... to think the riots, although terrible, are not particularly surprising?

[fgaaagh]

I'm terribly sorry to start yet another thread on the London (and other city) riots.

These are terrible, terrible events - so many people placed in danger, property and businesses destroyed, emergency services even being attacked (!). But I haven't managed to spot many posters who are as unsurprised as me that these large scale disturbances are happening (please link to threads if I've missed any where this is the case, as I was genuinely confused at the seeming lack of "well it's hardly a surprise" thread base).

I live in a really, really shitty area. We don't open the door after dark; most of the "nicer" neighbours in the area have moved on since we bought here 4 years ago. The elderly neighbour who lived next door found kids/youth pettiness so stressful that she moved in with her daughter miles away; my neighbour across the road gave notice on her rental agreement after teenagers set upon her cat with an airgun so badly that they thought they'd have to put the poor thing down (they didn't, it just had to have a leg amuptated, and it survived). There are regular muggings, and robbery attempts at the local corner shops, to the point where I'm not even surprised when I see the posters asking for witnesses these days. I've reported or been witness to crimes an average of two-three times a year since living here (car breakin attempts and vandalism to cars/shops mostly, a fight or two on the corner where people hang out, cruelty to a dog for a neighbour who we believe is one of the local drug dealers, my car was stolen and joy ridden, written off after being crashed into a lamp post).

Whilst I know not all teenagers are bad (DS falls into that category now!), I have had a feeling that large scale disturbances might become more common over the last few years. Several things:

1) The attitude I see in school from parents. It appears that teachers get a massive lack of respect from a significant number of parents - something unheard of in my own upbringing. When it's as widespread as I've witnessed, that's a good indicator that future generations are being brought up to not understand how responsibility and respect works.

2) The economy. Whether you agree that big bankers aren't suffering after sending us down this path, or it was our own greed that caused the crash - the outcome of this is that the job situation in our area has gotten even worse. And opportunities were limited enough during the "boom years".

3) Common sense. I recall 3 years ago during the summer of 2009 when the nice neighbour with the injured cat told me she was moving out (and the reason why) when she came to say goodbye - she said "if those little bastards are doing that at 14, I don't want to be here when they turn 17, 18 or 19 and move from shooting cats to stabbing people - what's it going to be like around here then?" ... and I suspect this is the case in a lot of rundown communities. As generations of families who have never known order, peace or a sense of community grow up, and it's occured on a mass scale, is it any wonder we would start to see a breakdown and this undercurrent of an "underclass" venting its frustrations?

So AIBU to be sitting here thinking: "well that's absolutely awful, but hardly surprising?"

This isn't intended to be a political post,btw, I'm not sitting here also thinking "well look what a mess the labour lot gave us / look how the tories are screwing us up". I'm talking about a wider picture of social disconnect that's happened with a HUGE number of young people today, which i can see with my very own eyes.

YANBU although it is not right and I don't care if they set the army on them. I'm homeless soon and I'm not rioting. Deprivation is not an excuse but it does trigger individuals with a poor moral compass.

Not surprised at all, this has been brewing for a while.

It was only a matter of time, this country has been a powder keg for a long time, in many ways - social, political, financial - the divide between rich and poor is widening at alarming speed and in front of our eyes. Am not surprised in any way at this uprising.

It's about more than Mark Duggan or looting. You can't do that sort of thing without a lot of anger and resentment inside you. It's about more than what is being reported IMO.

Do people not think those at risk of homelessness due to the HB cuts are not a little pissed off.

Totally wrong to riot though.

I think Camila Batmangheligjh says a lot of what you are saying here: in the i today gist of it being basically, if you don't feel your community cares about you, then you are much more likely to get involved in crap like this. It's not about being poor in itself.

Can't believe that the people responsible for all this find it acceptable to blame their social status or the police for their unacceptable behaviour. I grew up in an area of high unemployment and drugs yet I managed to develop a sense of morality and understand the differences between right and wrong. It's an easy option to place the blame on others when in actual fact they need to take responsibility for their own actions!

serajen - that's exactly it, really, from my POV: "the divide between rich and poor is widening at alarming speed and in front of our eyes" - and IMHO that's what's really driving this, whether we term the initial riots (not the band wagon folk) a symptom of poor parenting, deprivation, relative poverty... even if they can't articulate it.

Wealth inequality, and the feeling that future generations are pretty much powerless to do anything about it, is what's at the heart of this unleashment of fury. At the most basic level, I mean. I'm not talking about the folks hearing about the riots and two nights later saying "come on down to Curreys, we need a new telly don't we?".

For example - the people walking out of looted shops with food basics. Anyone else not surprised to witness this, with the recent increases in prices for basic foodstuffs (I'm talking cheap, non-brand basics like bread, flour, butter) that we'd see this sort of thing? Honestly?

I remember only 2 or 3 years ago when bread was half the price it appears to be. I knew the price of most foods in 2008 and 2009 because I had to keep such a close tab on costs for food shopping; I'm a bit less on top of it now, but the rising cost of really basic food cannot be ignored.

also MelMal coming from what sounds like a similar background to yourself (area of high unemployment, single income household, etc) in no way do I think we can excuse this behaviour with "oh the poor lambs are deprived"... just that it's not exactly a shocker if you've lived amongst some of these sink estates over the last 5 years.

Hear, hear, fgaaah

Only read the OP and I agree with every word, especially the bit about parents not respecting teachers. I think that with the backing of the parents, schools should be allowed more powers to deal with these little shits. EVERY single one of the bad bastard teens will have, at some point, caused problems at school and not been punished properly and made an example of, at school. And at home, the parents probably don't deal with them effectively, but at least if school did, and taught them there are always consequences to bad behaviour, they might just have a hope.

Not every looter will be a socially excluded/deprived victim. It's too easy to reach for that cliche.

Remember the organised football hooliganism in the 70s and 80s? Some of the offenders were otherwise respectable working class with jobs and families.

Violence has its own appeal. You don't need to be socially deprived to take part.

Oh dear, this is the type of thing I was talking about:

i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/09/article-0-0D5C421400000578-88_634x663.jpg (sorry for the daily mail link, it just struck me as immensely sad that a teen is risking arrest for a bag of tesco value rice - it's like something out of a third world natural disaster.)

"Not every looter will be a socially excluded/deprived victim. It's too easy to reach for that cliche."

Yes it certainly is. It's far more complicated than just one cause.

It's hideous and there will be more to come over the years. To me, it feels like a massive line has been crossed.

YANBU.
The riots are terrible but I am not surprised.

Near where I live there is no chance of further education for all but the most fortunate young people, a perception of no jobs, no possibility of buying reasonable housing and now the benefits that has propped any reasonable lifestyle have been suddenly cut along with any activities or positive schemes.

Positive role models are lacking and there is a perception that he only way to make it good is through drug dealing.

This life is so far removed from that of Cameron and other Tory Ministers that they have completely missed the ball. These people are totally disengaged from the socirty of which Cameron speaks and they do not have a voice. They do not know how to articulate themselves.

I am not condoning what has been done. This is not the answer and it is truly terrible for the innocent people who have been affected but I fail to see how anyone living in this sort of an area could possibly be surprised.

I got a good look at them when about a hundred were running up and down my street last night, looting the shops around the corner.

Hardly any young teenagers; mostly in their twenties, mostly male but quite a large number of young women. A lot of big blokes in their late twenties/thirties. Nearly all black. More than half were not hiding their faces, whether because they basically didn't feel they were doing anything wrong, or because they were not local and knew they would not be recognised. Certainly a lot were not local: there were just too many.

There was not much aggro. People were just walking through the crowd on their way home, as they ran up and down shouting and laughing, carrying guitars and amps and carrier bags of hair products and weaves. A few comments from looters that someone down the road might be snitching or taking pictures and should be thumped. A couple of guys wearing V for Vendetta masks; one of these guys was white.

Whenever another window was smashed there were screams of laughter from the girls. Every now and then someone would shout that the police were coming and they would all run down the road laughing hysterically. Then someone would shout that another shop was opened and they would all run back.

Eventually someone started shouting 'Bull run! Bull run!" All hundred of them rushed down the street at once, shouting and laughing, and ran off. About then the pawn broker on the corner burst into flames. This morning it, and the two floors of flats above it, were gutted, the roof gone.

I got the impression that a lot of these looters are just those kids around the edge of criminality, ones who will habitually shoplift or buy stolen goods. Some were more hardcore guys who basically wanted a showdown with the police. Social media means that you can collect a big enough group of shoplifters to convert them into an army. We've had four nights of criminals essentially saying to the police 'Look. We can do what we like, and you can't stop us.' And apparently they can.

I'm absolutely with those who say the looting is wrong but that these people are experiencing a society that obviously doesn't care about them. However, I was shocked to hear that some of the people who appeared at Highbury court this morning were a graphic designer, college students etc.

I really feel that - as the generation in charge of society - we have somehow totally broken it so that our young people are anti everything.

specialmagiclady - indeed it is shocking. But see my earlier post. As I predicted, not every rioter is a member of the so-called underclass. Some young men apparently just enjoy violence and mayhem and hide it under the fig leaf of "protest".