Tarnished Vision Crime and Conflict in the Inner City

The vivid and authentic story of the attempt by a group of reformed street robbers to save their inner-city community. The failure of their scheme has valuable lessons to teach other projects of inner-city reform.



Once a group of young people (reformed street robbers) had a vision to transform their poor divided community. But the vision was tarnished by harsh reality, violent feuds and factional strife, corrupt and ineffective leaders, and youths involved in networks of criminality. Tarnished Vision is the story of the rise and fall of a utopian community project told against a background of crime and delinquency in a troubled neighbourhood. This vivid and authentic account of life in `Satellite City' is set in the 1980s, a decade when the promises of the enterprise culture failed to deliver, and the conditions were created for a generation hooked on crime. Tarnished Vision depicts the 1980s inner-city cycle of social tragedy followed by inept societal response, followed by social tragedy. But this is not only a story for the 1980s. The message is that programmes to save the inner cities, however well-resourced, cannot afford to ignore the destructive frustrations of urban male youths who are involved in crime. Community action programmes can be no more than window-dressing to camouflage these realities.