I have two sons who went to schools in deprived area's one of whom witnessed a boy being scalped outside the school gates. They have friends who were deprived, grew up on benefits with parents who were too busy to give the care they should have and yet those boys all work, all behave in a decent manner and feel no affinity at all with the rioters. Where you grow up, where you go to school does not define you unless you choose to allow it to.

No it doesn't define you but it can have a massive effect on who you become. As I said deprivation is just one of a multitude of issues that have contribution to the problems we have today.

Great post!

I don't think it is right to find excuses for those sick individuals did what they did during the riots. There is no excuse for it... people were murdered, attacked, things were stolen, peoples houses and businesses were burnt to the ground... People can have all the excuses they want for what happened, but it doesn't wash with me. It was a small disgusting group who did what they did, so what about the rest of the people who live in poverty and deprivation? What about the teaching assistant, graphic designer etc that were involved? Was that poverty and deprivation as well??

IMO the vast majority did it because they wanted to and because they thought they'd get away with it. They saw an opportunity to nick some good stuff and make some money and they took it and to hell with anyone but themselves.

It's not about finding excuses its about finding causes.

People need to be pushed obviously but we have serious problems in a lot of areas up and down the country, which are a factor in creating the mindset of a lot of young people.

The riots are an overspilling of stuff that has been going on in the communities for years.

It's quite disturbing how naive some people in this country are when it comes to social issues facing so many young people.


If you really want to avoid further problems root causes must be identified and addressed.

On the surface maybe but I'm sure root causes go way deeper.

Root causes may do but I seriously doubt many (if any!) of the rioters were thinking about anything other than what they could get away with. They did the crime, they should be punished, not excused because of this that or the other.

A lot of them were not young people though.

I think it is a case of people seeing an opportunity to steal things, and cause trouble. They didn't have a real cause to do what they did, and there have even been people recorded saying that they did it coz they can, and because it is 'fun'... yep, destroying peoples lives is hilarious

I suppose it's why do they feel that way though. What makes people go out and do things like that? What went wrong?

I don't feel any excuses should be made, they did what they did and should be punished for it, but I do agree that the whys need to be looked into if we're to stop things like this happening.

I agree with all you just said. I'm not for excusing them and yes they should be punished.

What I am saying is to avoid further issues in the future and also to tackle the gang problem in our country social issues need to be addressed