Police Fear More Riots Since 2011 Unrest

Officers believe violence on a par with the riots of last summer could be repeated - and that they may not be prepared.

Police expect a repeat of last summer's riots and believe budget cuts will leave them struggling to deal with the unrest, according to a survey of officers.

Most of the officers caught up in last August's outbreak of violence believe similar rioting is likely, with many citing worsening social and economic conditions as the potential cause, the study found.

They also fear their forces do not have the resources to cope with unrest on a similar scale.

A total of 130 officers from eight forces were interviewed as part of The Reading the Riots research conducted by the London School of Economics and The Guardian.

Most gave anonymous accounts of the riots which spread across London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Salford last summer.

Nearly all those interviewed described the unrest as the greatest physical and psychological challenge of their careers and officers of all ranks said they were astonished no colleagues were killed.

One superintendent from Greater Manchester Police said he expected more disorder within the year.

When asked if rioting will happen again, he said: "I think if you have bad economic times, hot weather, some sort of an event that sets it off...my answer is: yes, it could.

"Because I don't think anything has changed between now and last August, and the only thing that's different is people have thought: riots are fun."

Police generally rejected criticism of the tactics deployed during the trouble, but admitted they were stretched to the limit by the scale and speed of rioting and left totally overwhelmed in places.

Senior Metropolitan Police officers also accepted they struggled to deploy enough staff to contain the violence during the four days of disorder in the capital.

Forces across England failed to fully act on intelligence gleaned from social media networks, which were used by rioters to outmanoeuvre police, the interviews revealed.

The latest data comes as the police service stares in the face of widespread budget cuts.

Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation, said police would struggle to cope with further disorder if the proposed austerity measures went ahead and urged the government to take "urgent stock" of the results of the study.




http://news.sky.com/story/954944/police-fear-more-riots-since-2011-unrest