A growing number of teenage boys in South Gloucestershire are making drill music videos of themselves holding knives and other weapons and posting them on YouTube, police say. 

Drill – originally a Chicago street slang term for shooting – is a form of rap music that focuses on crime and violence and is often used by competing gangs to threaten each other.

Avon and Somerset Police have noticed a recent rise in the number of young men making drill videos, and have launched hotspot patrols to catch them and confiscate the weapons they are carrying, according to a high-ranking officer at the force.

Chief Inspector Dan Forster, the area commander for South Gloucestershire, told a local community safety group on Friday (October 8) that the problem had surfaced over the last four or five months.

“We’ve got a particularly challenging situation with young men aligning themselves with gang culture and carrying weapons and knives,” he told members of the multi-agency South Gloucestershire Safer and Stronger Communities Strategic Partnership.

After the meeting, Ch Insp Forster told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the force had recorded 82 offences of weapons possession in the past 12 months in South Gloucestershire, a rise of five per cent on the previous 12 months.

“Over the past six months we saw an increase in teenage boys making drill videos that they were posting on Youtube,” he said. 

“Some of these boys were from the South Glos area, and were also committing offences in Bristol city centre.

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

“We are working closely with school and the local authority to identify those involved in the videos/possessing weapons and are actively looking to educate and safeguard them and if necessary/appropriate, take enforcement action.”

The hotspot patrols are being paid for by Home Office ‘surge’ funding for serious violence, he said.

After hearing from Ch Insp Forster and a South Gloucestershire Council officer, 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.

The Police and Crime Grant, worth £92,680 this financial year, is provided by the Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner to support the work of the partnership.

The funding for the violence reduction unit was reassigned for work to tackle antisocial behaviour in March after a spike in neighbourhood disputes and groups of young people congregating in public places despite Covid restrictions in place at the time. 

The partnership agreed to put the money back into the violence reduction unit on Friday after Philippa Isbell, the council’s team leader for antisocial behaviour and community safety, said its work was “suffering in terms of capacity”.

Ch Insp Forster lent his support to Ms Isbell’s request, saying that reports of antisocial behaviour had fallen by eight per cent in South Gloucestershire over the past 12 months, compared with the previous 12 months, whereas weapons offences had risen by five per cent.

Ms Isbell said the violence reduction unit had introduced some “very successful” programmes to stop children and young people who are engaging in antisocial behaviour from becoming involved in serious violence. 

The South Gloucestershire Safer and Stronger Communities Strategic Partnership is a statutory body tasked with tackling crime and disorder and improving community safety.

Its members include the police, police and crime commissioner, the council, the fire service, the fire authority, the local NHS clinical commissioning group as well as voluntary sector agencies.

ENDS