Like many others in deprived areas of London, St Mary’s Estate has a reputation for drug dealing and violence. The preceding chapters have discussed some localized factors that have seen successive groups of young people become engrossed in a violent street culture. The events explored here took place against a backdrop of persisting structural risks. The estate remains one of the country’s most deprived areas and is in the top 10 per cent for indices of child deprivation. St Mary’s young people are likely to go to poor-performing schools with some of the lowest attainment rates in the capital. Unfortunately, despite the progress discussed in this text, the continuation of these more structural factors makes it almost inevitable that a significant number of St Mary’s young people will become involved in criminality and be exposed to serious youth violence and child criminal exploitation. Many of those in primary school when this project started are now at the forefront of people’s current concerns about serious youth violence. It is rather unfortunate that if another study were conducted in ten years’ time, the discussion would probably be very similar. Added to this, there is a racist dimension that cannot be ignored. Alongside the discrimination faced on the estate, several generations of young Black men have faced over policing, disproportionate levels of school exclusions and unemployment.

During the study, the social and political landscape shifted considerably. Initially, the local authority played little attention to what was taking place on the estate. This left a space for some residents to step into, initially making their presence known by watching over the young people as they played and hung out during the summer holiday. However, the activities soon turned into a youth club in the community flat, which included a homework club and arts and crafts activities for primary school children and somewhere to hang out for those in secondary school. The relationships formed allowed the few residents who got involved to influence the young people to some degree. Although incidents of youth violence continued to rise, they did so at a slower rate than in nearby areas.