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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that 'explaining the riots' and 'justifying the riots' are two different things? doing my head in...

80 replies

dreamingbohemian · 09/08/2011 15:37

Let's be clear: NO ONE, except for idiots and criminals, is happy about the riots. No one thinks it's okay for the city to be set on fire, people's lives endangered, years of hard work destroyed, etc. They are a terrible thing and the people doing the damage should be punished.

But I do firmly believe that to keep this from happening again, we need to understand why they are happening, which means looking at social and economic factors that are driving so many people into criminality in the first place. But then people on here or in real life (Boris Johnson, sigh) say you are justifying or excusing the riots.

I honestly don't get it! Am I crazy? Do people really prefer to go around judging instead of understanding, just making up solutions and hoping they work?

I am putting this in AIBU because to me it seems so obvious that explaining is not justifying, but so many people believe differently that I am actually starting to wonder if I'm missing something.

OP posts:

catgirl1976 · 09/08/2011 21:52

:) well - thought we all needed cheering up! :)

PacificDogwood · 09/08/2011 21:55

YANBU. At all.

Keep safe, everyone.

ImperialBlether · 09/08/2011 21:55

It's about having no consequences. How many of those kids will go home and face a furious parent who will march them to the police station or to the shop with their spoils? How many of those parents will barricade the child in rather than have them go out rioting?

What will happen if they're caught, via photo or cctv? Three months inside, where they'll brag about how they set fire to a police car?

Who's cleaning up the mess? It's sure as hell not the looters. Who's paying for the repairs? Not the looters.

What exactly ARE the consequences for these teenagers? There aren't any, are there?

PacificDogwood · 09/08/2011 21:58

They may perceive that there are no consequences partly because they have no perspective of a better life .

Cocoflower · 09/08/2011 22:01

Well then give them consequences!

CheerfulYank · 09/08/2011 22:02

I think they should clean up and work in the shops they destroyed as part of their sentence.

And Coco that is bloody horrible, were they raised by wolves?!

rainbowtoenails · 09/08/2011 22:02

Yanbu, if we dont learn any lessons from this then we are destined to see it repeated.

Cocoflower · 09/08/2011 22:05

It seems like it Cheerful.

nightowlmostly · 09/08/2011 22:11

The reason that unemployment is a factor cocoflower, is that yes, these teens may not be out of work yet but I bet you anything their dads, mums and brothers and sisters are!

They probably feel like there are no prospects.

Imperialblether if you think that going to prison will not impact on their life chances, then they're probably right about that. If they see no future then they have nothing to lose, do they?

Cocoflower · 09/08/2011 22:18

Right. So starting a riot with messages content of; "we are not poor we just like free stuff" is a clear indication of that.

Do you have any stats showing all rioters have at least one memeber of their family out of work?

Also once again;

Why the HELL would you burn down, rob and destruct the local business who are providing employment for their community if is about employment? Or are we saying its envy of the employed?

amicissima · 09/08/2011 22:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Cocoflower · 09/08/2011 22:25

And it the words of the Brave Hackney pensioner

'You lot p me the f off. I'm ashamed to be a Hackney person because we're not all gathering together and fighting for a cause we're running down Foot Locker and TV shops. Dirty thief run off.'

So tell me if there is one shred of evidence this is about unemployment. Not on sign of their behaviour indicates that.Not one. There is no great cause

Its greed, its disrespect, it mindless and it it HURTS.

ImperialBlether · 09/08/2011 22:29

I do think this riot is about the thrill of the fight and about greed.

mayorquimby · 09/08/2011 22:30

For me it's shown up the bullshit that a lot of these teenagers spout about their dislike for the police being due to harrassment/being targetted for stop and searches. This has shown me that the reason a lot of these kids hate the police is because on a day to day basis they are the only thing that stops them doing exactly what the fuck they like and if left to their own devices free from police intervention they would rob,beat,loot the people of theor own community and break into and burn out their homes and businesses.

Punkatheart · 09/08/2011 23:07

Cheerful - please don't bring wolves in to it. If they were raised by wolves, they would have strong family ties, a code of behaviour and a love for their communities. (I work for the UK Wolf Conservation Trust)

Seriously though - this is really making a lot of people angry/scared and depressed. PLEASE let's think too of the wonderful optimistic people who helped to clear up, the brave souls who faced rioters and the outrage. Our society has not fallen. Yes it is crisis and materialism/advertising has played its part. Everyone wants the lifestyle they see in ridiculous magazines. It is all about the self. We could theorise until the cows came home.....but yes, analysis is needed. Hard, intelligent analysis.

maypole1 · 09/08/2011 23:17

Parent's have given up authority, police are afraid to use it and political authorities are on holiday.

CheerfulYank · 09/08/2011 23:24

That's true Punk , this is in my hometown so I should indeed know better. :)

I don't understand how we go about fixing it. Understanding it is only helpful if it leads us to a solution. Who should teach these people the things that most of us learned as children?

Original poster

dreamingbohemian · 10/08/2011 00:29

Coco, thanks for replying There are a couple of reasons why I think unemployment is important. First, I don't see how you can say the looters are mostly 14-17 year olds, there's not any kind of census going on and the people I know who have seen things up close have told me it's more like 18-21 year olds (I know, I can't prove that either). I think it's varying from place to place. But the point is, at least a fair number of people involved are either not in education or work. They have nothing to do, no stake in society, no reason to get up in the morning. In a recession especially these people are basically unemployable, why would someone hire a 17 year old with no experience when there are people with years of experience willing to take low-paid jobs?

Also, you ask, why are people destroying the places that provide employment? Because they are not providing employment to them. In my old neighbourhood the word is that a couple places got targeted, even though there was nothing of value in them, because they have a long history of not hiring people from the neighbourhood.

Again, not excusing anything, but do you really think that if everyone in these neighbourhoods had decent 9-5 jobs, paying a living wage, that you would still see this kind of behaviour? I'm not saying unemployment is the only factor but it just seems obvious to me that if you have loads of young men with literally nothing else to do, they are more likely to behave like idiots.

In a way, I think the problem is not so much poverty as 'idleness', for lack of a better word. Clearly many people involved in the looting are not necessarily poor but they don't have a legitimate occupation to keep them busy and give them an incentive to stay out of trouble.

OP posts:

madwomanintheattic · 10/08/2011 00:47

i dunno, dreaming. there was a thread earlier where the stats of those arrested yesterday were quoted and a good percentage of the ones charged did have jobs. apparently some had 'professional' jobs. whatever they are.

it just looks like young kids and young adults nicking stuff for kicks in the pics. grinning and having a good ol' time. they don't look too distressed by their lot.

the interview with the two girls was very telling. idleness indeed. how are you going to persuade folk that hard graft is the answer, rather than swilling rose at 9.30 in the morning? cos if you bother to graft, you're going to be the one that gets your windows smashed in next, innit? some incentive.

Original poster

dreamingbohemian · 10/08/2011 01:07

I see what you're saying. I guess I'm just swayed by my own experience, I used to live in Washington DC when it was the murder capital of the US, it was pretty hairy. When the economy was at its worst the crime rate skyrocketed, we had riots, etc... when the economy was better the crime rate went down, things were calmer. I just don't think it's an accident that all this is kicking off during a recession and following austerity cuts. If it's really just about greed and poor parenting, why didn't this happen during the boom years? There was greed and poor parenting then as well.

that's interesting about the arrest stats. Who are the people arrested, are they people arrested on the spot or from CCTV? If it's on the spot, they're probably not the people who instigated and organised things, they are long gone before the police show up.

OP posts:

adamschic · 10/08/2011 10:26

Perhaps some of the local business that were looted and destroyed were not employing 'local people' and possibly overcharging 'local people' for goods etc. I don't know.

I do know that even though I live it a safe area a long way from the troubles, we have that problem here, being a tourist area. Alot of jobs are taken by eastern europeans and our young people are finding it difficult to gain employment atm. The situation should improve soon as many are heading home absolutely sick of living here and the've achieved their objective.

Not justifying btw.

OTheHugeManatee · 10/08/2011 11:00

Katherine Birbalsingh has summed it up for me:

"Put a child in front of an insect and he will take great delight in making it suffer until his mother or father tells him that causing pain is wrong. Children need to be brought up properly with parents who care enough about them to say no, with a school system that cares enough to admit when behaviour is out of control, with a community that recognises that we are ALL responsible for our children.

Many of these mindless thugs involved in the riots don?t think more than 10 minutes into the future. They think that stealing trainers is ?fun?, not even considering that it might be wrong. Many of them are, quite literally, unable to read and write: 17 percent of 15-year-olds are functionally illiterate. If you de-educate an entire generation, if you constantly make excuses for their behaviour, if you never teach them the difference between right and wrong, then chaos is what you reap. These young people are just implementing what they?ve learnt at school!"

Link to article

Ormirian · 10/08/2011 11:09

"Put a child in front of an insect and he will take great delight in making it suffer until his mother or father tells him that causing pain is wrong"

I am not sure that is correct. If a child is too young to understand it is wrong to cause suffering it is because he lacks empathy not because he wants to cause suffering IMO.

But I think I agree with the general thrust. Most of us understand that hurting people (and their things) is wrong. It just IS. We don't need to be told by the police and the courts that is wrong. We just know it. It's the kind of unspoken 'rules' that make a society hang together. Because we had it reinforced as children and we witnessed behaviour that showed this undertanding amongt the people who surrounded us.

Ormirian · 10/08/2011 11:13

Some of the looters that I've heard interviewed have made a big deal about the fact that the police 'can't stop us' and even if they did the punishment is worth it. So what is the conclusion of that? Make the punishment harsher? Stocks, whippings, bring back hanging? We can't do that! Because that isn't the mark of a civilized society - not one that I'd want to live in. The answer long-term is to make society something that they want to contribute to and care enough about to support.

sausagesandmarmelade · 10/08/2011 11:17

The problem is that many seem to assume that people behave badly because they come from deprived backgrounds etc....when in reality what is going on now is a result of pure greed, selfishness and a lack of empathy for anyone else.

People don't need excuses to behave badly....and not all those who do are deprived!

Throwing money, opening more youth centres, setting up mentoring schemes is not going to solve the problem...it's much bigger than that. We have been too soft...

Those causing the untold damage should be forced to clean up our towns and cities and communities that they have destroyed. They need to realise that there are consequences to their behaviour.

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