Rioters and looters one year on

I wrote this in  October 2012 after pitching it directly to an editor.  Unfortunately it turned out to be a very full week for news and my article didn't make the final cut.  That means it gets to here though, so there's a silver lining to everything.


Rioters and Looters One Year On

The riots in August last year shocked the nation, seemingly coming out of nowhere and lasting several days.  Naturally there was immediate speculation about the conditions which could give rise to the behaviour we saw.  After the family of Mark Duggan publicly disassociated themselves from the rioters, commentators rightly looked for other reasons for the rioting and looting, as it moved alarmingly from district to district, always a step ahead of the police.  A link between welfare dependency and the areas most affected was quickly established and for a little while, a light was focussed on gangs and the criminal nature of many of their members and associates.  As we watched people engaging in an orgy of looting and burning on our television screens, a realisation settled briefly over the nation: there was a whole class of young, 'tech-savvy' people in our midst who had no respect for people's property and possibly no concept of right or wrong.  The world of 'Shameless' was suddenly on the evening news!

  Depressingly quickly though, figures in the media started trying to assign more easily understood causes to the disturbances: they had been about poverty; about anger against government cuts; or anger at bankers' chicanery with our money.  By the time those involved started to be processed through the courts, the media position had moved so far that there was widespread surprise at the revelation that the majority had previous convictions and that many were under the age of eighteen.

  Unfortunately, as someone who works with 'problem' families and teenagers leaving care, these facts came as no surprise to me, nor to others who work in the same field.  I come into contact, daily, with people for whom the lines between right and wrong are decidedly blurred: young people who see nothing wrong with stealing and selling stolen goods; who see engaging in intimidating behaviour as fun and who understand 'respect' as little more than freedom from criticism.  Many of them come from broken homes, some having spent years in the 'care' system; frequently they have been excluded from school, most lack positive role models and most of them are utterly alienated from wider society.  Despite our efforts, few who I talk to have any real expectation, or desire for that matter, to work for a living.  To them, work is a 'mug's game' where the only thing to be gained is the responsibility of paying more bills.

  A corrosive link between high welfare dependency and criminal activity is easy to demonstrate.  Benefits are calculated to be sufficient to cover little more than essential costs, but in our consumer society young people experience huge pressure to possess the desirable items marketed to them everywhere they turn.  To obtain these things while living on benefits though, the choices are limited: either buy from catalogues with interest heavy payment plans lasting months, borrow from payday lenders and loan sharks to raise sufficient money, or choose the quicker options of either stealing or buying with the proceeds of dishonesty.  In housing estates rife with crime the local criminal kingpins are well known to residents and teens pressured by constant marketing know that speaking to these people can ensure a lucrative market for stolen goods or an equally ready supply of drugs to sell.  Peer pressure and a musical diet of 'gangsta' rap which glamourises criminal behaviour ensure that many are willing entrants into the world of crime, where moral scruples and respect of the rights of others are definite disadvantages.  Many drift into informal gangs and families are often unaware of their whereabouts, some being lied to, others criminally complicit.

  Since last year though, many people seem to have forgotten much of this and some recent media commentary has sought to identify the riots as part of a trend which has torn through Europe as populations take to the streets to show their anger at tough austerity measures.  Audience members in a recent edition of 'Question Time' apparently thought that government cuts had been the cause.
  A number of the young people I work with were involved in the rioting.  A year on, out of custody again, none of those I speak to seem to understand that there was anything wrong in their actions last year.  Unlike most British teenagers today, few of them seem to understand why they should not simply have or do whatever they want.  One describes the riots as the best time he has ever had.  It was 'cool', it was 'rocking', he says.  Others delight in bragging about what they or their friends stole or vandalised.  Many are proud that their 'crew' played a part in what was, for them, the memorable event of 2011.  Any concept that they bear any responsibility for the pain and losses suffered by their victims appears to be beyond them.  

  Those who seek to blame the riots on austerity, bankers' abuses or class envy are wrong.  The attacks were not on local government offices, banks or McDonald's outlets, the usual targets of anti-government or anti-capitalist rage.  Instead it was sportswear shops, jewellery shops and shops selling electronic goods or booze.  There was no political motivation, no reaction to austerity measures - for them it was all about having a perverse type of fun, grabbing the consumer goods they desired and taking the opportunity to attack police, who are seen as an enemy who seeks to prevent them from going about their 'business'.

  In Britain today we have large numbers of young people who have no respect for authority, no respect for the rights of others and no sense of personal responsibility, but who have a strong sense of entitlement and a desire to possess fashionable items.  They may have dropped below the media radar again but they are still there.  And while they remain forgotten, are allowed to fail at school, allowed to be left with a choice of poverty or crime rather than work and allowed to alienate themselves, they will persist in that state, to the detriment of all of us.