Framing the 2011 England Riots: Understanding the Political and Policy Response
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12268 |
| Author | TIM NEWBURN,JARRETT BLAUSTEIN,TREVOR JONES |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
The Howard Journal Vol57 No 3. September 2018 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12268
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 339–362
Framing the 2011 England Riots:
Understanding the Political and
Policy Response
TIM NEWBURN, TREVOR JONES
and JARRETT BLAUSTEIN
Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy, London School of
Economics; Trevor Jones is Professor of Criminology, Cardiff University;
Jarrett Blaustein is Lecturer in Criminology, Monash University, Melbourne,
Australia
Abstract: This article considers the political reaction and policy response to the 2011
England riots. Drawing on the framework of John Kingdon’s (1995) multiple streams
approach (MSA) the analysis in this article starts with the ‘policy window’ caused by
the focusing event of the riots, and traces the ways in which this was used to frame
different kinds of policy ‘problem’, rather than the more typical method of using the MSA
to help explain the emergence and development of a particular policy. It then examines
how different policy ‘solutions’ became attached to these problems with varying degrees
of impact. In fact, more than anything, we argue that the framing of the riots served to
close down many avenues for policy development, with the outcome that those that were
initiated in the aftermath of the disorder were both limited and short-lived, with some
having only the most tangential links with the riots.
Keywords: disorder; penal policy; policing; riots; violence
The English Riots
Two days after the fatal shooting of a mixed-race, 25-year-old man, Mark
Duggan, by Metropolitan Police officers in north London, a peaceful
protest outside Tottenham police station ended with the outbreak of vio-
lenceandbecamethestartingpointofwhatwastobefourdaysofrioting.
The initial disorder in Tottenhamspread across London, eventually affect-
ing 21 of the 32 London boroughs, and subsequently a number of cities
including Birmingham, Manchester,Salford, and Liverpool (Guardian/LSE
2011). Over the course of the four days, five people lost their lives, hun-
dreds were injured and estimates of the damage caused reached over half
a billion pounds (Riots, Communities and Victims Panel 2012). The riots
of 2011 can lay claim to be the most serious civil disorder in England since
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2018 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol57 No 3. September 2018
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 339–362
the 1980s and quite possibly in the whole post-war period. Those involved
tended to be drawn from the poorer urban communities and were rela-
tively ethnically diverse, thus differing somewhat from both the riots of the
1980s and much disorder since (Newburn 2015). They gave rise to a huge
amount of academic commentary and research (see, for example, Newburn
et al. 2015; Newburn et al. 2018; Stott, Drury and Reicher 2016), focusing
in the main on the antecedents of the riots and then, more particularly, on
how the riots should be interpreted and understood.
Although there is much that can be said in comparing the England riots
in 2011 with earlier outbreaks of disorder (Newburn 2015) or with rioting
in mainland Europe in recent times (Newburn 2016), this article has a
different focus. Rather than considering the causes of the riots, its concern
is with the political and policy response to these events, something as yet
unconsidered in academic treatment of the 2011 disorder. How should
the reaction of British political leaders, and the policy response in the
aftermath of the disorder, be characterised and understood? To do this we
begin by examining the main political narratives that emerged during the
riots. These were identified in three main ways: first, through a reading
of all major parliamentary debates regarding the riots in the year from
the first night of disorder onward; an analysis of newspaper reporting of
the riots and their aftermath in 2011 using the Lexis/Nexis database; and,
finally, through a reading of the main policy documents and statements
produced by government where there was any explicit link made to the
riots. This analysis identified four primary narratives in the governmental
reading of the riots, focusing on: the ‘criminal’ behaviour of those involved
in the disorder; the role of problem families; the involvement of gangs;
and, the role and conduct of the police service during the riots.
What were the functions of these narratives? We will suggest that in this
case, at heart, they were defensive, seeking to delegitimise any claims that
underlying structural socio-economic factors might have played some part
in the riots, while also resisting suggestion that budget cuts were in any way
responsible for the limited policing response to initial nights of disorder.
The focus on criminality in particular served as the basis for refusing
demands for a major public inquiry. More generally, however, we want to
argue that three of the ‘frames’ through which the riots were understood –
gangs, policing, and problem families – continued to have influence long
after the violence had ended, not least in shaping elements of the scale and
nature of policy response – or, arguably and more accurately, the lack of
response – to the disorder. For what at the time seemed to be potentially
seismic events, viewed from a longer perspective, the 2011 English riots had
remarkably little actual impact in terms of substantive deviations from the
trajectory of government policies in policing, criminal justice, or broader
welfare reform policy. Most significant of all, the coalition government’s
landmark austerity programme was to continue unabated for the rest of its
term. This lack of longer-term impact was in no small part down to a highly
successful deployment of narrative frames in the immediate aftermath of
the events of summer 2011, and the relative failure of non-governmental
frames to impinge on the policy process.
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2018 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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