“This is criminality, pure and simple, and it has to be confronted and defeated”
So said the Prime Minister, David Cameron, on emerging from the recent meeting of COBRA convened to discuss the startling violence and rioting that has taken place across the country.
The scale, geographical dispersion and intensity of the rioting appears to have taken the Government, the police service and society in general by surprise.
That astonishment is compounded by the fact that the UK is looking to promote a positive image ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games.
Over the past 12 months we have seen protests taking place against the Government’s measures to cut expenditure and lower the public debt: teachers, students and other public sector workers have voiced their strong opinions.
The majority of them have done so peacefully, protesting against cuts in their sectors, those that might affect pensions and other social provision.
However, we have also seen some of these protests run out of control, the most prominent example being the student demonstrations in November and December 2010, when they expressed their anger at the introduction of increased tuition fees for degree courses.
Warnings given by the police
Members of the police service warned that the country may be heading for a period of sustained public disobedience because of these Government austerity measures. Last year, chief superintendent Derek Barnett, president of the Police Superintendent’s Association, said: “In an environment of cuts across the wider public sector, we face a period where disaffection and social and industrial tensions may well rise. We will require a strong, confident, properly trained and equipped police service: one in which morale is high and one that believes it’s valued by the Government and public.”1
Reflecting on the previous student protests, the head of the Metropolitan Police Service’s public order branch, superintendent Bob Broadhurst, commented: “It’s difficult to gaze into the crystal ball but if the last few weeks of 2010 are anything to go by, unless there’s a change in circumstances, it’s likely we’ll see more protests on the streets as people demonstrate for a variety of causes, a lot of them linked to fears around employment. Whether any of those events turn to violence or disorder is a totally different matter.”2
However, the protests on the Monday night of the rioting bore no relation to people protesting against injustice or for a particular political cause: this was indeed raw expression of violent and criminal behaviour and intent.
The targets were not places of political or public importance, but rather High Street stores targeted for their telephones, TVs, clothes and trainers. The perpetrators, as far as we are aware, were not political activists, but disaffected individuals who saw an opportunity to take advantage of a vastly overstretched police service. A police service with 6,000 officers on the streets of London but which still had no way of dealing effectively with such large numbers of rioters.
Reports emerged of rioters using social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter to communicate with one another.
Indeed, a new dimension characterising this latest disorder has been the increased use of the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, which allows instant, free and private communications (unlike Twitter, Facebook and text messages).
This allowed rioters to co-ordinate instantly and plan their meeting points without the police having an ability to monitor their communications.
It must have been very difficult indeed to try and respond to such a fluid and rapidly changing situation with an already overstretched police service and limited field intelligence.
Debate on BlackBerry Messenger far from over
Interestingly, there was a controversial case in the United Arab Emirates whereby various federal states banned the use of BBM as it was being employed to pass discontented messages about the ruling elites between nationals.
Could this latest example of its use lead to a similar case in the UK?
What’s certain is that this debate is far from closed: hackers have attacked Blackberry developer Research In Motion, stating that they would publish personal details of their employees if they assisted the authorities in identifying people involved in co-ordinating the rioting.
A group calling themselves ‘Team Poison’ published a message on RIM’s website, stating: “If u assist the police, we _WILL_ make this information public and pass it onto rioters… Do you really want a bunch of angry youths on your employees’ doorsteps? Think about it… and don’t think that the police will protect your employees: the police can’t protect themselves, let alone protect others.”3
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t
The police have been criticised for not being able to restore calm to the situation quickly enough across London and for failing in their basic duty of protecting citizen’s property, as homes, businesses and vehicles were set on fire.
They have also been accused of failing to protect innocent citizens who were mugged, attacked and had personal property taken from them. Theft was rife, and pictures permeated our TV screens of looters taking anything they could get hold of.
What was clear is that there were not enough police available to respond adequately, and not enough officers who were trained in riot control to be able to apply specialist tactics.
However, one could imagine that had the police reacted more violently then they would have been criticised for overreacting.
Across the country hundreds of people were arrested, holding cells in London were full and there’s no doubting that the Metropolitan Police Service was being – and is being – stretched.
Additional resources from other police forces were brought in from across the country to assist during the daytime, and by the evening of Tuesday 9 August some 16,000 police officers were on the ground.
Controversy stoked by ‘kettling’ tactics
In December 2010, following the disturbances in London that resulted from the student protests, the police were criticised for some of the tactics used and for intimidating protestors.
The tactic of ‘kettling’ – employed to police the G20 protestors – was the focus of particular criticism, a tactic which keeps protestors within a restricted position.
In response to this the police decided to use containing tactics in later demonstrations, which once again attracted criticism as demonstrations became violent.
There is no easy solution for dealing with large crowds of people who have strong feelings of frustration, anger or despair, so the police find themselves in a no-win position. React in a heavy-handed manner and they will be dammed. If they do not react strongly enough, as has been mentioned in their response to the London riots, and they are also dammed.
There have been suggestions that there is the potential for the military to be deployed on the streets to assist the police in controlling any future rioting, but this is highly unlikely.
This would be seen as almost losing control, as the military being used can only be an absolute last resort. It would be highly damaging from a political standpoint.
In days gone by, the military has been called upon to help civil authorities during floods in Gloucestershire and Cumbria, and to crew Green Goddess engines during fire service disputes, but to do so now would have been a last resort.
Indeed, during the floods, some police leaders had not welcomed any loss of operational control. Certainly, in this case the police would be reticent in allowing the Army to become involved.
Restoring calm: the job of the police and judiciary
Calm needs to be restored on our streets: rioters need to know that they cannot get away with theft, violence and vandalism.
This is the job of the police and the judicial system. Once normality has been restored and those responsible are serving the appropriate sentences for their actions, then the longer term questions need to be asked and answered.
One of them is: ‘What has caused this level of violence?’
If we now have a ‘lost generation’ who are so disaffected with their position in society, the question now arises as to why they feel violence is the only option?
There is clearly a disconnect between the political powers in this country and the people who are carrying out these actions. As much as this option will seem unpalatable to those who have been affected by the rioting, we need to listen to and understand why these people carried out these acts.
By understanding the motivation we can then try and address the grievances that they have and look to address them at multiple levels: the individual, community and national levels.
In this way, we might bridge the gap between their lives and the political powers who obviously command no respect from them.
Dr Tobias Feakin is director of national security and resilience at the Royal United Services Institute
References
1Derek Benett quoted in Tom Whitehead (2010): ‘Cuts will bring civil unrest, says police leader’, The Telegraph, 14 September (available online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8001113/Cuts-will-bring-civil-unrest-says-police-leader.html)
2Bob Broadhurst quoted in Graeme Green (2011): ‘Civil unrest 2011: a year of more discontent?’ The Metro Online, 4 January (available online: http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/851754-civil-unrest-2011-a-year-of-more-discontent)
3Matt Warman (2011): ‘London Riots: Blackberry workers threatened’, The Telegraph, 9 August (available online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/blackberry/8691479/London-riots-BlackBerry-workers-threatened.html)
