Bristol police see increase in teenage boys making controversial drill videos

A clip from a drill rap music video

Increasing numbers of teenage boys are making drill music videos while holding weapons, a police force has said.

Drill is a controversial, often lyrically violent, subset of British rap that has been accused of glorifying or inciting violence.

Avon and Somerset Police said growing numbers of youngsters had produced the videos over the past six months.

But youth worker Darren Alexander said solely blaming drill did not "address the root problem".

He told BBC Bristol: "These people have been increasingly marginalised over generations - economically, socially and racially.

"They shouldn't be blamed for what we're seeing on the surface.

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"I find it disappointing that we blame young people who are feeling lost and disenfranchised when really we should be looking at ourselves."

Mr Alexander, who is the managing director of youth organisation Aspiration Creation Elevation, was speaking after the force linked a rise in weapons offences with the music genre.

Avon and Somerset Police said there had been 82 weapons offences in the past 12 months in South Gloucestershire, a rise of 5% from the previous year.

The force said it was increasing patrols in the affected areas.

Ch Insp Dan Forster, the area commander for south Gloucestershire, told a meeting of the multi-agency South Gloucestershire Safer and Stronger Communities Partnership on Friday that the problem had surfaced over the past four or five months.

Posting on YouTube

"We've got a particularly challenging situation with young men aligning themselves with gang culture and carrying weapons and knives," he said.

"Over the past six months we saw an increase in teenage boys making drill videos that they were posting on YouTube.

"Some of these boys were from the South Gloucestershire area, and were also committing offences in Bristol city centre," he said.

"We have increased proactive patrols in South Gloucestershire and have recovered weapons from some of these boys."

The patrols are being paid for by Home Office "surge" funding for serious violence, he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The strategic partnership body voted to shift £24,700 from the Police and Crime Grant back into the council's violence reduction unit, after it was reallocated earlier this year.