1st August 2011
Ten years ago I went along to the south London shopping centre expecting to report on a riot.
At the time I was legal correspondent for the New Statesman, and all that day I had seen on Twitter that, among other places, there would be disorder in Bromley – and I was interested in what the reaction of the police and the courts would be.
But there was not a riot.
And so in a splendid exercise of journalism, I filed a piece on a riot not taking place.
The original piece even had a photograph from me of a deserted Bromley town centre – perhaps the least dramatic photograph ever published by any news organ, and certainly the only one that has ever been published that has been taken by me.
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Elsewhere, however, there were riots.
Following the riots, there were speedy arrests and speedy prosecutions.
And, in turn, there were speedy convictions – and, I recall, very harsh sentences.
At the time the sentences seemed disproportionate and were meant to be disproportionate.
Today, ten years later, it is reported that a prosecutor from the time had/has doubts as to the severity of the sentences.
But at the time, few if any cared – the defendants ‘should have known better’ and they ‘got what they deserved’.
My view at the time was that it would have been better to prosecute and convict on a normal basis – to show that the legal system was not easily shaken into exceptional behaviour.
To, in a way, normalise things.
But those who supported the harsh sentences would point to the (relative) lack of riots since – as if there was a simple monocausal relationship between sentences and riots.
As it happens, many of the preconditions for the 2011 riots still seem present – and, indeed, they are always present.
And one wonders whether the harsh sentences (and decisions to prosecute) ten years ago have done more damage socially in how they have affected the lives of those, as the Guardian piece describes them, were ‘caught up’ in the riots.
Such injustices never are warranted – even as a deterring example to others.
An injustice is always still an injustice.
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My sister got 18 months for stealing a bottle of water out of one of the supermarkets during the riots. They raided her place more than six months after the riots. She did 9 months of the sentence. Her mental health was pretty bad for a long time after coming out of Holloway and, in terms of work, she only relatively recently kind of got past that time and has found herself building a career of sorts – so that 9-month stint actually affected her life for nearly a decade. As an example, for a long time after she was released, she couldn’t be in loud environments where there were lots of people around. That sounds minor but vs the gregarious, social person I knew before she went in, it was a marked difference.
Dear Mr McGuinness
My wife and I live in Tottenham, London N17, a short walk from the Police station. At the time of the riot she was a magistrate. But she was not asked to hear criminal cases from the riot and her recollection – which may not apply generally – is that they were heard by District judges. Zena and I were both shocked by some of the grossly disproportionate sentences handed down.
On 21 July 2012 I sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Cabinet Office. I was genuinely curious and wanted to know answers. I still do. What was learned? What worked?
My F.O.I.
“On 16 August 2011 the then Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was reported in the Financial Times to have “pledged that when an offender [who] leaves prison from March 2012 they will be met by providers on the Work Programme at the prison gate.”
Can you please supply me with copies of, or a link to, the online location of any documents summarising the delivery/non-delivery of this pledge and how many such offenders were successfully placed in work; and how many were not.
If the data are available, I would also like to have copies of or links to online copies of records showing how many of those placed in work are still employed and for how many months after their leaving prison.
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An exemption was claimed by the Cabinet Office.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/request_for_information_about_th_2#incoming-308915
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What happened to your sister was and is shocking. And avoidable had our justice system worked properly and with any attempt at fairness & empathy.
I have a hope that Albert Salter (below) is right and that there’s been research looking at the outcomes for people sent to prison or otherwise convicted and punished. And maybe that such research might have substantial future benefits.
Though from my personal experience and reading I have no reason to assume that many positive lessons were learned from the 2011 riot and the looting and arson. Other than a possible determination to respond faster and more brutally in future. Control tools have been “improved”.
Something I remember thinking at the time – based on hearing news reports – was that – virtually everywhere – the riots were essentially a one night wonder – each place had its one bad night, and that would be more or less it, other nights being quiet (even quieter than a heavy police presence would dictate)
“… virtually everywhere – the riots were essentially a one night wonder – each place had its one bad night, and that would be more or less it …”
Jeremy GH, Might I suggest that, No, that wasn’t “it”.
As we’ve already heard from David McGuinness (above) the damage persists long term.
Can I please invite you to view my own photos and those of another Tottenham resident (Laurence Cumming) of Tottenham High Road the day after the riot. Mr Cumming gave me his permission to post his photos on my photoblog.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanstanton/albums/72157627427368214
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanstanton/albums/72157627563230494
A few more of my photos from Wood Green N22
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanstanton/6061306011/in/photostream/
A major reason this wasn’t a “one night wonder”. Rioting in Tottenham lit a spark which set off “fires” in other neighbourhoods and cities.
Can I also suggest Jeremy GH, that if you haven’t read it, you may find a book by Adam Kucharski relevant: “The Rules of Contagion”. The notion of an epidemic pattern of riots is similar to using that to tackle other problems.
Then there’s Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”. Because following the riot in Tottenham, and probably other places, we were visited by lots of people keen to “help”. Including of course property developers proposing the destruction of some Council housing.
Many unfinished issues, then. Not least the inquiry by “Forensic Architecture” into the death of Mark Duggan. You’ll find th video online.
I must declare an interest: I live (and lived in 2011) in Hackney. I did not need to go looking for riots. (But if I had been looking for one on 9 August Bromley would have struck me as a bizarre choice.)
Your reference to those ” ‘caught up’ in the riots” is one way of looking at it. Another is that the one person stealing alone is very different from 300 people collectively trashing, looting and threatening. If in doubt, ask the shopworkers.
And I find it surprising that some liberal, progressive social scientists* cannot be found to research the outcomes for those prosecuted in 2011 and compare them with the outcome for those convicted of comparable offences. But then I am old-fashioned and still think evidence-based policy making has merit.
*the adjectives possibly redundant these days :)
I expect we can find some illiberal, regressive, anti-social scientists.
But they are only really fit to be called scientists at all, if they are working inductively from the result of experiments and observations to new testable hypotheses, and deductively back again to test those hypotheses with new experiments and observations.
That process does not seem to sit all that well alongside traditional conservative views, values and attitudes.
For example, what is the evidence for introducing chain gangs?
Nevertheless the punishment should fit the crime and 18 months for stealing one bottle of water does not fit.
During the riots, the Tulse Hill (estate) Gang and the Brixton (Estate) Gang looted PC World/Dixons and several were arrested and locked up. I do not recall much demand for their release but I do recall two things.
First a widespread belief that one reason for problems on the estates was the low hourly pay many parents – especially mothers – received for menial jobs. This meant parents could not afford the underground so used cheaper buses and therefore had to get up very early and take children to friends and neighbours.
Second, standing outside Corpus Christi Brixton looking down Brixton Hill to the great Temple of Mammon, the City, and wondering with the admirable and much missed parish priest Fr Tom why the police did not act with equal vigour against white collared criminals who looted pension funds and the like.