Mistrust of police blamed for August riots

The ambience of the summer was disturbed by four consecutive days of rioting in London and other parts of England which blighted the city in early August. The reasons behind the troubles are still being talked about today, with everyone sharing an opinion about why people decided to smash up and burn businesses and properties.

What is evident is that there is no one reason why the disturbances, which was triggered off following the death of Tottenham resident Mark Duggan who was shot by police. Last week, an interim study commissioned by the government found that policing was a major issue, from the lack of communication with friends and family of Duggan following his death which furthered the Black community's mistrust of the police, to the lack of control shown by authorities when the initial disturbances took place in Tottenham.

A new study out today from the London School of Economics and The Guardian found that anger and frustration towards the police was a major factor along with poverty. Analysts who studies 270 interviews found that distrust and antipathy towards officers was a key driving force behind why thousands took to the streets.

But research found that there were a number of factors which contributed to the large-scale troubles. LSE appointed experts analysed 1.3 million words from first-person accounts of rioters who took part in the disturbances, as part of the project called Reading the Riots.

A database of more than 2.5 million riot-related tweets was also used as part of the unique research. According to the data, 80 percent of rioters said government policy was an "important" or "very important" cause of the riots, with unemployment scoring 79 percent, the shooting of Mark Duggan scoring 75 percent and social media - which is believed to have helped facilitate the spread of the trouble across the UK's cities - scoring 74 percent.

Other major factors included media coverage, greed, inequality, boredom, criminality, moral decline and racial tensions, the study found. Poor parenting and gangs were also said to be an important cause of the trouble, which led to the deaths of five people and saw more than 4,000 arrested.

Analysts said the view that the police were "the biggest gang out there" was a reoccurring theme among rioters. Complaints against officers included claims of incivility during everyday interactions and the carrying out of unnecessary stop and searches. Only seven percent said they thought police did a good job in their area. Some rioters also alleged they had been beaten up inside police vans and "stitched up" over crimes they did not commit.

esponding to the report’s findings, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said that the scale of the disorder and the way it rapidly escalated took people by surprise and that the lack of officers available in the initial days of the troubles was a reason why order wasn't restored sooner.

A spokesperson for ACPO said,

"It took people by surprise. Not enough police officers were available initially and it eventually required 16,000 of them to restore order. Of course the way in which those events took place and were seen by others through the media had an impact on confidence in the police, and it is important that lessons are learned from all the different processes and reports investigating what happened."

They added,

"In a survey of 270 rioters, it would be quite odd if a high proportion did not cite the police as a factor in their behaviour. But August also showed the ability of our police to restore order using robust, common-sense policing in the British way."