Friday, October 12, 2012

(Social Musings 2011 Disturbances)


Social Policy- These are the laws that govern the rules of behaviour and how people are treated in society. Policies are there to systematically organise society fairly and to make it a safe place for socialisation a process that is needed for society to function.
In the second week of August 2011 media coverage’s revealed that many UK cities and major towns were subject to arson attacks, looting of shop centres and other major disturbances of urban interest. The statistics resulting from what was known as disturbances was truly staggering at 5 deaths, 186 police and civilian injuries. There was also an estimate of 3500 crimes reported across London alone. A youth referred to as Mark Duggan a local man suspected of gun crime was shot dead by the police however the officers failed to notify Duggan’s family of his death. This is believed to have triggered to establishment of the riots where local members of the community marched forth to complain. However what started as a degradation ceremony to elaborate on the dysfunctional aspect of society lead to a true moral panic. The riots turned into something bloody, relentless and complete animalistic violence. David Cameron even referred to the society as actually being in a state of sickness in one of his statements. Examples of some explanations that caused the riots in such a vicious manner are the fact that:
·         Community Relations- There was a failure from the Police Service to communicate with the public about issues. This was especially the case about not reporting Mark Duggan’s death properly triggering a lot of angry members of the community.
·         The Copy Cat Effect- The Initiation of the riots in Tottenham took place in the same manner in various cities across England. It seemed members of other cities wanted to be part of the action so they imitated the behaviour of the events in Tottenham. This took place in areas such as Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Brixton and Birmingham. This was referred to as “copy cat violence.”
·         Social Network Communication- The savageness of the events was hyped up by the social network and communication system in our post modern societies. Through the internet through messengers and social communication systems such as face book managed to speed up, gather and organise the hostility. Blackberry messenger particularly played an important role on this as well.
·         Gang Culture- Official statistics revealed that 19% of the suspects were actually members of local gangs or tied with them. Gangsters tend to have ties with the public and influence due to their gang territory. If they participated in the riots, their friends, family members and other associated who aren’t members of the gangs to could have taken part.
·         Economic Crisis- Due to the economic crisis with the “credit crunch” and cuts in government spending reduced benefits for many such as getting rid of EMA. This would leave a lot of people in a state of frustration where the situations of the riots acted as way to scapegoat their problems onto society.
·         Political Alienation- Another explanation of the riots was that those participating in it felt alienated so this was their reaction against the system which they felt had failed them. This was because they had little power or say in the way the government system was organized.
·         Family Breakdown- Many theorists, especially functionalists have emphasized the fact that family breakdown was largely the cause of the riots. This created a young “feral generation” due to being improperly socialised. There are so many lone parent families, in 2006 26% of households consisted of families with lone parents. These more recent statistics prove that the break down of the functionalist nuclear family could have had a massive impact.
·         Moral Decay- One notable explanation of the riots was by Max Hastings. He argued the Britain was embracing a moral decay which occurred in all areas of society from the ruling class to the underclass. Max Hasting cited the MP’s expense scandal and excessive banker’s bonuses to illustrate who is morally economically consuming too much from society unfairly.

To put it blunt I would argue that these were the main factors but and you could additionally put them into 2 categories. These are the internal and external factors towards the individual engaging and socialising in wider society. I divided the 2 categories into 2 sections:
INTERNAL FACTORS
EXTERNAL FACTORS
Gang Culture
Community Problems
Family Breakdown
Copy Cat Effects
Moral Decay
Social Network Communication
Criminality of the Mind
Economic Crisis

I would argue that internal factors such as family breakdown create the criminal. Children improperly socialised fail to imitate correct norms and learn moral values causing a moral decay in this feral generation. They lack role models and turn to gangs to fill in their empty voids as their new type of family and see fellow charismatic and influential peers as their new role model. Internally they are frustrated and have lost sense of morality.
    Moving on, the external factors take place after the internal factors. Due to community problems with the Police failing to communicate with the public a trigger was set in the mind of the so called delinquents. Once the trigger had been set, the stress of the internal factors is released externally to wider society by these marginalized and frustrated youths. Other youths copy the releasing of stress in many other cities as an excuse to channel out their problems too.
     In summary, this is a typical example of the post modernist perspective to society. It reveals how the functionalist society which was largely structured and organized has now reached a state of complexity, unpredictability and ever changing manner that could easily break itself down if it is disorganised even more. For example there use to be degradation ceremonies that reminded society moral stratification. These events would make a change so that society would fix itself. Examples of this include the feminist movement for equality, and the civil rights movements changing many of the laws for the stability of society. However these degradation ceremonies no longer have an affect on members of society today. They only remind society of its error but nothing major is being done to resolve the issues or press for change.

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