Young people who are involved in gangs will be targeted by projects aiming to address issues such as anger management and territorialism, which have been awarded Scottish Government funding today.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill today visited one project, Operation Reclaim in the Springburn area of Glasgow, which will receive over £15,000 to do work intensively over a six month period with 120 known gang members.

MacAskill announced a fund of £200,000 for police forces and local partners to bid for to tackle gang and youth disorder on 14 February. Of the 30 bids received by the closing date for applications for funding of March 7, two were withdrawn shortly afterwards, and funding has been given to 19 applicants, with nine rejected. Successful projects will receive Government funding worth £163,000, backed up by services and investment worth more than £230,000 from those involved.

MacAskill said: “It's great to see that so many of Scotland's police forces and their local partners have risen to the challenge and come up with great projects to help tackle youth and gang disorder.

“Many of these schemes imaginatively combine the tried and tested with new ideas and approaches. I think they can really get to the root of the issues involved in gang disorder and challenge them - by building team working skills to teaching ways to resolve conflict.

“By helping to build new skills and teach young people that there are alternatives to fighting, that banter is better than blades, we can turn lives around and show there's more to life than cheap drink and fighting.

“Some of the projects also focus on getting participants back into education or into a job - this shows that we can really make a difference to gang members and their communities. We need to allow them the chance to be all they can be.”

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