Status Anxiety | 10 December 2011

Much merriment was to be had earlier this week reading the Guardian’s report of its four-month investigation into the causes of the August riots. Apparently, the police were the main culprits, in spite of the fact that they were conspicuous by their absence. This feat of logic was summed up in the Daily Mash parody of the Guardian’s report: ‘Riots caused by police when they finally turned up.’

Little alteration was necessary to transform the material into parody. Many of the rioters complained about being stopped and searched — ‘They cut my bredrin’s hand open with a cuff’ — and offered that up as an excuse for their criminal behaviour. The Guardian’s researchers supported this explanation, pointing out that the rioters were eight times more likely than the average Londoner to be stopped by the police.

Yet the Ministry of Justice discovered that 10- to 17-year-old males brought before the courts for participating in the riots were 22 times more likely to have a previous conviction than the average 10- to 17-year-old.