The difference between reasons and excuses

When I was at school, one of my best teachers once told me: “There’s no such thing as a good excuse, only a good reason.” Or words to that effect. I wasn't really paying attention.

I was struck by the words again when reading several of the reactionary comments that people have beening posting on Facebook over the 4 days since the riot in Tottenham kicked off what basically appears to be the end of civilisation as we know it. Or so some people would have you believe.

In my opinion and, I’m sure, the opinion of over 99% of the country, is that there is no excuse for what has been happening. Theft, arson, destruction, mugging and murder. These have been directed at members of the public and not at the target that would be most obvious if the motivation for all of this was political, if it was a protest at the death of Mark Duggan.

There is no excuse for these acts.

The explanations that have been given by rioters when they have been approached by the press have ranged from completely illogical (“getting our taxes back”) to honest (“because we can”).

Sure, some of these people are just nicking trainers and TVs because they are able to and they think they’ll get away with it. However, at the heart of this, there has to be some general underlying discontent which first caused these people to act in this way, even if they don’t know themselves what it is. This is what we need to uncover and fix.

 Obviously, the first priority is to prevent further riots and make the streets safe for everybody. Beyond this, we need to address the sociological issues which have caused the discontent. This will not be an easy task, as there is likely to be a myriad of complex reasons why everything erupted and indeed, the reason why one individual rioted may be completely different to the person standing next to them as they steal iPhones from Currys.

There has been a lot of reactionist calls to arms, which is the wrong approach. Several suggestions put forward will actually inflame the situation and potentially cause more and even worse riots. The petition to remove the benefits of any convicted rioters (The petition to remove the benefits of any convicted rioters) is one such example.

There are a number of flaws with these suggestions, aside from that fact that our prison system is founded on reform and not punishment  (which is also one reason why we don’t have the death penalty.)

The possibility of catching all of any one rioter is so small as to be almost laughable. The sheer numbers involved in the riots, the fact that most of them are hiding their faces and also the amount of work involved in identifying them render it practically impossible.

This proposed solution will actually make any individual who is caught even more impoverished and is therefore likely to make them even more likely to riot in the future.

Many suggested solutions, including this one, as to what the government should do are based solely on punishing those involved, rather than reforming these people and tackling the underlying causes in order to prevent any future riots.

Any reaction to these riots needs to be a fully thought out and reasoned solution and not based on the emotions that we have all been feeling as we have been watching our country burn to the ground.