London Fallout: The Post Riots World
Most of the activity in London and other areas of England has stopped, so the information gathering has begun.
The image above is from the Guardian: “Data journalist Matt Stiles has taken our data on deprivation – and the riot incidents over the last few days and mashed the two up together. The darker reds represent poorer places, the blues are the richer areas. What do you think? Is there a correlation between the two?”
Casey Rain, of the Birmingham Riots 2011 Tumblr, has not received any major updates since August 10th. He notes:
Sky News, BBC News and other media have been painfully slow on updates, and many of you have accused them of even being biased. Of course, they are far more liable, but in this day and age they simply must evolve or people will turn elsewhere, which the 1million+ page views this blog got yesterday would indicate. As for me, I have no agenda other than to keep the people informed and safe as quickly as possible. I’m not getting paid to do this, and so I am truly humbled at some of the messages I’ve received saying I’ve put the mainstream media to shame. A few of you have even called me a hero, but I’m not. I’m just someone that believes in the power of the internet and social media as a force for good. That’s all. And the truth is that I couldn’t have done it without the thousands of you helping, submitting information, pictures and more. We should all be proud of ourselves as a community – but the real work begins now. Not just to clean up our battered streets, but to all do as much as we can to ensure these kind of events don’t happen again. No matter what your job or background there are ways we can all help. I firmly believe that.
The imminent threat of major violence may or may not be over. So we all need to stay vigilant, stay safe, and above all have compassion for each other. The unity that this has brought between us in response to these sickening acts of violence, might well be the silver lining to this incredibly dark cloud. Thank you all.
We’d heard reports of this off and on, but Reader Keisha tipped us an article from the NYT that explains the police are forcibly evicting families from public housing who had a member participate in the riots:
[David Cameron] has described the rioting as “criminality, pure and simple,” with no excuse in social deprivation, and laid out a controversial plan to make much broader use of existing powers to expel not only the rioters but also their families from the free or rent-subsidized accommodations that provide millions with cradle-to-grave homes.
“For too long we’ve taken too soft an attitude towards people that loot and pillage their own community,” Mr. Cameron told a BBC interviewer. “If you do that, you should lose your right to the sort of housing that you’ve had at subsidized rates.” He added that evictions “might help break up some of the criminal networks on some housing estates if some of these people are thrown out of their houses.”
Asked whether that would render them homeless, he replied, “They should have thought of that before they started burgling.”
Outside of evictions, a community service based clean up program has also been proposed:
The community payback schemes, which see offenders carry out a period of service for their victims, will mean looters will do community service in riot-hit neighbourhoods.
They will wear orange suits to make them visible, and money is being provided to enable victims who want to do so to confront the people who torched their homes or looted their businesses last week.
[Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister], speaking at a press conference in Whitehall, took a markedly different tone to the hardline stance adopted by David Cameron on Monday, stressing the need to break repeat offending in inner city areas rather than seeking to make judgments on the causes of the problems.
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