Riots show young people need a stake in society

The report, published last month, talks of up to one-fifth of the population “bumping along at the bottom”, disconnected from the mainstream – in relation to resources, education, values and behaviour.

Singh acknowledges the need for a criminal justice response to those caught rioting and stealing, but also asserts the need for social reform that addresses the conditions from which most, if not all, of the rioters came. They need to be offered a stake in society.

All this is a far cry from the immediate political responses to the riots where, for example, the Home Secretary Theresa May was not slow in describing the events as “thieving, pure and simple”.  Singh has said there is nothing simple about it and, of course, he is right. For decades now, researchers have written about the growing complexities in transitions ?to adulthood and have identified a growing youth divide.

More and more evidence across the globe tells us that the young people who will thrive have been given or gained a positive cocktail of: competencies (qualifications and skills); characteristics (attitudes and values); contacts (social networks); and the capacity to adapt to different circumstances in ways that serve their interests. These boil down, in academic jargon, to human, social and identity capital. And these convert into jobs, earnings and positive futures.

Young people on the wrong side of the tracks usually build a portfolio of rather different attributes that serve their more immediate needs: to seize the moment, display their toughness and register their affiliations. ?This can help them get by, but it also traps ?them where they are, providing no prospects ?of escape.

Changing aspirations
Educational and social practice needs to offer alternative pathways, experiences, networks ?and horizons. The political shorthand for all ?this is about changing aspirations. But that ?does require the renewal of young people’s engagement and opportunity.

It is critical to distinguish between the precipitating and underlying causes of the riots. Yes, there was wanton exploitation of presenting opportunities, but behind it was the classic tangle of pathologies that afflict a significant minority of the young generation and that produce, according to Singh, an abject loss ?of hope.

Fifty years ago, two American criminologists built a theory around delinquency and opportunity: those whose opportunities are blocked will find alternative means – sometimes political challenge, sometimes retreat into substance misuse, but most often acquisitive criminality, in order to achieve the same ends as mainstream society.

The rioters of last summer probably fall mainly in that third camp. Their contemporaries and their successors certainly need belief that legitimate pathways to ordinary but brighter futures are available and achievable, and that desistance from crime and violence will produce some dividend.

If the only stake on offer from the wider society is one through the heart inscribed with the mantra of individual responsibility, then the prospects of harmony on our urban streets would seem to be remote.

Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan