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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 9:18 pm
Time: 9:18 pm
Results for nuisance behaviors and disorder (u.k.)
1 results foundAuthor: Hallsworth, Simon Title: Urban Disorder and Gangs: A Critique and a Warning Summary: We’ve already learnt a great deal from this summer’s catastrophic riots. We’ve mostly learnt what we do not know; we do not know why so many people thought that they would be justified in using the opportunity to indulge in burning and looting; we do not know what role inequality in general and racial inequality in particular played in rioters motivations; and we do not know what needs to be done to ensure that riots of this kind do not happen again. For social policy researchers, the riots should have been humbling and led to revisiting some of the assumptions we had been making about our society. Instead, we’ve also had confirmed for us the challenge in our current political climate of making policy decisions based on evidence. Instead of an approach which sought to gather and understand the evidence, we had a near immediate rush to off-the-shelf theorizing. The riots, it seems, have been all things to all people and have only served to confirm existing views rather than being an opportunity for reflection. This rush has led to a number of myths about the events of the summer; rioters were all ‘criminal, pure and simple’, these riots were nothing to do with racial injustice, criminal gangs were key players, young people are out of control, family structures in our cities are not providing the necessary moral framework, black culture is pathological, etc. The lack of evidence has created a vacuum into which these competing theories have been thrown, and the government’s initial rejection of a public inquiry in favour of a more poorly resourced select committee review and a public engagement ‘victims panel’, may not provide us with the understanding that will cut through the miasma of opinion to discern what really happened and how we make sure it does not happen again. The policy responses to the summer’s riots are coming thick and fast, with reformers emboldened to dust off their pet projects. It is crucial in this period that we make decisions based on evidence rather than speculation, and consider carefully the implications of the decisions made. Instead of trying to understand the riots in order to ensure that social breakdown of this kind does not happen again, we are at risk of allowing the myths to drive the policy agenda. The chances of lasting solutions are in danger of eluding our grasp. Here Simon Hallsworth and David Brotherton highlight the dangers of rushing to ‘gang talk’ to explain the riots or to suggest solutions. The implications of poor policy making in this area are likely to have serious implications for those already marginalised groups within our society. In shaping the responses to the riots it is crucial that we do not merely add fuel to the fire but seek to find lasting solutions to ensure that destructive riots do not scar our neighbourhoods again. Details: London: Runnymeade, 2011. 28p. Source: Runnymeade Perspectives: Internet Resource: Accessed February 5, 2012 at http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/UrbanDisorderandGangs-2011.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/UrbanDisorderandGangs-2011.pdf Shelf Number: 123983 Keywords: Civil DisordersNuisance Behaviors and Disorder (U.K.)Riots (U.K.) |