imprisonment or justice for the young victims of knife crime -‘ripples’

IN CONVERSATION WITH C.J. CARROLL

In this interview with Venitia, Cillian discusses his experience and his views on how the justice system and media treat marginalised youth that find themselves involved in knife-crime, and violence. Through the story of Abeo and Tiha, ‘Ripples’ invites the reader to reflect upon the impact of violence in our lives and its mirroring effect on the failing system we live in, the radical power of forgiveness and the courage it takes to break the cycle. Enjoy the interview!

V: To someone who isn't familiar with you or your work, how would you describe yourself?

C.J: I always find it really hard talking about me, but I would say passionate, energetic. My wife would definitely say energetic. I would say empathetic as well. I’m someone who believes that social change is possible, certainly through writing. I'd like people to see me as someone who’s genuine too. I’m a lover of words, a lover of writing, an educator, a teacher and, last but definitely not least, a dad.

V: What motivated you to write this book?

C.J: It's kind of threefold. My reasons kind of mince in with each other, and there’s no particular order to them. Initially, I was just really, really angry and really frustrated with the apathy that I was finding around youth violence in Britain.

I was really annoyed that there was so much violence taking place in the UK, in the community I was working in, and there just didn't seem to be people caring as much as they should be. The year that I started, we had 30 teenagers killed on the streets. There was a couple of ex-students of ours among them. I didn't actually teach them but they went to the school that I taught in. And I just didn't understand why people weren't doing more. I was really angry and really, really frustrated, so that’s kind of my initial catalyst, I suppose.

The second issue is that I took massive inspiration from my students themselves. London kids — South London kids — are just the most incredible young people in the world. And I think if I'd never worked where I did, I never would have started writing. They were a massive inspiration of mine.

Lastly — and again, it kind of ties both of them in — the catalyst for actually sitting down and starting to write was my dad. We had a conversation at Christmas. I was just venting and speaking about violence and why people didn't care. He said ‘Okay, so you're really angry’. And I was like ‘Yeah!’, then he was like ‘You're pissed off’. And I was like ‘Yeah!’, and then he went ‘Okay, so do something about it’. And I said ‘Okay, but Dad, I'm here in Dublin. I'm not in London, I can't do that’. He was like ‘No, you can. You've just got to figure out what. Maybe write something about it’. And that's where it started.

None of this book would have come about without him and he tied the other two inspirations together. That's how those threefold motivations kickstarted this book.

V: How did you meet Tayo?

C.J: After that Christmas dinner in my household — this is the type of stuff we argue about over Christmas dinner, we never had quiet conversations, always intense — I had no idea what I wanted to do. I started reaching out to people who'd been impacted by violence. I looked up charities, I looked up youth clubs. I didn't really know what I was doing. Then, I found a Facebook page dedicated to Tayo’s brother. It was called ‘Remembering Zac’.

I had known about Zac through working in Lambeth where he had a huge impact. Everyone knew about Zac because it was at the gates of school, and he was from Brixton. So I reached out to the page and I said ‘Look, I'm an Irish guy, I'm a teacher. I'm thinking of doing some writing. I would love to meet.’

We laugh about it now because I had no idea what I wanted to do. Initially, my idea was to write a collection of stories and meet loads of people impacted by violence. Tayo and I went back and forth on social media and then I offered to fly out and meet her in Deptford.

And what came together was an idea of using her and Zac's story as inspiration, writing a novel. The reason we chose a novel rather than a non-fiction was because we wanted to get it into schools. Since novels are study texts, as an English teacher I thought that would be fantastic. One of my inspirations was Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. I wanted to explore youth violence through a novel in the same way she explores racism.

So Tayo was on board from the start and we just went from there. I flew over and met her really frequently. We did voice notes back and forth and spoke on the phone all the time; a really lovely friendship began from that. I flew over with my wife and we spent time with her and her family. She's a really good friend now, she came to my wedding, it all developed from one message on social media!

I'm really glad she got to meet my dad before he passed, and they got on because my dad worked in Nigeria and he loved real people. That's what he would always say. Him and Tayo got to connect and they had a lovely few hours of chatting.

V: When you wrote the story, you got inspired by Tayo and Zac's story. But there is a teacher in your book, did you put a lot of yourself in him?

C.J: There's a huge mix of people in there. I poured a lot of myself into him, particularly the last chapter that he's in. He’s meeting with Tiha, and he expresses a lot of frustrations, and there's a lot of anger there. A lot of that is me, my frustrations with the lack of action by people.

But there's also other teachers I worked with in him. A huge amount of other teachers I worked with: Josh Gary, Graham Hobson, the people I worked with at Platanos, who just inspired me massively. But the actual character of the teacher is a real person. His name is Shaun Dodds. I saw him in an interview with BBC, and he was the person that found Zac. He was there on the day. He was an assistant headteacher at the school, and Mr. Gibson was inspired by him. I poured a lot of myself into him, but he was inspired by Sean Dodds. I asked Tayo quite early on ‘Have you seen him since the trial?’, and she said ‘No’. She said he left the school, and they never got to speak again. So I imagined what a conversation between them would look like, the impact — one of those ripple effects of violence — on teachers, and then the journey that Tiha goes on, that Tayo went on. I imagined how they might interact if they met.

I searched and searched. I tried to find Sean Dodds, but as far as I know, he left teaching and I just wasn't able to find him. I'd love to get in touch with him because he was understandingly massively impacted by what happened. And Tayo has always said she'd love to meet with him.

For that character, there's a huge amount of a lot of different people in him, but yes, I poured a lot of my own feelings and frustrations into him.

V: Have you experienced some of the things happening in your book yourself?

C.J: Certainly as a teacher, yes. It struck me as soon as I joined the school in Lambeth, and we were always told by the principal that we were not a normal school. And for all intents, we were. We were an academy in London, we were a state school, but just given the borough, the complexities of the area we were in, we weren't a normal school. I used to tell stories to my friends and say ‘Oh, this happened in school’, and they wouldn't believe me. I'd tell it to my wife, I’d just met her then. We were talking and I'd be telling her, and she couldn't believe it.

It really struck me that this really isn't a normal environment. It was the best environment, I absolutely adored my time there. But it wasn't a normal environment and so a lot of my experiences as a teacher are certainly in the book. A lot of moments also come from stories from other teachers.

I was very lucky growing up. I had a very unusual childhood, but I was very lucky that I grew up in a very safe community. I had 2 parents who were unbelievable. I was just very blessed in my childhood that I often say that if I grew up somewhere else, I don't know what sort of life I would have had. I was a little bit of a troublemaker. But I was very lucky that the trouble I found myself in was protected by the community that I was living in. I was never in danger but I did have an experience when I was 16. I had this friend who had moved to Dublin from Ukraine when he was young, and we grew up together, played football together. We were very close. He moved to Limerick when we were maybe 14 and when he was 16 he was stabbed to death at a house party in Limerick. So that was something that impacted us massively because it just wasn't normal in Ireland. Limerick had made a name for itself, it actually became known as Stab City for a while because of the high levels of knife crime there. But when you compare it to the UK, it just wasn't normal. It still isn't. We don’t have those levels of youth violence. We don't have a knife carrying culture.

So it was something that impacted us more than I understood at the time, and when I look back, it's certainly had an impact on what I'm doing now. When I think about Roman and his family and that short period of my life, I think it had a much greater impact on me than I even understood at the time, if that makes sense.

V: How do you want to be perceived by readers?

C.J: The most important for me is I'd like to be perceived as someone who's genuine. I think with topics like youth violence, with things like gang culture, knife crime — violence in general — there is a lot of disingenuous people out there who want to glorify and sensationalize, they want to use violence and trauma as entertainment. And the number one thing entering this journey is I want to be seen as genuine. There’s no pretense, there's no bullshit. I'm just someone who wholeheartedly believes and genuinely cares for what I'm writing about.

I'm hoping that's how I come across in whatever I do. I'm very aware this isn't my story and I'm hoping that people can see that. I am very, very lucky and honored to be able to bring a story like this to paper but it isn't my story. It's Tayo’s story. It's Zac's story. And it is communities in London, it's their story. So I am quite conscious of that

V: What type of readers would you like to reach with this book?

C.J: It's aimed at young adults. I want it in schools. I want it to be studied text.

But then there's two things that completely contradict each other and exist at the same time. First, I would like to reach people who've been impacted by violence. I sent out early copies to some of the people I met interviewing for the second book and who have been impacted by violence, who've lost loved ones, who've lost sons. Their feedback has been more important to me than any review I could get.

Then on the other side, I also want to reach readers who've never been impacted by violence and who won't be impacted by violence because I think they are just as important to reach. Because this is a story that is happening on their doorstep, but is so out of touch of their reality. And I think they're important to reach as well.

Finally, the last one is young offenders and prisoners, I think the idea of forgiveness is so important in this book. Meeting Tayo and understanding what forgiveness is, and the power it has, changed my perception of what humans are capable of. I think that if we can speak to young offenders and prisoners about forgiveness, the impact could be huge.

 The purpose is different depending on who reads it.

V: What do you think is being misunderstood or overlooked when it comes to serious youth violence?

C.J: First of all, a misunderstanding is that youth violence can be solved by harsher sentences and punitive measures. This is the thing you see on social media all the time: ‘If you get caught with a knife, life sentence. If you murder someone, life sentence.’

That's a massive misunderstanding because I think what we’re dealing with is a symptom of something much deeper and knife crime is the end product. And if you're saying ‘lock people up’, you're papering over cracks and you're not dealing with the crack itself. And it's been proven time and time again that locking people up doesn’t work. It doesn't.

Another misunderstanding is that people often see it as a gang problem. Just young gang members stabbing other gang members. The term gang has been taken and overused by the media framing everything as ‘gang culture’. I’m not saying gangs don’t exist. There are gangs in England, there are gangs in London. There’s a massive problem with youth criminal organizations. But once people hear someone's a gang member and they've been killed, their empathy goes. It happened to Zac. He was portrayed in the media as a gang member because of where he was from. Zac was a 15-year-old boy. He was a child.

I can think of Keisha McLeod as well. Her son CJ was shot dead in East London in 2017. He was 14, and he was shot with a shotgun. And people online immediately started saying ‘He was involved. He was a gang member.’ Keisha speaks about this. He was groomed by older members to carry weapons, carry drugs. He was a child. He was a child who was murdered.

I think that's a huge problem with youth violence because people start associating it with gangs members, and it takes away empathy. So we have to remind people that no matter what the age is, these are young people. These are people who are on the fringes of society that have been impacted by systemic issues, and youth violence is the end product.

Another misunderstanding is the idea that gentrification can fix it. Bullshit. Gentrification only widens the gap. People who are experiencing violence are often the most deprived, the poorest people of society. Something happens when you’re gentrifying communities like Brixton. You’re putting up these brand new flats and seeing rich people come in. All of a sudden, what young people have always understood about themselves — that they are the bottom of society — is now in their face. They're living in this estate and across the road are these brand new flats they can never get into. Gentrification is not making communities better. It's making it better for rich people that come into the community. It doesn't make it better for my students who are growing up in deprived, poor pockets of those communities.

What's being overlooked is the impact of good adults, the impact of education, the impact of mentoring — mentoring has done amazing things, the impact of sport and then the impact of youth clubs. All of those together can change the face of what youth violence looks like in England.

V: If you could put your book in the hands of one change maker, someone who's a policy maker for example, who would you choose?

C.J: Keir Starmer is the obvious one. He claims that he is committed to working with community mentors, with youth clubs. I think he would be a great one. I would also love it in the hands of the likes of Nigel Farage or Rupert Lowe. These kind of people will never, ever experience what Tayo has experienced. They'll never meet Zac. Are we ever gonna change these people? Probably not. But I'd love for them to read it. The problem is that publicly they're never going to say what goes on in their head as they read it. But what I'd love to know privately is what are their actual feelings and thoughts?

V: Apart from writing this book, what kind of work have you been doing to help raise awareness of serious youth violence issues?

C.J: I try to do as much as I can from here. I find it a challenge because I've got a family here, I've got a toddler, and my wife who is just amazing is also 7-month pregnant. So I can't fly to London every week, as much as I'd love to. But I try to do as much as I can from here.

Over the last 2 years, Tayo and I started working on a second book together. We've reached out and interviewed a huge amount of people who have been impacted by violence across the UK. We want to put together a collection of stories to show how violence has impacted people. This is something I’m really proud of because through that, I have helped to connect a huge amount of people.

Tayo does incredible work in prisons and in schools. I've met other people who've done incredible work on the streets. I've met some people who do incredible work trying to change policy. And something I'm really proud of is that I've helped to bring people together. Regardless of anything else, even if nothing changes in terms of policy, even just introducing people who've experienced the same things to each other, that means a lot.

One of those people I met was Faron Paul. He runs Faz Amnesty, he's like a national treasure now. I spent the day with his nationwide weapons amnesty last year. That was in Stockwell, coincidentally across from my old school. And I spent a day collecting knives with him. We did a weapon sweep. We did some outreach in the community. And we just connected and got on really well. He's an amazing bloke. There was a lot of synergy between us.

I'm hoping to continue to work with him because he's hoping to do some work in Northern Ireland around violence, which I think is so important looking at the horrible riots that have taken place there in the last week. I've also been into one school with Tayo. She runs Operation Forgiveness. I’m hoping to get in this summer again, just to spend the day and see how the sessions run. We did a school in Peckham and I loved it.

V: When did you start working on this book?

C.J: End of 2021, start of 2022, I think it was.

V: If your readers wanted to dive deeper, what resources would you recommend they turn to? Anything like podcasts, charities, events, people?

C.J: I don't listen to a lot of podcasts but the one that I would put people on is ‘Have You Heard George's Podcast’ by George the Poet. The 1st season of that podcast sums up what is wrong in Britain right now. I sent him a digital copy of the book. I would love to be able to connect with him.

In terms of writing, the seminal piece that I put people on around youth violence is Cut Short by Ciaran Thapar. He also does a new podcast called ‘Safe’ by the Youth Endowment Fund (link). They'd also be a charity to look into, they do massive work across London with youth violence. Ciaran’s book essentially looks at why this is happening. There's no magic answer, the social indicator has been the same for decades, but he succinctly and clearly laid it out in that book. That is the book for people to read.

There's a few others too. Akala wrote Natives. It is incredible; it looks at race in post-colonial Britain. That's a brilliant one. That Peckham Boy by Kenny Imafidon is amazing. And then the poetry of Caleb Femi is just perfect, beautiful poetry that looks at what it is like to grow up in a community that is ravaged by violence. The Catch 22 charity does incredible work around youth justice, crime, gangs, all of those things that cross roads and create violence. They write incredible reports. I've read a huge amount of them.

Honestly, the list of people is just endless. Sayce Holmes Lewis’s work with Mentivity House and their youth club on Aylesbury Estate. Faron Paul, obviously. Keisha McLeod, who I've mentioned already. Rachel Duncan, she runs Sit Up and Stand Up to Knife Violence. Colette Hunter is now a friend of mine. Brooke Kinsella from the Ben Kinsella Foundation.

Then there's a couple of online people that I'm hoping to meet but just haven’t yet: Andrew Fuller, Chris Preddie, Mark Prince. Alex Wheatle did incredible work with his books before he passed away last year.

And then Dr. Mahamed Hashi, he's a Labour counsellor. He actually worked in the school that I worked in, although we never crossed paths. He's from Stockwell and grew up there. He's experienced violence himself, as he was shot breaking up a fight in the community.

V: Is there anything you want your readers to know that we haven't talked about?

C.J: I'm quite an open book but something that I don't think I've ever really talked about on my Instagram or in general is that I've had a really unique and unusual life. Something that really shaped me, my outlooks and my beliefs is my time growing up in Africa. I spent most of my childhood in Africa, in Kenya, Zambia and a lot of time in Uganda as well. It had much more of an impact than I ever knew when it was happening when I was a child.

I did a speech a couple of years ago in the school about my childhood. There’s a short little piece that I think sums up my feelings on growing up in Africa: ‘My dad was working with Irish Aid, that was developmental aids. He was working with developmental aid across Kenya, Zambia and Uganda. And my mom was a nurse, and then she was later a psychotherapist, working with survivors of torture. We were always reminded of how lucky and privileged we were, and then my parents made sure that we were very aware of poverty and deprivation that surrounded us, but that we were blessed it didn't affect us. And my parents strive to instill values, like empathy, humility, and generosity from a very young age, and I'm really grateful for this.

I think there are things in childhood that you don't realize impact you until much later, but I look back and I think my childhood was very unique and unusual and it definitely shaped me. I don't think I'd be a writer today or certainly write about the things that I wrote about had I not had that experience.