Understanding the London riots

Stephen Reicher reminds people that trying to doing so is not a crime:

Perhaps the greatest investigation into the nature of riots was the Kerner Commission, established by US President Lyndon Johnson to find out the causes of the civil unrest that erupted in Detroit and other US cities between 1965 and 1967. The commission sent teams of investigators into the affected communities to study those who had taken part. What they found challenged many preconceptions about what had happened.

For example, the investigators acknowledged that many people took advantage of the disturbances to pillage and settle scores, and that this increased with time. But they also discerned clear patterns in the events. They showed that the average rioter was not marginal or part of an underclass but was generally better educated and socially integrated and had less of a criminal record than the norm in their communities.

Furthermore, the rioters did not act mindlessly and randomly, rather their targets reflected communal grievances. This reflects the finding from crowd psychology that crowd members do not lose identity or become "deindividuated". They act meaningfully in terms of the collective identities, values and understandings shared by their communities. Finally, the commission found no indication that the riots were directed or planned by organised groups, despite Johnson's conviction to the contrary.