There are lots of lessons we can’t learn from The Wire.

1. Gun crime is not out of control in the UK

As Garbo points out on the Wardman Wire, there are far less murders in the UK than the US, Manchester than Birmingham. In fact, Britain has fewer murders than France or Sweden – to name but a few. The culture of guns in The Wire presents a number of problems to the community – armed police acting irresponsibly, young lives ended prematurely, innocents caught up in gun fights, no go areas for the emergency services.

2. Local government is not corrupt

The corruption and incompetence in the state house in Baltimore is a key theme for one series of The Wire. There is corruption in local government in the UK – but nothing like on the same scale. Coincidentally, local government in the UK does not have the same discretion over public spending as the state government in the US.

3. Local news is failing, but not that badly

Local newspapers are closing in the UK all the time, for similar reasons to the pressure that the newsroom feels in the USA. However, national newspapers are much stronger and the sorts of problems experienced in Baltimore would not go unreported in the UK – witness the fuss over stabbings last year in our big cities.

4. The public safety net is wider and more effective

The public safety net in the UK is not without its problems but it is more comprehensive than in the UK. Aside from the greater security and support provided to the jobless and those insecurely housed, public services are stronger – the police, NHS, schools, social services – despite all their problems.

There are things that we can learn from The Wire. Kippin points out the challenges of attainment for so many young, black men in Baltimore. That’s not dissimilar to the UK – and we have the same problem with other minority ethnic groups. He sees “the sense of dignity, achievement and individual gain that often drives the kids on the corner”. Personally, I saw the grinding inevitability that sucked in even the best, most able individuals (Stringer, Michael, Dukie) to their seemingly inevitable under-achievement.

But most importantly, The Wire was about inter-connectedness. It was about the inter-play between the system and people. And if it taught us anything, it should have been that to begin to start fixing the problem, you have to understand the society. And Toxteth and Moss Side and bits of Birmingham, Burnley and Oldham are not like Baltimore. That’s the point made in Gang Leader for a Day as well.

The government’s New Deal for Communities was an attempt to address the systemic failings in communities, like the projects in Baltimore. Mostly it failed to meet its own aspirations. As far as I understand, it failed because it didn’t understand the local communities, didn’t empower them to fix their own problems, and didn’t address the problem in the right way.

If the Tories are serious about addressing urban failings, they must first understand the communities, networks and societies. Chris Grayling’s remarks suggest they don’t and they won’t.

Related posts:

1. Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh

To cut a long story short, Venkatesh was studying at university in Chicago and wandered into one of the tower block estates in the city in order to find out what it was like to live there. 10 years later, having befriended many in the local community (and fallen out with many others) he knew.

Ultimately, I found the book deeply frustrating. In terms of my knowledge of life in the projects, I learnt little more from his 10 years than from my few hours of watching The Wire. Although it does confirm quite how good The Wire really is. There were fewer characters than in The Wire, it depicted a smaller community and there were few characters quite as lively as Bubbs et al.

However, the one element of life in the projects that it did include – which The Wire didn’t – was the strengthen, vitality and endemic weaknesses of the alternative public services. The tenant leaders are powerful figures in Gang Leader and you gain a much clearer understanding of the operations of the community.

Those broad criticisms notwithstanding, I did take the following things from the book:

1. The culture of suspicion and rumour which plagued his work (not helped by his own naivety) but which presents profound problems for intervention by public bodies
2. The exchange between him and the tenant leader, Ms Bailey (p. 147) which revealed so much about the dependency culture

“If I give you a piece of bread and ask why you are starving, what (should) you say?”
“Because you’re not feeding me”

The Stay Together Gang who operated against the movement to rehouse people when the tower blocks came down

The lengths the community (which in so many ways was so fractured) went to in order to hide children from social services and bring them up in that community

Where I did find the book useful in a public policy sense, was that Venkatesh casually throws in that when the tower blocks came down, so did crack use. It was thrown in casually, amongst a stinging critique of the failure of local, state and federal government, but was interesting when thinking about the extent to which these cultures and challenges are prevalent in the UK.

I hope the book was just a popular ‘easy read’. I would like to have seen a deeper, more thoughtful analysis.

Related posts:

1. Summer holiday reading recommendations
2. What Britain can’t learn from The Wire