You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
On Thursday 4 August 2011 a young father of two was shot dead by police in Tottenham, a deprived area of North London. Initial anger at the shooting and calls for justice developed quickly into violent unrest, which spread through other, mostly deprived, areas of the British capital, and then to other towns and cities. Thousands of people from all ethnic backgrounds set fires, looted shops, smashed police cars, firebombed police stations, threw beer cans and rocks and chased officers, then ran from snarling dogs. They stole televisions, mobile phones, bikes, clothes and shoes - even bags of rice.
Neighbourhoods were tarnished and people's shops and livelihoods, sometimes generations old, were immolated. Most sadly, three men were hit and killed by a car while defending their livelihood from looters. Another man died from a gunshot wound to the head following a confrontation. We watched the cars burn on rolling 24-hour news coverage. People the length and breadth of the country saw the video of a foreign student with a bleeding nose being robbed by a bad Samaritan who had at first seemed to be helping him to his feet.
By the end of the following week, increased police presence contained the unrest in the cities and reinstated defences. Dozens of homes across the city were raided by the police to seize stolen goods, while courts staged 24-hour sittings to hand harsh sentences to those who rioted: punishment delivered, equilibrium restored, resentment maintained. Perhaps more constructively, local communities rallied in heart-warming relief efforts with charities, celebrities, councils and local residents turning out to clean streets and help people affected by the riots.
In the theatre of responses, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, promised to do everything necessary to “restore order” to Britain's streets and make them safe for the law-abiding. Addressing the youth involved in the upheaval, he stated in no ambiguous terms: “If you are old enough to commit thes