Riots in England

The riots that began on August 6 and lasted at least four days damaged or destroyed much property in scattered areas in England including Birmingham, Bristol, Camden, Clapham Junction, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Hackney, Lewisham, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Peckham, Salford, Tottenham, Wolverhampton and Woolwich.

Some have cited the death of Mark Duggan of Tottenham as the incident that prompted the first phase of rioting. Evidently a police officer killed Duggan by firing a bullet into his chest. What began as a small demonstration to protest this event quickly developed into a series of riots that shattered the public order in a great many communities.

The most important function of government is protecting citizens from harm--as much from violent elements within the nation as from foreign forces. And so the police should respond quickly and effectively to criminal acts that threaten public safety. But a police force that has to deal with simultaneous riots in widely scattered areas faces many challenges.

From the start and at every moment, officers must assess their strength relative to the number of rioters and to the nature of the riot. The police may be outnumbered or surrounded--or both. When they have insufficient numbers or inadequate resources, the police can fail to quell a riot, and this failure may embolden a mob. So police can be reluctant to act, when action may make matters worse. But then the authorities may appear fearful or, even worse, irresponsible.

Police are constrained, too, by their commitment to protect the lives of the guilty as well as the lives of the innocent citizens. Rioters may throw rocks and bottles--or firebombs. Offensive and defensive strategies must be appropriate to the kind of assaults launched by rioters against fellow citizens, property and the police. Authorities must choose whether to try to confine the rioters to a given area or disperse them. Dispersing rioters may end the riot or may only widen the area of disruption.

The social media that enable us to communicate with friends and coworkers now afford rioters opportunities to coordinate criminal activities in the streets. The authorities did not have this technological development to contend with in major riots in the past.

Overreactions can have damaging consequences. They can generate among civilians disrespect and even animosity for the police, and those attitudes can for years hamper the effectiveness of law enforcement authorities.

Riots can begin as a reaction to an incident widely perceived as unjust, for example the injury of a citizen by police. But once a riot starts, a number of people may join in the mayhem for the sheer excitement of living awhile in a state of frenzy outside the law. Some rioters take the opportunity to loot stores for TVs, jewelry and designer clothes. This is far from a protest against the injustices in society, and is much harder to justify than stealing food to feed a starving family.

Technologies for controlling riots provide cities a variety of means for disabling and capturing rioters: barrier foams, dyes that after being sprayed on people help authorities to apprehend suspects for up to several days afterwards, non-lethal projectiles like bean bags fired from a gun, entanglers like nets, electrified or coated with an adhesive, fired from cannons, big enough to hold a person or big enough to restrain a vehicle. There are many more devices available.

Officers use surveillance cameras to monitor public spaces for signs of criminal activity. But even with thousands of closed-circuit television cameras to monitor public spaces in London, some authorities have questioned the value of them for bringing criminals to justice. Perhaps in the future, with surveillance cameras, recorders and much improved face recognition software, officers might be able to identify the vandals who are bold enough or careless enough not to wear masks. And then the arm of the law might be as swift to reach the criminals as a ticket resulting from a violation of a 'photo-enforced' intersection. But criminals modify their behavior in response to the actions of police officers, and thus the battle between the forces of order and disorder continues.

While the police are usually (fortunately for us) better armed than most civilians, the police comprise only a small part of any population. Even if they were equipped with all available technologies for riot control, the police would be hard pressed to manage very massive riots. Short of using the army to go to war with the people, a nation--especially a democracy--has significant limitations on its ability to control its people with weapons, be they lethal or not.

While a totalitarian state may enforce a high degree of order on its population, a democracy relies to a great extent on the power of its citizens to support the public good. The greatest force for maintaining social order is the good behavior of individuals.

The Prime Minister was right to call parts of England 'broken' and 'sick'. His comments could certainly apply to many other countries. Clearly something is wrong with a society where such vicious riots occur. The families of rioters did not keep their children off the streets. Peers did not effectively discourage rioters from damaging property and stealing goods. And the rioters themselves did not have consciences strong enough to deter them from wreaking havoc on their neighborhoods.

The riots may bring social inequities to light and rivet public attention on the question, "Why did this happen here?" This may prompt authorities to fashion new or revise old policies that address the justified grievances and improve the conditions that lead some people to violent behavior.

Yet while a government should address the grievances of the people, it must first contain and prevent the violence that threatens a community. Most riots remind us of the need we all have to employ just and powerful forces against dangerous and irrational actions that threaten to tear the fabric of a civilized society. And they remind us, too, that every society needs to foster, from very early on, the development of a strong conscience in every one of its members.