05.12.11
Study reveals ‘anti-police’ riots
Anger at police has been cited as a key cause for the riots this summer by a new study conducted by the Guardian and London School of Economics.
The ‘Reading the Riots’ study team interviewed 270 rioters from London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Salford and found that 88% considered policing practices as a major cause for the violence.
The police shooting of Mark Duggan triggered the initial disturbances in Tottenham.
Many considered their involvement part of ‘anti-police riots’, which was caused by their resentment of unequal treatment, and injustice of either an economic or more broadly social kind.
Just under half of those interviewed in the study were students. Of those who were not in education and were of working age, 59% were unemployed, and while many were young and male, a cross-section of society was involved.
Of those interviewed in the Reading the Riots study, 73% said they had been stopped and searched in the previous 12 months. They were more than eight times more likely to have been stopped and searched in the previous year than the general population in London.
Government panel findings released last week stated: “Where young law-abiding people are repeatedly targeted there is a very real danger that stop and search will have a corrosive effect on their relationship with the police.”
The Metropolitan Police internal report, also released last week, concluded: “Either the violence was spontaneous without any degree of forethought or … a level of tension existed among sections of the community that was not identified through the community engagement.”
The force welcomed the new research as an opportunity to provide greater understanding of the riots in order to prevent a reoccurrence and added: “Stop and search will continue to be necessary but we want to ensure that it is only used in an intelligent, professional, objective and courteous way.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers said in a statement: “Of course the way in which those events took place and were seen by others through the media had an impact on confidence in the police, and it is important that lessons are learned from all the different processes and reports investigating what happened.”
At the time of the riots, Prime Minister David Cameron told the Commons: “This was not political protest, or a riot about politics, it was common or garden thieving, robbing and looting.”
Anger at police has been cited as a key cause for the riots this summer by a new study conducted by the Guardian and London School of Economics.
The ‘Reading the Riots’ study team interviewed 270 rioters from London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Salford and found that 88% considered policing practices as a major cause for the violence.
The police shooting of Mark Duggan triggered the initial disturbances in Tottenham.
Many considered their involvement part of ‘anti-police riots’, which was caused by their resentment of unequal treatment, and injustice of either an economic or more broadly social kind.
Just under half of those interviewed in the study were students. Of those who were not in education and were of working age, 59% were unemployed, and while many were young and male, a cross-section of society was involved.
Of those interviewed in the Reading the Riots study, 73% said they had been stopped and searched in the previous 12 months. They were more than eight times more likely to have been stopped and searched in the previous year than the general population in London.
Government panel findings released last week stated: “Where young law-abiding people are repeatedly targeted there is a very real danger that stop and search will have a corrosive effect on their relationship with the police.”
The Metropolitan Police internal report, also released last week, concluded: “Either the violence was spontaneous without any degree of forethought or … a level of tension existed among sections of the community that was not identified through the community engagement.”
The force welcomed the new research as an opportunity to provide greater understanding of the riots in order to prevent a reoccurrence and added: “Stop and search will continue to be necessary but we want to ensure that it is only used in an intelligent, professional, objective and courteous way.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers said in a statement: “Of course the way in which those events took place and were seen by others through the media had an impact on confidence in the police, and it is important that lessons are learned from all the different processes and reports investigating what happened.”
At the time of the riots, Prime Minister David Cameron told the Commons: “This was not political protest, or a riot about politics, it was common or garden thieving, robbing and looting.”
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(Image: hozinja)