The August riots were discussed on Dateline London earlier today.
"It was because there were no police around" said Adam Raphael from Transport magazine (a view with which I agree).
"It was because of corruption with the journalists police politicians" said Marc Roche from Le Monde, "the upper classes are not giving the moral example."
"We need to be more tolerant" pleaded Bari Abdel Atwan from Al Quds, as if the rioters were just expressing their culture.
"The society looks broken from outside" said Greg Katz from Associated Press, "a failure to integrate all the different ethnic groups into the British rubric."
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2 comments:
Adam Raphael came across as a pompous, arrogant, upper class Englishman with little or no empathy towards the lower classes. I agree that more police are needed, but it doesn't fix the underlying problems. The English class system still exists today and if you are part of the upper class you are immune to the law and if you happen to steal a bottle of water and are in the lower class then you pay for the rest of your life. The others on the panel were more in tune with the broader issues, but Adam was only interested making sure that the minor offenders will be caught.
The English class system exists because most people, upper, lower and middle class (and all the endless permutations between) want to identify themselves by social group (for instance Sir Alan Sugar calling himself working class).
I think upper class law-breakers get away with crime because they are better educated, have better networks and can afford better lawyers.
What is obvious from the latest breakdown on who was doing the rioting was that serial thieves have committed repeated crimes without ever going to gaol. So I do not agree with you that generally criminals are harshly punished for petty crimes. Harsh punishments resulted from the recent riots because public opinion demanded harsh punishments (and in a democracy the people should get what they want, not have an elite decide what they should have "for their own good").
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