NCJ Number
85431
Journal
Journal of Law and Society Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: (Summer 1982) Pages: 63-85
Date Published
1982
Length
23 pages
Annotation
The British riots of 1981 are discussed as constituting a watershed in the intersecting of debates on law and order, race, youth, and the inner cities.
Abstract
The riots were not sudden explosions of violence within normally peaceful and harmonious communities but a temporary cluster of upsurges punctuating a chronic reality of tension and aggression in the inner city. The escalation of violence in July may be attributed to provocative policing, insecurity and increasing resistance in the black communities, and traditions of resistance in white working class youth exacerbated by steeply and disproportionately rising unemployment, together with the concentration of these conditions in the inner cities. The debate on law and order has been critically affected by the riots. They have legitimated a rise in the level of armaments available to the police, while at the same time demands have increased for the independent investigation of complaints against the police and for effective structures of accountability. In racial debates, the riots have revealed the existing combination of antidiscrimination legislation and immigration control to be inadequate in checking serious racial violence. Some argue for more social help for blacks, but implementation of such a policy is limited by economic decline. Those arguing for the institution of black emigration are using the riots as evidence of the destructive influence of having so many blacks in the country. The riots have also crystallized the post-War debate about the problems of youth. Some argue that youth need more job training opportunities and the expansion of job opportunities for youth, while others maintain that youth need more discipline and parents should be made to bear the consequences when their children break the law. A total of 73 notes and references are provided.