London Riots

[lapis]

So no topic about the London (or, rather, England) riots has been made yet, even though we had one about the Paris riots back in the day and we had next to no French posters. So in case you haven't followed the news, London police shot and killed some 29-year-old deadbeat who had opened fire on police following his vehicle, an incident which has so far sparked three days of rioting and looting, first in the London area of Tottenham, then it spread to other districts and then to other cities in England. One person has been killed so far, 500+ arrested and some 100 charged with doing bad things.

You might feel happy that finally the urban proletariat has risen in protest against a cold, bourgeoise government whose budget cuts have fatally hurt local community centres and education opportunities. Maybe you feel bittersweet that through these riots, people will realise that what is harvested are the venomous fruits of national disintegration and cultural Marxism fostered for years by a dhimmi multiculturalist elite. Or you're a complete bore and you find nothing positive about this whole affair.

What I want to know is: can the British government be blamed for allowing this crisis to escalate. Maybe the initial response was too laid-back - if the early protests had been quelled by a confident police force using tear gas and water cannons, maybe the rioters would not have gained the psychological momentum. As Gavin Hewitt writes on his blog, this has been shown to work in other situations but the police might not be so confident when they've recently been accused of responding too brutally. In April 2009, during the G20 summit in London, some protester died at the hands of the riot police, sparking somewhat of a row. With this in the back of their heads, the riot police might have been cautious not to be seen as too aggressive.

Or are there more long-term, structural issues here? What's the underlying cause behind the riots; is it really just boredom and psychological momentum or are there other legitimate concerns that the protesters might share (not necessarily concerns that justify riots, but concerns nonetheless)? In Paris (2005) and Los Angeles (1992) the youths hated the police, seen as racist and repressive. I can't really imagine the British police having such a harsh reputation, but the cause (police killing some guy) is strikingly similar to the triggers of the other riots. Or was the fact that the police was een as too soft what made the riots spread to the other cities? I'd like to hear the opnion of a Brit on this one.

Here's a nice picture to conclude and a link to the opening scene of the movie La Haine with Bob Marley's Burnin' and Looting' playing in the background. Enjoy.

[camobch0]

Actually, there is a thread.

[lapis]

Aahhh, General!
*crosses index fingers*

Let me be more specific: we had a thread in Politics about the Paris riots. And for good reason: there's so much to criticise in these situations! I've skimmed through the General thread, if they seem to make a statement it's in a one or two sentence post. I'm confident that we can do much, much better.

[LordJaric]

So let me get this straight, a man was shot and killed for shooting at an officer and people somehow found justification in rioting about it? From what the artical said the people he knew at least had some reasons to be pretty upset about it, but the rest doesn't make sense to me.

[djack]

At 8/9/11 04:26 PM, LordJaric wrote: So let me get this straight, a man was shot and killed for shooting at an officer and people somehow found justification in rioting about it? From what the artical said the people he knew at least had some reasons to be pretty upset about it, but the rest doesn't make sense to me.

From what I heard it started as a peaceful protest but that still doesn't explain why people would get upset over someone getting shot after they shot at the police. According to the article he was a known violent criminal from a previous riot and was about to be arrested, what possible reason could the people of England have to riot about that?

[lapis]

Let's not focus too much on the trigger. If there are grounds for rioting in a society then the trigger need not make sense per se. There was that US pastor burning a copy of the Qur'an a while back, and when this sparked riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan people on this board were also (in my opinion) too focused on exploring the direct relationship between the trigger and the riots. But while I could identify a few common reasons for being pissed in Pakistan, I'm having trouble finding out what these riots in London really are about, or whether it's just holiday boredom, copycatting and opportunity.

[SmilezRoyale]

At 8/9/11 03:30 PM, lapis wrote:
You might feel happy that finally the urban proletariat has risen in protest against a cold, bourgeoise government whose budget cuts have fatally hurt local community centres and education opportunities. Maybe you feel bittersweet that through these riots, people will realise that what is harvested are the venomous fruits of national disintegration and cultural Marxism fostered for years by a dhimmi multiculturalist elite. Or you're a complete bore and you find nothing positive about this whole affair.

The impression I got was that the riots started out as peaceful protests but became violent because teenagers who were interested primarily in looting were fanning the flames, so to speak. Do any of these store owners own guns or swords or something?

[Korriken]

At 8/9/11 07:12 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

The impression I got was that the riots started out as peaceful protests but became violent because teenagers who were interested primarily in looting were fanning the flames, so to speak. Do any of these store owners own guns or swords or something?

meh, in the People's Republic of Europe, defending your possessions is a serious offense. and no, they banned weapons in the People's Republic of Europe.

[Iron-Hampster]

the unemployment rate in Britain is crazy high, this is what happens when unemployment gets too out of control.

heck the vast majority of those rioters probably couldn't possibly give any less of a fuck about whoever got shot by the police for what ever reason, their just rioting and looting because their pissed off about their situation or just want the excitement.

[Der-Lowe]

Mah homie lapis, wai ain't u askin ur econometrishian fellas?

Nah, I only got a 9/10 in my Econometrics class :(

*ahem*
DiPasquale and Gläser (1996), inspired by the 1992 LA riots, have run a series of regressions to determine the causes of rioting, based on international data and the race riots of the 60s in the US. Based on those estimates, they show that the probability of rioting in LA in 1992 was quite high relative to most other American cities.
Their approach is similar to neoclassical theory on crime, people riot because it's profitable (marginal cost, benefit, blah blah blah) and adds "community" variables, showing how certain communities might be more pacific and how they are able to reach to an agreement that does not involve setting each other's propert on fire.
Their theoretical model is like this: there are underlying factors in society, that make a fertile ground for rioting. The paper tries to find what these underlying factors are. A trigger appears (generally a violent case against a member of a minority), and hell breaks loose. Why a trigger? Well, have you ever tried to riot by yourself? Most probably, you'll get hit in the head and sent to jail in a minute; there are economies of scale in rioting, and something has to push the numbers of rioters up so that your individual costs of rioting are reduced, and rioting becomes profitable.
They use number of riots for some period as dependent and ethnic heterogenity, real gdp per capita, urbanized population ratio, population, dictatorship (dummy), latin american country (>=(), ethnicity times urbanization as independent variables, all significant.
We would expect a negative relationship between GDP per capita and riots, for GDP per capita serves as an opportunity cost. Dictatorships have fewer riots per year, since rioting has higher costs when there are no constitutional guarantees. Urbanization also increases rioting, ,because abundance of people congests law enforcement and creates information flows across rioters. Finally, ethnicity has a postive relationship, however, relative poverty is irrelevant D:

Finally, their 1960 riots regressions show that nonwhite unemployment (unemployed people have more free time to learn to play an instrument and mass destruction of property), relative homeownership between nonwhites and whites ( if the house is mine, not gonna burn it) are significant at the 10% level, whereas southern city (dummy), nonwhite population, nonpolice govt expenditures per capita (the state will pay for the reconstruction, so burn away) are significant at the 5% level.

However, the R^2 for the second regression sucks, so caution is advised. I wanted to see how the currently rioting cities compared to the cities in the sample, but the predicted probabilities are not shown :(

[Database]

What I want to know is: can the British government be blamed for allowing this crisis to escalate. Maybe the initial response was too laid-back - if the early protests had been quelled by a confident police force using tear gas and water cannons, maybe the rioters would not have gained the psychological momentum. As Gavin Hewitt writes on his blog, this has been shown to work in other situations but the police might not be so confident when they've recently been accused of responding too brutally. In April 2009, during the G20 summit in London, some protester died at the hands of the riot police, sparking somewhat of a row. With this in the back of their heads, the riot police might have been cautious not to be seen as too aggressive.

I'm going to play paranoid nut here, and lay a pretty basic conspiracy. What if the police are allowing the riots to escalate to increase the tension and fear. The more fear there is the easier it is to fear monger. So the million dollar, or pounds as it seems, question is will the government react by trying to fix the system that broke or well they use it in a heavy handed power play to grab up even more control?

It's happened before. Look at 9/11, no conspiracy of responsibility needed, because no matter who did it, our U.S. government used it as an opportunity to rape away rights in the patRIOT act.

[pupot]

I'm a teenager, pretty well educated as of yet, and although officialy unemployed - thanks to some cunting stupid laws - im not that badly off. I still like the riots, Because if any of you have really been in one, it's great. There are plenty of cunts in them, but everyone there is kinda bonded, against the police. It's excitment, and you don't get that anymore. That's why everyone's doing it, because we can.

[djack]

At 8/10/11 02:34 AM, Database wrote: It's happened before. Look at 9/11, no conspiracy of responsibility needed, because no matter who did it, our U.S. government used it as an opportunity to rape away rights in the patRIOT act.

That would be true if people didn't demand that the government do something to protect them after 9/11. I don't know how the British government will react to the riots but the U.S. government reacted to 9/11 by trying to appease as many people as possible and since so many people claimed that the government was to blame because security measures weren't strict enough the government had to improve security. If the British government does the same and tries to fix the problems that caused the riots (a lot of people on this thread blame the unemployment rate so that's what I'm going with) they'll probably try some kind of stimulus plan to create jobs which will probably lead to complaints about government spending.

[MultiCanimefan]

The man did not fire at police, they found his weapon to be unused.

"At about 17:30 BST on 6 August 2011, Duggan's relatives and local residents marched from Broadwater Farm to Tottenham police station. The demonstrators wanted information from police about the circumstances of Duggan's death. Eventually, a chief inspector spoke with the crowd but they demanded a higher-ranking officer. About 20:20 BST, some members of the waiting crowd became impatient and attacked two nearby police cars, setting them on fire. Rioting, arson and looting subsequently spread to other parts of London, and to other cities in England."

So basically the riots didn't start out of a protest, but out of impatience for results of the crime scene.

[morefngdbs]

At 8/9/11 09:23 PM, Iron-Hampster wrote: the unemployment rate in Britain is crazy high, this is what happens when unemployment gets too out of control.

;;;
I'd also like to point out the high poverty rate, along with Iron's comment about the
unemployment is a very large segment of the population & the Governments new austerity budget cutting...is hurting those with less a great deal more.
So opportunistic crime like looting is to be expected, it sucks but the worlds nations putting themselves in crippling debt to the bankers, is starting to unravel polite society (not that it was all that polite to begin with...but you see what I mean on the news)

[Der-Lowe]

I don't know any paper, nor think one exists, about the economics of riot clear-ups.

[lapis]

Eh, I found this paper about the relationship between riots and budget cuts on some blog. I'm tired right now and I've only skimmed through it but the results look rather weak; the values for R^2 that I see in table 4 don't make me happy. There are also no F-test results given. But it's a discussion paper so I guess that makes it okay.

[Der-Lowe]

At 8/10/11 05:50 PM, lapis wrote: Eh, I found this paper about the relationship between riots and budget cuts on some blog. I'm tired right now and I've only skimmed through it but the results look rather weak; the values for R^2 that I see in table 4 don't make me happy. There are also no F-test results given. But it's a discussion paper so I guess that makes it okay.

Well, I guess that expenditures cuts (not tax increases! :D) do cause unrest, but there's more to it than that.
I've been taught not to pay too much attention on R^2 anyway.

[bigredone]

Yea i believe the riots are just a bunch of people going back to there roots. People today would call the gladiators in the Colosseum fighting to the death barbaric but if it still occurred people would love it. If you ever went to school and a fight broke out you would see a large group of people run over to the fight to watch. Look into the eyes of some of the people who are deadbeats watching the fight and all you would see would be happiness. People post the videos on Youtube and thousands watch them. Also, other fights would break out because of different people rooting on the different fighters arguing. More than once i'v seen one small fight explode in seconds into a 100 person brawl, by which time the fight couldnt be stopped. Same goes with a food fight. Those examples pretty much represent the riots in England, just on a smaller scale. I also believe that some people just live to walk down the street screaming at the world to kill them. That some enjoy the fight and live for it. They more than likely started this whole riot wave.

[SmilezRoyale]

At 8/10/11 06:39 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:

Well, I guess that expenditures cuts (not tax increases! :D) do cause unrest, but there's more to it than that.

Tax-increase motivated revolts generally only occur in states where the taxpaying and tax-eating retained their traditional character. The old concept of a tax-eating nobility thumbing their noses at the tax paying peasantry is a distant memory to our modern glorious political

Middle and upper income citizens don't riot, generally. And although I can't run any significance tests to confirm this, I imagine the more money one has the more one stands to lose from looting and rioting and so forth. That doesn't mean they lack potentially destructive ways of protesting. Someone like you probably considers a republican or conservative party shift in government to be far more destructive to civilization than a London "Krystal-natch"

Then again, lower income workers, especially private sector ones, probably pay a share of the taxes that are supposed to fall on "The rich", in ways they can't directly perceive, but if these rioters are straight-up wards of the state then the only real taxes they pay are inflation taxes.

[orangebomb]

The riots in London didn't really have too much to do with anything political early on, the protests started after the 29 year old man was killed by the police and they were peaceful. However, when the angry youth started to create chaos everywhere, the police responded and all hell broke loose, so to speak.

Now, this is the part where the politics of Britain is intertwined with the riots. The youth of Britain {18-27 year olds.} are dealing with massive unemployment, which tends to be fuel for riot-like behavior to start, almost like the calm before the summer storm if you will. Not to mention the fact that the distrust between the police and the regular citizens of Britain has been strained for a long time, most notably with groups like the skinheads and the general British punk scene in the late 60's and into the 70's. Now I'm not saying that skinheads are the main cause of the rioting or anything like that, but there is an obvious distrust between the police and everyone else, and it went over the tipping point when the fires and the looting started to break out.

There has been a history of riots that was caused by police intervention, {mostly unintentional} going back to the riots in Paris roughly 6 years ago, the LA riots in 1992, and even the Cincinnati riots in 2001. They all have to do with the police and using excessive force to take down someone, and then the shit started to hit the fan when people used force and do what they normally do during a riot. Compound that with the unemployment factor in Britain, as I just mentioned, provides an alibi for riotous behavior to start and continue even now, and I fear that more types of these riots will soon be coming our way, what with the economy taking a tailspin and whatnot.

In short, excessive use of police power, angry kids sparking up trouble that spreads, compounded with the jobless rate in the UK, equals London is burning right now.

[Lucy]

I honestly cant even express how ridiculous I find these 'riots'. It was rioting for one night and then just became pathetic violence and scavangers hunting for anything free. It really is out of hand, and I really think harsher ways of dealing with these idiots should have been used. There is most likely not even one of these people who has any idea what they are causing mayhem for, after seeing some of them on the news and stating things such as "oh y'know, we hate the government...and stuff". Absolute morons. If they really were rioting because they are sick of being shit on by the government, why are they ruining businesses and livelihood of fellow working class citizens, and causing so much destruction, that Britain will now be in even bigger financial trouble.

I cant even see them getting more than a slap on the wrist and a criminal record due to prisons being so full.

[EclecticEnnui]

I don't know what caused the riots, but on Wikipedia, there's a section on various opinions. The fact that multiple people have died and have been injured and the fact that businesses have been vandalized and robbed just makes this rioting ridiculous and unnecessary.

[Iron-Hampster]

At 8/12/11 10:47 PM, EclecticEnnui wrote: I don't know what caused the riots, but on Wikipedia, there's a section on various opinions. The fact that multiple people have died and have been injured and the fact that businesses have been vandalized and robbed just makes this rioting ridiculous and unnecessary.

its not a solution, its more of a distress call. it won't solve anything but its drawing attention to all the people who are leaving high school and being stuck on welfare right off the bat.

[DrunkenMonkey123]

The riots were wrong, but what really pisses me off is how the tories told the police that they weren't doing their jobs properly.

[fatape]

I like it, even though there's no political agenda or anything substantial these people are rioting for at least there stirring things up.It's to let those in power know what your willing to do if things go to far.

[Camarohusky]

At 8/13/11 11:06 PM, fatape wrote: I like it, even though there's no political agenda or anything substantial these people are rioting for at least there stirring things up.It's to let those in power know what your willing to do if things go to far.

If there's no political agenda how can there be a political message?

I think Victory nailed this one.

[fatape]

At 8/14/11 12:20 AM, Camarohusky wrote:.

If there's no political agenda how can there be a political message?

I think Victory nailed this one.

How can there not be a political message with a riot? Regardless of what people are rioting for politics will play into it.

[Camarohusky]

At 8/14/11 10:35 AM, fatape wrote: How can there not be a political message with a riot? Regardless of what people are rioting for politics will play into it.

How so? Seems like a crime spree conducted by criminals. I fail to see a shred of politics in that.

[fatape]

At 8/14/11 10:49 AM, Camarohusky wrote:
How so? Seems like a crime spree conducted by criminals. I fail to see a shred of politics in that.

How is a crime spree not political ? Crime is a political issue cuased by political agents , poverty,unrest, lack of purpose and happyness in general, I fail to see how that could not be conceived as political.