tried undercover police but drugdealers have been successful in distinguishing real addicts from fake addicts. Prostitution can be found on the well known Kent street which connects Highfields to St. Matthew's, and police confirmed there are more than 100 prostitutes who work on that street and residents said on Fridays and Saturdays more than 20 prostitutes can be found standing on that street.

Firearm possession is something police are working very hard on; it is believed that every gang in St. Matthew's has more than one gun. On 14/05/07 there was a gang fight between a Somali gang and a Pakistani gang in Highfields the Somali gang were from St. Matthew's on the same day the same night police believe there were more than 20 shots fired on the estate when the Pakistani gang came to St. Matthew's and the fight broke out. There have been more than eight guns found on the estate and three people arrested for possession. Robbery is still very common on the estate and police advise anyone who does not know the estate to stay away from it. The Leicester Mercury confirmed in 2006 more than 200 people who were not from the estate have been robbed, mostly at gun point. St. Matthew's has the highest crime rate in the city and the highest murder rate^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Leicester city council scheme

Sociologists have argued that deprivation and isolation have caused all the problems on the council estate. so the council is now putting a scheme together to get rid of gangs and litter and encourage people on the estate to go out and work.