Is the Middlesbrough area the hardest place in Britain?

Unravel_Morrison said:
I used to live in Longsight during the mid-late 90's. That was rough.

I was in Hounslow yesterday evening for work and my colleague (who is local) told me that I shouldn't hang around after the shops close.
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So did I (or the fringes of it), lived on Hathersage Road whilst at Uni, also lived in Rusholme and Whalley Range (so very close to Mossside not long after it became infamous).

Had a gun pulled on me in a nightclub, but other than that no real bother in any of those places.
 
I do think most boro people just get on with it. Can put on a hard exterior when needed in tough times. My experience is southerners or even northerners in more affluent areas tend to want to analyse everything, talk about their feelings, or melt under pressure
 
Its not a patch on what you see in the major cities. That being said, its not great - you can even extend it Stockton. A lot of deprived estates and a generation of Gangster wannabe kids with no respect for the Police, adults and others in general. Knife Crime was few and far between, the people doing it felt it gave them an advantage over people they had problems with. As it goes, everyone in that 'life' carries a knife now so it becomes a level playing field. Problem is, much higher chance of serious injury over a fist fight. We have already started to see more firearm offences - that will be the new advantage over knives before long.

The scary part is these youngsters are not put off by either being stabbed or knowing somebody who has been stabbed. A lad was stabbed in Hardwick last week - it was his 4th or 5th time and his social media since is like a guard of honour and he essentially feels invincible.

The only way to tackle this is hefty sentences which wont happen.

Back to the original question, the outside perception of Teesside/Middlesbrough is that its a tough place. I personally see it no different to many other northern towns, some nice parts and some really awful parts with not much in-between.
 
Jedi boro said:
There is a very simple way to tackle knife crime -

Anyone caught in public with a knife regardless of reason age etc if it not for work purposes ie a chef

Mandatory 10 year prison/youth offender sentence

No excuses

And back this with a one year knife amnesty no questions asked.

Simple
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I’ve said as well, caught while carrying it for whatever reason unless they have genuine proof then there should be a minimum jail sentence for it. Guarantee to stop people carrying it. Even if realistically there’s not enough space in jail for it, I think it would make enough noise to stop then carrying it.
 
fmttmadmin said:
As we are about to enter the school summer holidays I feel it would be totally irresponsible to carry a thread title about being "the hardest" place in Britain.
We should leave such a total lack of responsibility to those that chase clicks and sales.
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You'll be deleting the post then?
 
I work as a police officer on the firearms department which I've worked on for a couple of decades now. I've worked up and down the country, north, south and Scotland (although I've never worked in Wales).

I'm probably in a good position to give my tuppence on this. My opinion that I've built up through my experience is that Middlesbrough (particularly given that its quite a small place) is the roughest place I have worked by quite some distance. Teesside generally is rougher than other regions and Middlesbrough is noticably rougher than any other part of the region.
 
Jedi boro said:
There is a very simple way to tackle knife crime -

Anyone caught in public with a knife regardless of reason age etc if it not for work purposes ie a chef

Mandatory 10 year prison/youth offender sentence

No excuses

And back this with a one year knife amnesty no questions asked.

Simple
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Because throwing people in prison with huge sentences has clearly worked so well historically.....
 
Glover_elbow said:
Why use the adjective hardest apart from than if your reveling in talk of violence. There are far rougher inner cities than teesside it's drugs and gang related and frankly a nightmare for innocent people who through no fault of their own are living with violent crime on their doorstep.
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...and usually accompanied by a picture of Mayor Khan like London is the only place with knife crime, and it didn't happen when Johnson was there and Khan himself has defunded the Met to ensure it happens.
 
I have seen other rough areas of UK gentrify - Bermondsey, Tiger Bay, Leith etc but the Boro feels rougher than it was in the 1970s.
 
Jedi boro said:
I honestly don’t care if it gets knives off the street.

As there is zero reason for anyone to carry a knife zero.
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Kids don't do it for zero reasons. Most knife-carrying kids do it because they're afraid. It's a vicious and escalating cycle with no easy solution. A zero-tolerance approach may well be the most effective solution, but that relies on raising the stakes until the offenders are more scared of the consequences of carrying than not carrying. There are other approaches worth considering e.g Glasgow's successful violence reduction scheme
 
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