I’m a psychologist and people expect me to have something sensible to say about the recent bout of rioting and looting. In particular, they want me to explain why people chose to behave in such a vicious, lawless fashion and, preferably, to come up with a neat solution with which they agree. Not surprisingly, they are underwhelmed when I say things like:
1. There will be multiple causes, not one single factor, calling for multiple remedies. There are no quick fixes. As a matter of interest, I decided to note all the "causes" cited by the panel in the specially convened Question Time, chaired by David Dimbleby. I ended up with a list of 18 (and I may have missed some).
2. This is not a new phenomenon. For example, in London during the Blitz there were thousands of incidents of opportunist looting on businesses and homes already damaged by fire. Much of the looting was carried out by young kids armed with knives and guns.
3. When people are caught up in crowds, they do things they would not normally do. Crowd behaviour is infectious, irrational and motiveless. So, for example, crowds thrive on the high of immediate gratification and don’t concern themselves with consequences.
4. External situations have a massive impact on human behaviour. Any of us, caught up in a lawless situation where anything goes, is capable of appalling acts of selfishness.
5. Punishing people by sending them to prison will not solve anything. Prison makes most people worse as reconviction rates testify (for people serving 12 months or less, the reconviction rate is 59 per cent). Restorative justice offers the most hope.
The other day, a friend told me she thought the solution was to "bring back national service". When I said, despite benefiting hugely from national service myself, that it would be a very expensive exercise, an unwelcome distraction for our overstretched forces, and that inflicting institutional bullying on youngsters, already alienated by their experience of compulsory education, would probably make matters worse, she obviously wrote me off as a hopeless wet.
So now you know – if you didn’t before – why psychologists don’t run the country.
Further info
Peter Honey is a trustee of the Prisoners' Education Trust, a small charity that offers over 2,000 prisoners a year the chance to do a distance learning course while they are locked up. Education is a big factor in reducing reoffending, meaning fewer victims of crime and big savings for taxpayers (it costs approximately £40,000 a year to keep someone in prison).
You can support the charity by buying one of Peter Honey's watercolours - 100 per cent of the cost goes to the Prisoners' Education Trust.
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Getting to the roots of the riots, PM blog