The English Riots

What started off as a peaceful protest over the shooting of Mark Duggan by police soon descended into a riot in Tottenham. Over the next few days it spread to other areas of London and then onto other English cities such as Manchester, Salford and Bristol. The riots provoked a huge backlash from the public which was reflected by politicians, such as when David Cameron called the riots “mindless criminality”. Although I do agree with him, to an extent, and it would be a mistake to put the riots solely down to political reasons. The fact remains that many young people, especially those from ethnic minorities, feel distanced from the police and something needs to be done about this. An attempt to improve the lives of many of the less fortunate is required if we don’t wish to see a repeat of the riots.

Something I do worry about is the reaction of the judiciary to the riots. People got very harsh punishments for the simplest of crimes. Two men were locked up for four years for attempting to organise a riot via Facebook. The danger of this is that prison doesn’t reform people, in fact is does the opposite! In cases relating to the riot, people should be handed community sentences as it is proven to be better at reforming and they would be helping to repair the communities that they destroyed.

Some people compared the riots to the ones that often happen in Northern Ireland. These are not really comparable as, unlike the English riots, the Northern Irish ones have a huge political dimension. It is also important to note that the Northern Irish rioters don’t gain anything materially, whereas in England it was one of the main reasons for people rioting. The final key difference is that the English riots could not have been predicted and no-one knows when, or if, they will occur again. In Northern Ireland on the other hand, you can predict the date and even the location of many of the riots!

English rioters set a building ablaze.