Parminder

Hello,
My name is parminder; I’m 15 and am in year 10 at barking abbey school. I live in an area called Barking. Barking is a multicultural area where you have a mixture of other ethnic groups such as; Black, Asians, white and some are immigrants. Barking is a 'ruff' area where many incidents happen such as; mugging but the main offence that is committed in my opinion is drug dealing, this offence is mainly done in the main part of Barking where Barking town centre is.

There is a separation of ethnic groups meaning each different culture has its own gang, mainly the older generation is against this because they feel threatened and their opinion is they can’t live in this society anymore because it is not safe. I live with my family; I got an older brother and a younger sister and am in the middle so I don’t get treated equally, but overall I am happy where I live.

I don’t really have hobbies that I like doing; most of my days are spent with my mates and is in the local park which is barking park, Nowadays us kids don’t really hang on streets because you get into trouble, in my area it is easy to get fags (cigarettes), drugs and alcohol so where ever you look you will see a drunk person or something happening illegal every time.

My school doesn't really have a lot of sex education, but I am lucky to of had 6 lessons of this. In the whole of Europe Barking and Dagenham is among the highest rated teenage pregnancy, this shows that they don’t use protection or otherwise they would be much more careful.

I think that the worst crimes in my area are probably drug dealing and street fighting, another crime that is still being committed is vandalism.

Questions
· What are the crime rates in your area?
· is teenage pregnancy a problem there?