Rioting is the choice of young people with nothing to lose
The Archbishop of Canterbury writes in response to the Guardian's Reading the Riots report.
“England risks a repeat” of the summer riots “unless the government and civil society do more to ‘rescue those who think they have nothing to lose’”.
'To ask if the riots were "political" or "opportunistic" is pointless. These are not people who live complacently in a culture of entitlement, nor are they, for the most part, committed criminals. Neither are they heroes of democratic protest, Britain's answer to Tahrir Square. They are people who have vague but strong longings for something like secure employment, and no idea where to look for it; who on the whole want to belong, and live in a climate where they are taken seriously as workers, as citizens – and as needy individuals; and who have got used to being pushed to the margins and told that they are dispensable.'
'How do we as a society back up good lessons in the home and show that we corporately want what a good family wants – mutual attention and affirmation, stability and emotional literacy, a sense of value that doesn't depend on accessories?'
'Demonising volatile and destructive young people doesn't help; criminalising them wholesale reinforces a lot of what produces the problem in the first place.'
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