[Bishop_Arundel]

The riots that gripped England in August 2011, Posed two important questions; “why did this happen” and “will it happen again during next summer or in the near future”.

I’d be interested in whether people think the riots will happen again, especially during the Olympic period. My belief is there a significant chance that they will.
The first reason I have for this, is this academic paper entitled “Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2009” which according to Al Jazeera “found from the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1930s to anti-government demonstrations in Greece in 2010-11, austerity has tended to go hand-in-hand with politically motivated violence and social instability. The paper, released by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, examined the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. The results show a clear, positive correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability.”

Since the cuts have barely started, this evidence would seem to suggest that the chance of an August 2011 style situation happening again would increase as the cuts continued.
I also believe that the reasons given in the 5 days in August report
Five of the most important reasons why the riots happened are

(1 A feeling of having no stake in ones community and thus having absolutely nothing holding them back from trashing their local area. Those with families, jobs, and who feared someone would tell their parents and that their parents would punish them didn't riot. Basically one could sum this up as "societal breakdown".

(2 A culture of Instant materialism. The populace want expensive clothing brands and electronic goods for their status value and they aren't prepared to wait and save for them; they want them now.

(3 A distrust in the police. Some thought they were out to get them whereas some thought they were far too soft on the law-breakers.

(4 Geographical factors such as most of the “lootable shops being in the city centre rather than at out of town retail parks and good transport links as one of the reasons the riots didn't spread to Sheffield was apparently because of its appalling transport network.

(5 Bad weather. As a Midlander I agree as I’m pretty sure that if it hadn’t rained heavily on that Wednesday evening we would have had more trouble in Birmingham that night.

(6 Lack of experience locally in this type of disorder. Part of the reason there was no rioting in Bradford and the Lozells area of Birmingham, is they had experienced rioting before and had plans on how to reduce tensions if such a thing happened again in place. Bradford sent council workers in uniforms to talk to anyone on the street that might look like they would riot whereas Lozells organised "civilian security teams".


I don’t think the first five have changed in any way or form from the summer of 2011, and it remains to be seen, in this age of austerity if effective anti-rioting strategies can successfully attempted by local councils in order to follow in Bradford and Lozells footsteps. I believe Handsworth in Birmingham rioted 2 or 3 times in the 1980s, so the sixth reason isn’t a foolproof law.

I am particularly worried about disorder happening during the Olympics, but the source I have for this is rather less academic than the previous sources. A former senior policeman said in the Mail that because of the amount of police needed to ensure the Olympics ran smoothly, The police would be astonishingly short-staffed during those two weeks, and that the rank and file know that the gangs (the theory being that the gangs planned the location and logistics of the riots) in areas including North London and Manchester were planning to attempt another “riot season” when the police’s focus is the Olympics
You can read the article here Normally I would discount articles in the tabloids, but the writer of this article is a is a former deputy assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police who has also written for the Guardian . I have come to the conclusion that this is a source that one can take seriously and that he was merely sending articles to different newspapers on the basis of their readers different interests.

I believe the Olympics is the time we have to worry about due to that article. Any other time and a massive show of force as such was shown in the Eltham area on the Thursday after the riots is likely now the police know how bad things could potentially get. Unfortunately the lack of resources for non-Olympic areas of policing during those two weeks, might lead to a re-run of last year when all the eyes of the world are on the United Kingdom.

[Slosh]

At least the Olympics will clog up London preventing riots :P

[MagicNMedicine]

(Original post by Bishop_Arundel)
(4 Geographical factors such as most of the “lootable shops being in the city centre rather than at out of town retail parks and good transport links as one of the reasons the riots didn't spread to Sheffield was apparently because of its appalling transport network.

lolwut, Sheffield has a tram network that can easily transport every scally from the surrounding regions into the city centre, it wasn't because of lack of transport that mean Sheffield didn't have riots

[ckingalt]

Should riots occur again, they most definitely will not happen during the Olympics. You can rest assured that there have been a multitude of security assessments from every law enforcement/security agency involved with Olympic security in regards to this very contingency. Should any civil unrest occur during the Olympics, there will be a response plan in place with the resources already allocated to respond. It will be quelled very quickly and definitively.

A true full scale riot has to be somewhat spontaneous and completely unexpected. A nation's civil authorities are not likely to be unprepared while the whole world is watching.

[Annoying-Mouse]

No, they won't. Did LA riots happen again in 1993, 1994 etc? No. This is also an Olympic year. If any riots start, the police will start using much much more force. This is pointless fear-mongering. Do you realize how many people were arrested?

Also, the riots can be explained very simply. Mob mentality. We don't need these socioeconomic factors to explain the riots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindividuation It's the same reason for Vancouver riots, LA riots, Woodstock 1999, Football hooliganism, Abu Ghraib, why we say fight fight fight fight in school etc.

[Bishop_Arundel]

(Original post by MagicNMedicine)
lolwut, Sheffield has a tram network that can easily transport every scally from the surrounding regions into the city centre, it wasn't because of lack of transport that mean Sheffield didn't have riots

The government report into the riots claimed this was the reason the riots didn't happen in Sheffield to quote from it

"Many people have mentioned proximity to
good public transport links, including roads
as a contributing factor. All the London
disturbances, for example, took place close to
either an underground or overground train station.
People also discussed accessibility as an issue
in areas where there was no rioting. For example,
Sheffield did not attract rioters from nearby areas
as other cities did. This was in part attributed
to poor East/West train links and the fact that
Sheffield is bounded by the Pennines."

Maybe the report was inaccurate on this?

[Bishop_Arundel]

(Original post by ckingalt)
Should riots occur again, they most definitely will not happen during the Olympics. You can rest assured that there have been a multitude of security assessments from every law enforcement/security agency involved with Olympic security in regards to this very contingency. Should any civil unrest occur during the Olympics, there will be a response plan in place with the resources already allocated to respond. It will be quelled very quickly and definitively.

A true full scale riot has to be somewhat spontaneous and completely unexpected. A nation's civil authorities are not likely to be unprepared while the whole world is watching.

I disagree that Riots are spontaneous, and evidence I use for this assumption is a thread on this very forum


I'm only on page 44, but already several people have described the riots in Tottenham, and other areas as London as being organised beforehand by street gangs. Indeed the acutal locations for riots on the sunday are named due to rumours of such planning that were posted by people who heard those rumours in said thread.

There is also the fact that during the Olympics most of the national police resources will be focused on East London which could lead to opportunities for crime and disorder. As you say though, I agree the police would crackdown at the first sign of disorder, but the question is, would they be able to cut out the momentum of any disorder by then. I don't have much confidence in the British police to protect the commerical sector from a repeat of August 2011.

[Bishop_Arundel]

(Original post by Annoying-Mouse)
No, they won't. Did LA riots happen again in 1993, 1994 etc? No. This is also an Olympic year. If any riots start, the police will start using much much more force. This is pointless fear-mongering. Do you realize how many people were arrested?

Also, the riots can be explained very simply. Mob mentality. We don't need these socioeconomic factors to explain the riots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindividuation It's the same reason for Vancouver riots, LA riots, Woodstock 1999, Football hooliganism, Abu Ghraib, why we say fight fight fight fight in school etc.

I believe you are mistaken the process for the cause. Why did riots break out in 2011 but not 2010, 2009, or 2008 in Tottenham. Why did Woodstock 1999 and for that matter Download 2006 end up in riots but other festivals didn't? Deindivuation is the process that explains how people get caught up in a crowd mentality but the question is what causes Deindivuation to occur in some times and places and not others? You are right that the legal crackdown on the rioters who were caught might act as a deterrent as only a third of people who claimed to have taken part in the August riots said they would take part again in other riots. The same links shows that two thirds believe a similar style and level of disorder is likely to happen again within 2 years though, so there may be some cognitive dissonance at work here.

as for riots happening in the same location within a short space of time, examples include New York (1933 and 1934) and (1991 and 1992), Montreal (February and October 1969) and Sydney (2004 and 2 in 2005 in both February and December). The 5 days in August report did mention that the anger about the damage past riots in Lozells and Bradford was one of the main reasons those areas didn't erupt in August 2011, but there is no definitive evidence that says riots won't or indeed will break out again in the same place a year later.