Shal we wait and see who the rioters and looters actually are before reaching a conclusion about why they did it?

[lashingsofbingeinghere]

Am I alone in thinking we need to stop assuming all the rioters come from a particular class/background?

At Highbury Magistrates, the first person tried for looting was a classroom assistant. Another was a man with a prison record, yet another was unemployed. Elsewhere I believe a graphic designer has been charged with looting/affray.

Shall we wait and see who the culprits are before rushing in with solutions?


I have posted in the same vein before, but I feel nothing but frustration that all the pundits, politicians and police are not waiting to see actually Who Has Done This before pointing the finger at Where The Blame Lies.

I know we can assume that vicars, pensioners and babies were not involved in the looting, but this assumption all the perps have been badly parented and are socially excluded is just supposition, unless we all enter into a lovely circular argument that you must be socially excluded to riot and rioting proves you must be socially excluded.

I await with interest a socio-economic breakdown of the perps.

[LolaRennt]

I don't care who they are or where they came from. Greed is why they did it

[baffledmum]

Class is irrelevant as is background. But it comes to something when you're under siege from someone with a £300 smartphone and £100 trainers wanting more. I was at work the other day when my kids' holiday club was caught up in this. Little sods were pelting my 5 year olds from outside of a playground with stones and swearing at them. Disgraceful. Shame on the lot of them.

[Solopower]

No, what is so startling about these disturbances is that they can't be lumped together as bread riots, protests against the police or demonstrations against the cuts. I think the nature of the incidents varied from place to place just like the people involved.

The important thing is that they should not be used as excuses for getting at one section of society. Anyone can be greedy, opportunistic, carried away by the excitement. But it takes a very different sort of person who can rob an injured teenager, set a building alight, beat up a 68-year-old - and it is totally irrelevant whether that sort of criminal lives in a council house or a palace

[NimpyWindowmash]

Plenty of working people and university students among the rioters. Certainly not people with no hope for the future. It makes it harder to explain this away as the result of poverty and social exclusion.

[organicgardener]

Punish the looters and rioters.

THEN solve the social issues why they took place.