Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Will the participants be visibly changed?

Thinking about how when this is over, how will those who have looted and rioted, be different? Will they carry an aura of smugness, that they were able, briefly, to feel powerful? Proud? How many have taken part? Certainly thousands, maybe tens of thousands. Will they be able to resist talking about it? Will there be an obvious divide between the looters and the not-looters? "What did you do in the riots, daddy?"

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Permalink Reply by Maddy on August 9, 2011 at 9:14

So many of them are young people, although there has been talk of "orchestration" by older criminals. I have a teenager, so I know how hard it is to know where they are and what they are up to, let alone to stop them, but I think people need to ask serious questions of their young. It's very very sad - I feel we have totally failed to give them a moral compass or sense of belonging to anything except a greedy consumer society that couldn't care less about its most vulnerable. I'm not excusing the behaviour - I would report my son to the police if I thought he had been in any way involved in such activities - but something has to be understood about a group who are so out of control they can burn down buildings with people's homes inside.

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Permalink Reply by h4k on August 9, 2011 at 10:42

I think it's an interesting question because the numbers mean nothing like all participants will be held to account even in the long term.

Having been once that powerful, that out of control, what will it mean for them ? How will it affect them in other situations - whether to hold back in a street or domestic argument, whether to commit other crimes like street robbing or burglary.

Surely it must be going to affect them. Wealthy people spend thousands to send their kids off for formative, intense gap year experiences expecting them to have a lasting impact. Has this had a different lasting impact on a sizeable number of the generation of young men in our community ?

I suspect the flip side of what you are suggesting will also be in operation. How acceptable will it be as a young person to have NOT taken part. In a tough area, how possible will it be to say 'I stayed home with my mum ?"