Simon Marcus

Could this summer see a repeat of the 2011 riots?

The heatwave is on and reports of London’s crime wave are widespread, with crime up dramatically in the last year: could a repeat of the 2011 riots be on the cards? Predicting riots is tricky but sometimes there are clues: the weather plays a part; and so too does the economy, community cohesion, social morals and other factors that can combine to lead to outbreaks of widespread disorder, just as they did seven years ago on the streets of the capital.

Of course, 2011 wasn’t the only time people intent on violence have taken to the streets of Britain in recent years. The 1958 race riots, the ‘summer of 1968’, further race riots in 1976 and ’77, Brixton in 1981, Broadwater Farm in 1985, Poll Tax riots in 1990, Brixton again in 1995, anti-capitalist riots in 2000 and the Bradford riots in 2001: each were sparked by different reasons, but what they demonstrate is that riots in Britain are actually relatively frequent. Between the turn of the millennium and the anti-capitalist protests of 2010 and the summer of 2011, there was something of a quiet patch. Now that seven years have passed since those events, though, here is a worrying thought: widespread disorder in the capital could be overdue.

The government is doing little to help make a repeat of 2011 less likely. Police numbers in England and Wales have fallen by 20,000 in the last eight years. This has contributed to an increase in crime; moped muggers, for instance, have proliferated for a simple reason: their chances of getting caught are slim. Even when repeat offenders are apprehended, little is done: a police officer recently revealed that some teenage thieves are arrested up to 80 times while still avoiding prison.

Falls in the number of officers have also damaged trust in the police and affected intelligence gathering at a local level.

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