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Tom Slater Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh FROM ‘CRIMINALITY’ TO MARGINALITY: RIOTING AGAINST A BROKEN STATE Tom Slater Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh Abstract Resumen This article offers an analysis and critique of the Este artículo analiza y critica la respuesta política political response to the 2011 urban riots in England. A a los disturbios de 2011 en Inglaterra. Primero, se brief account of the riots is advanced, where I connect presenta un resumen breve de los acontecimientos the eruptions to the rise of advanced marginality and donde se relacionan las protestas con el aumento class/territorial stigmatisation in English cities, not de la marginalidad y la estigmatización territorial y only in terms of material deprivation but to the denial de clase en las ciudades Inglesas en términos de las of dignity it implies. The article then re-places the swift privaciones materiales y la negación de la dignidad. deployment of punitive action and the ‘broken society’ Posteriormente el artículo se enfoca en el rápido discourse in response to the riots within the broader despliegue de la acción represiva y en el discurso de re-engineering of the state according to a neoliberal la “sociedad descompuesta” como respuesta a los blueprint that articulates (inter alia) social welfare disturbios. Estos hechos se analizan en el contexto reduction and penal expansion at the bottom of the de la amplia re-estructuración del estado de acuerdo class structure, in contrast to a laissez-faire attitude at a la directiva neoliberal que articula la reducción del the top. By paying closer attention to the changing bienestar social y la expansión de del sistema penal relationship between information and power (and en la base de la pirámide social en contraste con la in particular, the role of conservative think tanks), posición permisiva “laissez-faire” con las comunidades what Paul Gilroy calls a “poverty of the imagination” pudientes. Mediante el análisis cuidadoso de la in addressing urban problems is exposed and relación cambiante entre la información y el poder challenged, revealing that the main issue to be (especialmente el papel de las organizaciones no addressed is not a broken society but a broken state. gubernamentales “ONGs” conservadoras), se expone lo que Paul Gilroy denomina “la pobreza de la Key Words: England riots, broken society, imaginación” en el examen de los problemas urbanos. marginality, neoliberalism, think tanks. De esta manera se revela que el problema no es una Desde la ‘Criminalidad’ hacia la ‘Marginalidad’ sociedad descompuesta, el problema es un estado -protestando en contra de un estado descompuesto descompuesto. 106 Tom Slater Palabras clave: 2011-disturbios en Set against the political backdrop of steep state Inglaterra, sociedad descompuesta, marginalidad, retrenchment and relentless invocation of personal neoliberalismo, organizaciones no gubernamentales. responsibility, dramatic scenes of burning buildings, of bands of hooded and masked youths pillaging stores, On 11th August 2011, in Camberwell Green and of thousands of police patrolling major streets in magistrates court, a 23-year-old student with no riot gear were bound to trigger rash statements and criminal record was sentenced to a prison term of six kneejerk government reaction. At the height of the months for stealing bottled water worth £3.50. This riots as well as in their immediate aftermath, anyone extraordinarily harsh sentence would normally be attempting to formulate an explanation of the disorders cause for widespread denunciation of judicial abuse other than a behavioural one was stridently denounced but, following five nights of fiery rioting across a dozen as effectively condoning or supporting rioting3. English cities from 6 to 10 August, the extraordinary Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, embodied turned ordinary for the courts. Whereas the rampant this posture when, upon being heckled by angry financial criminality at the top of the class structure shopkeepers and frightened residents on the streets of leading to the near-collapse of the banking system in Clapham, he responded: “It’s time we heard a little bit the autumn of 2008 saw no reactions from criminal less about the sociological justifications for what is in justice even as it sent the UK economy into a tailspin, my view nothing less than wanton criminality.” As overturning millions of lives and causing hundreds 1 incidents spread to several London districts, and then of billions of pounds in damage , street fracas at the to other cities of England, “criminality,” of either the bottom estimated to have cost under 150 million “pure” or the “copycat” variety, quickly became the pounds triggered a lightning-fast and brutal response commonsense reason given for their occurrence, one from the penal wing of the state. Those convicted of that circulated freely amongst police chiefs, politicians burglary during these nocturnal disturbances (that is, across party divides, and the mainstream media. looting, however minor) have been sentenced with stunning celerity to an average of 14.1 months in This commentary starts from the opposite prison, nearly double the usual rate of 8.8 months; premise, that we need not less but more social science culprits of violent disorder reaped 10.4 months to shed light on the latest wave of urban rioting, and compared with the standard fare of 5.3 months while elucidate its political import. To do this we must trace those nabbed for theft received sentences three times a double nexus. First, it is necessary to connect these as long (7.1 months as against 2.4 months).2 After the eruptions to urban marginality in British society and riots stopped, the police deployed munificent resources pay attention not only to material deprivation but and manifold schemes to track down and round up the to the denial of dignity it implies. Second, we must looters, mining television footage and web postings, re-place the swift deployment of punitive action and setting up phone lines for snitching, running “Shop A discourses in response to the riots within the broader Looter” posters on buses, while politicians promised reengineering of the state according to a neoliberal to cut welfare and housing benefits to the families of blueprint that articulates (inter alia) social welfare the culprits. reduction and penal expansion. Structural Violence 1 A damning account of the contribution of systematic illegal Some facts on the riots are necessary before th behavior to the financial bubble burst of 2008 is Charles H. Ferguson’s proceeding to the political response. They began on 6 award-winning documentary, The Inside Job (2010). The main reaction of the British government was to roll out a rescue package topping 500 One illustration: the BBC was forced to issue an apology billion pounds, lest the banking system disintegrate. 3 following its 9th August interrogation of the veteran broadcaster Darcus 2 These figures come from court data painstakingly assembled Howe. When Howe stated that he was not shocked by the riots, by the reporters of The Guardian, available at http://www.guardian. which in his view were an “insurrection” reflecting “the nature of the co.uk/news/datablog/2011/sep/15/riot-defendants-court- historical moment”, the interviewer accused him of being a rioter with sentencing a criminal past. Volume 4, Number 3, 2011 107 Rioting Against a Broken State August, following a peaceful evening protest outside direct symbols of the state (with the exception of a a police station on Tottenham High Road at the 4th few police cars) is helpfully interpreted by amplifying August police killing of Mark Duggan, a father-of- and extending Bauman’s (2011) characterization of four aged 294. Not long after the protest concluded, “defective and disqualified consumers” seeking prized a 16 year-old girl approached police officers to voice items (electrical goods, smartphones, trainers) to avoid her anger, and was allegedly beaten back with batons “the wrath, humiliation, spite and grudge aroused by (Eddo-Lodge, 2011). Two police cars, a bus and not having them”.7 As Bauman notes, social dignity is several shops were then attacked, looted and set ablaze the most prized possession of all, and “non-shopping in Tottenham, and the anger soon spread to nearby is the jarring and festering stigma of a life unfulfilled.” Wood Green. In the three nights that followed, But taking this issue of dignity further, it is prudent rioting occurred across Greater London, in (inter to look beyond ‘non-shopping’ to understand why alia) Enfield, Brixton, Hackney, Peckham, Clapham, indignity is visited upon the dispossessed youth of Ealing and Croydon. Outside the capital, rioting English cities. According to an interpretation of occurred first in Birmingham (8th August), and later in interview data gathered by sociologists embedded in Bristol, Manchester, Salford, Nottingham, Gloucester communities affected by rioting, the looting was not and Liverpool, with smaller disturbances in several ‘mindless violence’ but rather “a response to repeated other cities. At the time of writing, well over 3000 stop-and-search, racist policing, deprivation, poverty, people have been arrested, and 1715 people have been unemployment, cuts to the educational maintenance brought before the courts, of which 315 have been allowance (EMA), anger, and inequalities between the convicted and sentenced.5 The rather paltry court data haves and the have-nots.” (James, 2011). Furthermore, available show that a majority of the 1715 are young these interviews revealed
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