Why loot?
There's something about the scene in Disney’s Pinocchio where the boys turn into donkeys. It isn’t the transformation so much as the gleeful obliteration of a house and its contents seen beforehand: ‘Model Home – Open for Destruction.’ The excitement of smashing windows and furniture, toppling statues and vandalising paintings had been lined up for the children knowingly. Destroying the place was expected to be fun and to tempt the bad boys. A major part of their glee in smashing it up was having a situation where they were allowed to do it: ‘You can tear the joint apart and nobody says a word.’
Going back to 1990s television, what about Finders Keepers? Every week we’d see a set of kids tear through the house room by room, tipping everything out, or over, to find prizes. The appeal was in the house wrecking as much as the prize winning. ‘This is the house where you can do all those things that you can't do at home.’ And the rooms had owners. We got to trash ‘mum and dad’s bedroom.’ What about Supermarket Sweep with Dale? Towards the show’s climax contestants would run around the supermarket and fill their trolleys with the most valuable stuff they could grab, and they had to be quick.
It’s similar to ‘groceries/clothes/entertainment for a year’ competitions. It’s tempting to wonder what it would feel like to be able to take that much from a shop. What would you do if you could take all the clothes you like, all the clothes you might like but aren’t sure about, and even clothes you’d never wear but could have for the status of having a surplus. What these game shows and competitions cure, in one fell swoop, is the dilemma. It isn’t stealing, it isn’t illegal, it isn’t greedy, it isn’t selfish, it isn’t wrong; it’s allowed. Therein lies the glee. You can smash the house or grab the goods because the criminality has been taken away and even the people you should feel guilty about depriving, stealing from or wrecking the property of are rooting for you.
Going back to 1990s television, what about Finders Keepers? Every week we’d see a set of kids tear through the house room by room, tipping everything out, or over, to find prizes. The appeal was in the house wrecking as much as the prize winning. ‘This is the house where you can do all those things that you can't do at home.’ And the rooms had owners. We got to trash ‘mum and dad’s bedroom.’ What about Supermarket Sweep with Dale? Towards the show’s climax contestants would run around the supermarket and fill their trolleys with the most valuable stuff they could grab, and they had to be quick.
It’s similar to ‘groceries/clothes/entertainment for a year’ competitions. It’s tempting to wonder what it would feel like to be able to take that much from a shop. What would you do if you could take all the clothes you like, all the clothes you might like but aren’t sure about, and even clothes you’d never wear but could have for the status of having a surplus. What these game shows and competitions cure, in one fell swoop, is the dilemma. It isn’t stealing, it isn’t illegal, it isn’t greedy, it isn’t selfish, it isn’t wrong; it’s allowed. Therein lies the glee. You can smash the house or grab the goods because the criminality has been taken away and even the people you should feel guilty about depriving, stealing from or wrecking the property of are rooting for you.
Of course, this is not at all like the brazen scum smashing and looting property and clashing with the police in our nation’s cities recently. I’m sure people who loved Supermarket Sweep, Finders Keepers or the crockery smash at the village fête would get no pleasure from looting a store or smashing public or private property. That’s precisely why the former were pleasurable; they were legal and harmless and so genuinely guilt free. The two things are quite different, then. And yet they do share a sense of demarcation: knowing when it is all right to smash or plunder and when it is not, though obviously ‘all right’ differs greatly in meaning here.
For some people ‘acceptable’ comes one side of a clear demarcation: is it ‘allowed’ - is it legal, does it harm the environment or other people? For others the demarcation changes with the situation: how illegal is it, where does it rank in the grand scheme of things, can I get away with it legally or socially, how many other people are doing it?
In the 1980s American academics George Kelling and James Wilson came up with the broken windows theory. They suggested that where smaller crimes and criminal damage were ignored greater crimes would follow, leading to urban decay. It isn’t a universally accepted view, but it is worth considering while people are asking: ‘why has this happened now?’ Certainly the BBC compared the theory to both David Cameron’s promise of a tough stance on the crimes and the message that the ‘broom army’ sent to the rioters.
Taking the theory literally, certain people who pass a building with a broken window will think the place is unguarded and uncared for. As Kelling and Wilson say: ‘one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)’ Kelling and Wilson obviously dug Pinocchio too. The theory suggests that many participants in criminal behaviour share a sense that it’s ok to join in, to continue, but not necessarily ok to 'start' a crime. Seemingly there is a diminished sense of criminality when damaging a building which has been vandalised before, and more self-consciousness when attacking the fresh canvas of a pristine, un-vandalised property.
However, for several days and nights this week pristine property was damaged, looted and even razed to the ground. The occupant(s) of a car were able to motor away after mowing down and killing civilians protecting such property. On Monday night rioters in Ealing were so caught up in their newfound opportunity and seeming authority to be doing what they were that they beat up a passer-by who argued with them and tried to stamp out their fires. If the broken windows theory applies here then these events blurred ‘joining in’ and ‘starting.’
Clashing with the police, violence, robbery and vandalism were all slightly easier for certain people to attempt. They were less self-conscious about it, whether normally wary because of the ethical implications or the legal ramifications. People felt safe to start on a fresh canvas, on a pristine shop front, because one down the street had been smashed; because one the other side of the road was being smashed. They knew it was wrong. They knew the effects of what they were doing, legal and social, though the extent of their appreciation was limited somehow.
Clashing with the police, violence, robbery and vandalism were all slightly easier for certain people to attempt. They were less self-conscious about it, whether normally wary because of the ethical implications or the legal ramifications. People felt safe to start on a fresh canvas, on a pristine shop front, because one down the street had been smashed; because one the other side of the road was being smashed. They knew it was wrong. They knew the effects of what they were doing, legal and social, though the extent of their appreciation was limited somehow.
Nick Ravenscroft, roving reporter for Radio Four, gave his best flabbergasted voice as he talked to two teenagers in central Manchester. While his interviewees felt their own looting was justified though ‘not alright,’ they thought it wrong that little kids were joining in with the crime. They also said they would be outraged and annoyed if their own homes were ransacked. It seemed as though Ravenscroft had exposed the earth shattering contradictions in the logic of The Kids. But what did he want to get out of his interviewees? Consistency? Politicised moral-less-ness? Do riots really have manifestos that all involved take on-message sound bites from?
Who was involved in the riots?
There were many different elements. Sky News reported as much in their coverage of the overnight court appearances: ‘They include an 11-year-old boy, a millionaire's daughter, a teaching assistant and a lifeguard.’ A social worker had also handed herself in after stealing a TV over the weekend. Her defence said that: ‘She said she couldn't sleep thinking about what she had done.’ Taking the person’s defence at face value, until they actually got the thing home the streets gave them a misplaced sense of a lowered guard. What they were doing seemed somehow less illegal in the context of the riots, or less likely to merit punishment. As Kenning and Wilson say:
Untended property becomes fair game for people out for fun or plunder, and even for people who ordinarily would not dream of doing such things and who probably consider themselves law-abiding. […] vandalism can occur anywhere once communal barriers -- the sense of mutual regard and the obligations of civility -- are lowered by actions that seem to signal that "no one cares."
How did the London riots start?
Beyond the rapid escalation of a peaceful protest for Mark Duggan in Tottenham, that is. The many facets of the riots undermine the various commentaries appearing, particularly the readings of who, what and why. It isn’t racial (but it is), it’s the gang culture out there (but it isn’t), it’s the unemployed youth, who feel excluded and belittled living on the dole (but it isn’t). To alleviate some of David Cameron’s worries, the Johnny-come-quickly (and bring your baseball bat and matches) BBM conspirators were offset by the Johnny-come-quickly (and bring your broom and a tea urn) twitterati.
We are being given upward trends and downward trends in behaviour and British life over the last 30 years. Commentators emphasise their favourite parts of the rioters’ make up and motivation in order to make claims on parenting, schooling, communities, a sense of entitlement, government track records, slipping morals… All of these things are relevant, but they each exclude too much to be valid. Just as ‘they can’t arrest everybody’ they can’t explain everybody either. Supposedly if we throw enough explanations at them all then some will stick. There’s safety in numbers.
We are being given upward trends and downward trends in behaviour and British life over the last 30 years. Commentators emphasise their favourite parts of the rioters’ make up and motivation in order to make claims on parenting, schooling, communities, a sense of entitlement, government track records, slipping morals… All of these things are relevant, but they each exclude too much to be valid. Just as ‘they can’t arrest everybody’ they can’t explain everybody either. Supposedly if we throw enough explanations at them all then some will stick. There’s safety in numbers.
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