Unfortunately I fear that the violence we see (Which is increasing all the time)is not likely to change or abate, unless society as a whole is able to take some radical steps.
Our lack of discipline in schools and at home plays a big part in this.
I have met Doreen Lawrence on a couple of ocasions, and Neville Lawrence, the more ameniable of the two once, and he was a very warm and welcoming individual. I also had the displeasure of meeting three of the people responsible for Stephens death when they use to regulary steal items from a shop I use to work in back in 1992. Ironically after we banned them from the store in question, one of them subsequently spat in my face at a bus stop and the other rode past on his bike and smacked me in the mouth. After Lawrences death, I reported this incident to the Police, as I recognised them all immediately and no record of this report was ever found anywhere later on in the subsequent investigations.
Where we stand with how safe our society is now, well that's a whole different kettle of fish.
The Lawrence case certainly played a major part in reforming the Met, but the role the Police play in how society conducts itself is actually quite small. Unfortunately we live in a culture where the rich seem to be getting richer all the time and the poor are getting constantly fucked backwards, which leads to this belief (regardless of if its true or false) that what society offers you is essentially an air of hopelessness. It's not suprising that in a recent survey done on the top ten most desirable countries to live in, the UK came LAST. Reasons cited for this were overall poor standard of living, bad job prospects, that we work you until you die for low pay and that the weather is crap (Can't do much about the last one unless you count global warming)
So it was no wonder the riots kicked off when they did, once they took hold everyone and their uncle thought they might as well 'have a go...' and that said a great deal just how disillusioned some people are at the moment with the greedy winner takes all attitude we seem to have. It's ironic that pretty much all the youth centres and youth programmes in London have now been cut, when we are suppose to be encouraging the young to take part in Sport on the lead up to the Olympics.
Ultimately all we can do at the end of the day as individuals is ask ourselves what we can do, to make to a difference to make our society safer and to encourage either our own kids or others to make the most of the opportunities they have, but when they don't have any at all left, then we are going to see some real problems. |
