Time to address grievances

Published: 18 August, 2011

• CAMDEN BME Alliance condemns the violence and looting that took place in Camden, across London and nationally last week.
 
One of the positive outcomes of these riots is that they have brought local communities even closer to deal with the trauma and to support each other, as witnessed by the cleaning up campaigns.

However, there is an urgent need for all stakeholders, such as local authorities, the police, government, parents, voluntary and community sector and communities to work together to address the grievances of children and young people, if society is to prevent further such riots and criminalisation of a whole generation.

One of the main causes of the riots is the issue of children and young people feeling alienated and not part of their community or the wider society.  

These feelings are due, in part, to a number of reasons:
• the cuts in local youth services, which local authorities have been forced to implement due to reductions in government funding;
• these services play a crucial role in keeping children and young people occupied and off the streets, doing something constructive with their time and youth services also develop trusting relationships between youth workers and the children and young people they work with;
• there is also a need to have co-ordinated services across the borough providing an opportunity for youth workers, young people and other stakeholders to communicate with each other and to share good practice and resources;
• the higher rates of unemployment among young people, who are competing for fewer job opportunities and training;
• the cuts in educational maintenance grants and the rise in tuition fees, which deny young people, particularly those from deprived communities, the opportunity to acquire and achieve qualifications, which in turn impacts on their employment and life chances;
• the cuts in funding to voluntary and community organisations, in particular those providing parenting and family support and classes and those working with children and young people.
Valuing our children and young people rather than seeing them as the cause of problems and troubles is key to preventing further such actions by children and young people. They are an asset to our communities and our future. 

There is an urgent need to listen to them and have a constructive dialogue with them, as well as developing solutions to their needs and concerns, jointly rather than imposing solutions from above.

JOHN OKE
Chair, Camden BME Alliance

What an example!

• NONE of us can support the riots of last week but what an example from our MPs with their false financial claims, the police selling information to the press, bankers taking huge salaries and Camden building a new town hall when our youth have nowhere to go, our schools are falling to pieces and some children have no primary school to go to.

So what does this message give our youth?

We have become a selfish money-grabbing society so it’s time we all took note of those in our society who need help and those in high-profile life set them an example.

In fact its for us all to do.

RACHAEL GUAN
Belsize Lane, NW3

Gangs the root cause

• Ed Miliband now wants to set up an inquiry to investigate the cause of the recent riots.

I can give him the answer – gangs. Without gangs, the riots would never have started nor spread so widely and so rapidly.

What we witnessed was a co-ordinated campaign of gang insurrection, on the tails of which rode a disparate rabble of opportunistic looters.

I suspect that had the police understood this when the riots first started, they would have mobilised with the same sort of urgency that would be expected of them if faced by a co-ordinated terrorist attack.

It was the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith who stated “the modern gang is perhaps the best illustration of how broken Britain’s society is”. Up to 6 per cent of 10 to 19-year-olds claimed to belong to a gang.

The Metropolitan Police Service believes that over 170 gangs operate in London, with between 600 and 700 young people estimated to be directly gang-involved in one borough alone.
 
These gangs did not appear out of nowhere.

They have been a constant presence in our most deprived and marginalised communities.

In the main, they were not considered a threat to this nation’s security by the last Labour government, because of the youthful age of the gang members. This country is now paying the price of that miscalculation.

The riots of last week were directly a consequence of Labour’s failure to deal with this nation’s criminal gangs.

While commentators have provided much analysis of events, I have yet to hear anyone distinguish between the criminal gangs who started the riots and the loose collection of individuals who subsequently joined in.

This is worrying, for we now know that there is a nationwide army of criminals who are able to mobilise and create anarchy in an instant.

This is a grave matter.

KEITH SEDGWICK
Address supplied, Gospel Oak

Inequality

• I SEE the Tory and Lib Dem politicians are trying to take the credit for the temporary stopping of the civil unrest and furthermore telling the police and courts what to do.

There is also talk of censoring the web... Oh dear!

Many have tried, but none have succeeded.

We should get a few things straight: this is not Nazi Germany.

Thank your god that politicians here do not have the power to influence the authorities or the web; nor do they have the power to take away the council homes of the mothers and fathers of the accused.

Can you imagine the uproar from the right-wing press, if the homes of the middle-class rioters were confiscated, or the mansions of the rampaging rich Buller boys were snatched from them?

Violence in any form is unacceptable, but there is no getting away from the fact that inequality fuels unrest – now or in the future – and if nothing is done to stop harassing the workers and the poor, with the autumn coming up, we ain’t seen nothing yet!

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW3

Wake-up!

• FURTHER to your far-ranging and thought-provoking coverage and analysis of Camden’s riots, unlike Mrs T, this prime minister does acknowledge there is a “society” but all citizens are in it.  

We need to address all the issues raised by your contributors if we hope for a better future living together in community.

This is the wake-up call for us all.

MIKE BOR
Hyde Park Square, W2

No kneejerk

• NOW the disturbing events of last week have quietened down we need to reflect to ensure they are not repeated.

Of course, the wrongdoers must take full responsibility for their actions, but we should avoid kneejerk reactions and putting people out of their homes as some councils intend to do.

I have asked the Labour administration for a local investigation to understand the causes.

But here is my contribution to the debate.

Top of the list is consumerism combined with glaring inequality.

Not only the Thatcher government but Labour were happy to encourage rampant materialism as well as inequality.

Lord Mandelson thought it was fine to be “filthy rich”; Alan Milburn talked of a society which was about earning and owning.

I hope Ed Miliband reflects on this as he walks through the streets of Camden Town.

Large corporations aim their advertising at people who can hardly afford it – if at all – with luxury products from sports gear to TV sets.

In the meantime high levels of unemployment, combined with cuts to Education Maintenance Allowance and rising tuition fees, make young people feel the government has let them down.

There are other causes, too, no doubt interconnected. Poor relations between young people and the police which has been pointed out to me at youth events on several occasions.

The delayed response of the police immediately gave the wrongdoers an unfortunate sense of security and power. We’ve seen already what happens in such situations from our own MPs.

I was also shocked to see how many of those arrested were on class A drugs – between 80 and 100 per cent of those arrested.

None of this is an excuse for those who committed these crimes.

However, we need real change as these events are a symptom of a wounded society.

We need a greater focus on wellbeing in a wider sense, on community, family, responsibility, not just possessions.

We need greater inclusiveness with more youth involvement on Safer Neighbourhoods panels or other structures.

And, importantly, we need a stronger focus on fairness and tackling inequality which does not leave the poor to face the biggest burden of cutting the deficit.

CLLR MAYA DE SOUZA
Green Party, Highgate ward

Senseless violence

• I SPENT last Monday night riding around Camden on a bicycle witnessing the chaotic scenes.

At one point I saw what appeared to be a perfectly innocent group of schoolchildren.

I even noticed some of the girls had handbags.

I suggested they should be in bed and they suddenly set on me.

I had to ride away as fast as I could with one girl grabbing me until she finally let go.

The psychology was explained to me that once the police were seen to be unable to stop looting, word rapidly spread that law and order had broken down.

Young people grow up surrounded by barriers and, as they develop a sense of responsibility, these are slowly pulled back.

On Monday night the barriers suddenly disappeared and young people went mad committing senseless acts of violence.

The question is how we ensure this never happens again.

As one officer put it to me, if he so much as lifts his truncheon into the air he will be on YouTube accused of brutality.

While sending in 200 riot squad officers into Gospel Oak was over the top, the police were clearly outnumbered on Monday night.

Equally over the top were the scenes in Manchester of police pinning youths to the ground with machine guns. Surely the shooting that started all this could have been handled with a Taser.

Water cannons are good for dampening the spirits of a single crowd; however, on this occasion we seemed to have large crowds of well organised youths who could disperse and then rapidly gather elsewhere.

A water cannon needs to be constantly refilled and might have been too cumbersome.

In addition, you will always have innocent people caught up with the mob.

The combination I prefer is the traditional police baton with tear gas used as a last resort.

I have seen a baton charge and it is really effective in scaring looters.

Even if the police have to use their batons it doesn’t usually take more than one blow to make a person realise that it is time to go home.

If the baton charge does not move the crowd, tear gas does the trick. If a few people end up with headaches the following day it is price worth paying.

It is time we gave the police the confidence to use reasonable force to maintain law and order on our streets.

CLLR JONNY BUCKNELL Conservative, Belsize ward