Law and Order is maintained by consent, not coercion. The police aren’t called the ‘thin blue line’ because they’re expansive enough to control the populace once a significant amount withdraw that consent. Of course once that consent is withdrawn you end up with lawlessness and disorder. It remains to be seen how consent can be restored.

While you wait for criminals to consent to law I think we`ll get the water cannons out, we cannot have rewards for criminal behaviour

‘Why was no one here worried that being caught might impact their job prospects?’

Because they’re kids and most kids don’t think about the future.

‘There is no excuse for violence that risks lives and leaves communities scared, but is it a coincidence that these riots are happening in areas with stark unemployment?’

Probably – because they’re kids and most kids don’t think about the future.

I’m sure there are some people out there who have their whole lives planned out when they are ten (Oxford, followed by an internship at Daddy’s firm) but for most kids the future is something vague and ill defined compared with the immediacy of the present, the heat of the moment and the pressure of their peers.

‘An older woman started shouting at the kids: This is your home. Don’t you get it? You must feel pretty isolated from your community to destroy your own neighbourhood.’

That sounds like the kind of ‘quote’ only Laurie Pennie or Johann Hari might ‘hear’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6SHKhvVjLIc

I think this is the one.

Law and Order is maintained by consent, not coercion. The police aren’t called the ‘thin blue line’ because they’re expansive enough to control the populace once a significant amount withdraw that consent. Of course once that consent is withdrawn you end up with lawlessness and disorder. It remains to be seen how consent can be restored.

+1

How few right wingers appear to have read Hobbes is telling.

While you wait for criminals to consent to law I think we`ll get the water cannons out, we cannot have rewards for criminal behaviour

We? You’ll be there will you? Or will you be relying on the state to do it for you?

We can and do have rewards for criminal behaviour as well you know.

Again; How do you make people connect with their community when their parents tell that that they’ll be moving, because of benefit cuts?

@2 – The police in this country don’t use them, the streets are typically too narrow for them to be effective and safe.

Consent is far, far away. The only talk is of crackdowns, not addressing the problems. I know what I fear, especially in some areas who have stripped their police forces for London…

@6 Hobbes ain’t on the libtoryian reading list. I suspect it doesn’t go much further than a bowdlerised Adam Smith and a few quotes from Edmund Burke. You can’t blame the poor souls though, having struggled through Atlas Shrugs and having to pretend to like it.

Everyone else seems to find some confirmation of their political ideas from these riots. It all seems a bit glib, which is never a good sign.

It seems to me that the long-term solution that will never happen is that we need to apply huge educational, social and police resources to some areas to confront an ingrained culture of alienation.

I’m not holding my breath…

@8 – How do you get through to people who know they’re being driven out of an area by changes in benefits, which their parents are claiming because they have no jobs, as to the value of the area? It’s meaningless to them!

I’m afraid there will be money applied to the wrong areas, after the poor have been forced out to sink towns elsewhere…

I have been watching some of the recent video.

Is there a new rule that Police do not show their numbers? On their helmets they appear to have their rank and something like ‘WW’ or whatever.

Great to know that attribution is going to become much harder.

This reminds me of Thatchers Britain….

‘we cannot have rewards for criminal behaviour’

But isn’t that the problem? We do reward ‘criminal’ behaviour, always have done. I don’t want it to become a cliche but look at the bankers, look at Murdoch, look at the revolving door between governments and civil servants and corporations.

Only one set of ‘criminals’ get to buy their politicians and with it cover for mass scale looting.

And only one set of ‘criminals’ get arrested or ‘raided’ by appointment.

Its all wrong.

‘we cannot have rewards for criminal behaviour’

Refresh is right – certain criminal behaviour is consistently rewarded, even admired in our society. Our government, our ministers, our MP’s, our police, our banks, our media have all behaved criminally with impunity – and they all help each other to avoid the legal consequences. If the rich and powerful can “get away with it”, then the law is not applied equally, and we are surprised that the young, the poor, the uneducated hold it in contempt? We should not be selective here, many believe laws are for other people, whether it is speed limits, paying taxes, theft or invading other countries. Laws only work when they are collectively obeyed. Punishment for law breaking is not a deterrent when one expects not to be caught (rioters), not to be prosecuted (MP’s) or believes they are answerable to a Higher Power (Blair, Bush etc.)