Research into the london riots

Facts and figures

A joint survey carried out by The Guardian and The London School of Economics showed that 85% of the rioters believed that the police had an important factor into the reason of the riots because they could not control the violence and because the police were seen as a gang by the rioters who abuse the power they have been entrusted with by the legal system. Two-thirds of those interviewed said they had been cautioned by police or convicted of an offence in the past. The riots provided a long-sought opportunity for settling scores; rioters spoke of "payback". 

 Another study was carried out about a review on the police with the question "Do the police in your area do a good or bad job?", only 7% of Reading the Riots respondents said "excellent" or "good" – compared with 56% of respondents to the same question in the British Crime Survey. 

 The project asked 270 rioters to say which of a list of possible causes of the riots they regarded as significant. These same factors were also put to 1,001 adults across the UK by ICM, the Guardian's pollsters. Rioters cited poverty and policing as the two most important causes of the riots, with 86% and 85% of respondents respectively saying the causes were "important" or "very important". The ICM survey of the general population, by contrast, cited poor parenting (86%) and criminality (86%) as the leading riot causes.

Qualitative debates on the riots

A you black male studying at university had a heated stand off with the mayor of London Boris Johnson saying that it is the governments fault because they focus more on the UK stock exchange and cutting EMA and other funding systems and then donating healthy sums of money to under-developed countries when really they should focus on the issues on our home soil before worrying about other countries more. The young male also stated that he is all for helping under-developed countries because everyone deserves a good standard of life but they should prioritize homeland issues first.

Another debate is that people living in poor communities often suffer a deprived or abusive childhood which leaves psychological scars on how they will behave in the future. However, such factors can only be limited because other factors such as peer pressure or even just the will of the individual can be an influence because the individual has a choice, yes it is fair to say they have faced different pressures from different directions whether it be domestic or social but if the individual has the ambition to succeed or contribute positively to society then none of areas of pressure would affect that person.