For the last couple of years, UK think tanks of whatever political colour have had little to say about crime and punishment. With the August 2011 riots across England, some think tanks have made comments. Here are a couple:
The Guardian has recently cited findings from upcoming Policy Exchange report Cost of the Cops that the number of uniformed police officers working in the Metropolitan police’s control units rather than policing the community.
"Politicians share some responsibility for this crisis in policing, not least with their obsession for making new laws that mean a constable is confronted with 2,600 pages of instruction from the Home Office. But they are not responsible for poor decision-making – nor the poor management that led to a near-doubling in police overtime over the last decade or, as a new Policy Exchange report will reveal, the tripling of uniformed staff sitting in the Met control units."
http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/news/news.cgi?id=2310
Jamie Bartlett is senior researcher at Demos, researching right-wing and extremist violence across Europe. Among his comments on the August rioting in England:
One word didn’t appear on either side but should have: fun. Uncomfortable as it sounds, for some people, smashing a window in with your boot, flinging rocks at police officers, and running off with a PS3 is a blast if you’re 18 and hanging about with other bored mates. Albert Camus was on to something when he wrote that the sinister "excites". Violence is powerful, and it is especially powerful if you feel yourself a loser in the game of life, and is directed against those you believe have rigged the rules against you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jamie-bartlett/both-the-left-and-right-s_b_923427.html
