Greg,

I'm sorry, but much of the looting was organised by opportunistic gangs, and a significant number of privileged teens, and had a wide racial component. Your analysis is flawed, and cobbled together to push your particular brand of political barrow.

Whilst there is no doubt truth in what 'Shadow Minister' says, I cannot find it in me to agree wholly with his pronouncements - but then he may be privy to specific information not yet available in the public domain.
I would point out though that when a class of people who have become accustomed to a benefit, whether it be bread & circuses in ancient Rome or telly & welfare in modern London, when threatened with deprivation of such benefit tend to become resentful & fairly 'snarky' and burn & throw things - including politicians out of office.
Truly 'there is nothing new under the sun'!

...Lack of dignity and corresponding lack of self respect fulminating in lack of overall respect for a society that gives them reasonable opportunity for self advancement by offering personal challenges with no guarantee as a reward, are the hallmark of intellectual laziness evidenced in rioters the world over, of which London is the latest.

...Seeing layabouts in our own streets begging for welfare is an example of this, and to them I would say, “Get your lazy overindulged arses off the footpath and head out to the bush and pick fruit”: Just as foreign backpackers prove it can be done.

The frustration this subgroup of British society (in particular the teenage males of the institutionalised generational welfare-recipients) has been experiencing at their inability to participate at the consumerist pig's trough promoted by the mass media has been given a stage. No one's rioting because they haven't enough to eat. The looting that's going on is t agetting Nike shoes and cell phones. It's disgusting.

As with most societies of the industrialised world, the retreat of the state from its traditional responsibilities (provision of infrastructure and essential services, but primarily the provision of stability -- including policing) sets the stage for the complete lack of respect by the disaffected, disenfranchised non-participants to the debauchery the rest of society is engaged in, and emboldened as they are, they've taken to throwing stones at, ransacking and burning their own communities.

Just more evidence that collapse is in full-swing. Enjoy the show!

So there you have it.

We have the result of years of implementing the ideas of sociologists, & criminologists, & other theoreticians, & not listening to experienced cops, & this bloke wants to tell us;

"Criminologists reject the idea of “pure criminality”, preferring instead to focus on the social origins of crime. While pure criminality implies crime is a consequence of individual pathology, criminological research continues to recognise the enduring link between crime and relative deprivation. The root cause of much of the riotous behavior lies in young peoples’ exclusion from consumer culture coupled with over-policing and police harassment of particular groups in neighborhoods blighted by entrenched social and economic disadvantage".

Strangely the cops, & our own sense tell us it is exactly the opposite. No sentences when caught, smart ass kids who can work every legal lurk, & the cops with both hands tied in red tape.

Come on Greg, we are seeing increasingly, the results of your experiment with our lives, & mate you got a fail.

It is time you went back to the drawing board, & tried again. Try developing policies that have bite for the hoods, not hand outs.

God I'm sick of my taxes funding this rubbish.

I wonder when we will get a sociology of climate change department. The fairies could all get together & perhaps dance.

Greg,
Britain has always had a wide disparity between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ and little has changed over the centuries, except possibly the empire coming back to bite it. The generation that grew up there after the war, the coupon generation, had little to celebrate about. There were no Xbox or Ipad junkies and wealth was something the privileged, or the more successful criminals (sometimes the two were entwined) enjoyed, to the detriment of the greater public.

Education for the poor was on a need to know basis and earning capacity was severely limited for those who did not have access to higher education. Those people and I was one of them, worked hard to climb out of the primal swamp of apathy and got on with life. We did not riot, or destroy shops and perform violent acts on innocent people. Apart from peaceful demonstrations against nuclear war, Britain had a calm, possibly stiff upper lipped, but predominantly law-abiding society.

What has changed, I believe, is a generation, ethnically fuelled and with a Ghetto mentality, that has come to expect too much for too little effort. What I saw of the riots in the 80’s and what I heard from the victims of those riots, were protests from underprivileged, predominantly black people, fuelled by a mob mentality and driven by an undercurrent of organised, predominantly white, crime. The black rioters trashed and burned, while the white criminals looted with vans in their wake. The only difference I see today is that the rioters now appear to be in the driving seat.

Tertiary education is far more wide-spread than it was in the 50’s and 60’s and more opportunities to succeed are there if one care’s to exploit them. There will always be those who wish to remain in comfortable, safe havens of apathetic bliss, blaming society for all their ills and that is quite acceptable in a democracy. Crime however, is not.

David Leigh