The legions of South Asian taxi drivers are the most visible sign of an [Read more…]. There are the gaggles of uniformed schoolchildren running through unpaved streets, satchels bouncing on their skinny backs — they study only in the morning or afternoon so they can work for a living the rest of the day.
There are the Dickensian [Read more…]. None of this means that rioting is inevitable. As I mentioned above, there would have to be a catalyst, some event or decision that spurred all that potential angry energy into action. Figuring out what the catalyst might be requires less scientist than psychic. But remember the health care town hall meetings? No one initially expected them to be as explosive as they were, and yet several bordered on getting out of control.
There is also this: Every society has some folks in it who are really just aching for a good riot. One of the best reads about riots is Bill Buford's book, "Among the Thugs.
Part of what he found is that soccer had little to do with it. The hooligans used their rioting as a steam valve, a way to crash against the barriers of social limits, express their fury over their lot in life and generally spice up otherwise boring weekends.
Ultimately, they fought because they liked fighting. What might keep us from having riots? Well, there is inertia. Getting people motivated enough to storm the Bastille is not as easy as it looks, and despite our troubles we are still a wealthy society. When you have enough entertainment and life is not completely unbearable, it's hard to persuade the crowd to gather pitchforks.
Certainly there is an unwillingness to connect the failure of the police to stop the rioting with the deepening failure of the police to maintain law and order in England since the early s. Unfortunately, thin-skinned defensiveness has been the norm in recent years on the rare occasion that the British policing establishment is confronted with even mild criticism on matters of effectiveness. Criticism concerning matters of ethnic discrimination in hiring, promotion, and law enforcement are a different matter, as those prompt self-mortifying rituals and internal inquisitions.
The Tory administration of David Cameron has until now been even softer on crime and criminals than its predecessors were. Public anger however has prompted something of a shift in tone, a shift that has taken the top cops by surprise. They are used to complaints in the popular press and have become good at dismissing public irritation at the lack of police on the streets as the results of tabloid sensationalism.
The problem, they always say, is one of perception. Their numbers, after all, show that crime is down. What is needed to reassure the public is not policemen on the street, but better marketing. And British police do indeed put a great deal of effort into branding themselves, with advertisements proclaiming the success of various community policing efforts.
The efficacy is somewhat undermined by all the other police advertising and posters warning the public not to leave valuables where they can be seen through car or house widows. Leaving jewelry or a phone out on a table where it might be seen by someone looking into your home is apparently a provocation. It invites burglary just as a bulging wallet invites pickpocketing or, presumably, a short skirt invites rape. You can no more prevent their predations than you can prevent the tides.
In the long term, society can perhaps decrease crime by addressing its root causes, like inequality and poverty, but that is for the politicians. Until two decades ago, British policing was dominated by big ex-servicemen who were too tough, disciplined, and experienced to be intimidated by teenagers, even teenagers with knives.
The general public also was less easy to intimidate and less tolerant of antisocial behavior. Both the police and the general public knew that the establishment, led by people who had fought wars and run empires, was very much on the side of order.
The police know that their masters in the new elite are not only obsessed with youth culture, but also subliminally hostile to policing in its traditional form. Some continue to have an ambivalent attitude toward order itself and sympathize more with those who challenge the law than with those who submit to it. The Cameronites have tended to be every bit as youth-obsessed and soft on crime as their Blairite and Brownite predecessors.
The way we police is through consent of communities. May must know that eminently consensual societies like, say, Holland do use water cannon. She also knows that the great majority of Britons would not see the use of water cannons or tear gas or other nonlethal methods as evidence of unacceptably nonconsensual or authoritarian government.
There is and has long been a big gap between the political class and the people when it comes to law and order in Britain. The political class tends to be insulated from crime and therefore does not take it very seriously. And because Britain is a much less democratic and culturally demotic society than the United States, the views of its elite prevail on such matters.
It is why Parliament always votes against the death penalty even though a majority of the electorate continues to favor it. The latter sounds crude, authoritarian, frighteningly American to educated British ears, and no British politician has ever understood or championed it. In fact, British foreign and military policy is actually a surprisingly useful guide to underlying assumptions and attitudes of elite Britain. The British Army in Iraq used a playbook similar to that of the Metropolitan Police with equally disastrous results.
To his shock, the British troops whose job it was to guard the building decided not to turn their guns on the mob, which then stormed the building and wrecked it. The complaint itself is confidential. Foreman said he had two bruises on his legs where he was struck while protesting police brutality on 47th Street, not far from his Hyde Park home. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she urged Foreman to file a complaint after she learned of the incident Sunday afternoon.
Chicago police Superintendent David Brown spoke personally with Foreman after the incident, according to a statement from the Chicago Police Department. Foreman said he was not the only person struck by police after they ordered the crowd to disperse. Activist Malcolm London was arrested after the same protest and charged with disorderly conduct.
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