Barbarians on the Thames

Theodore Dalrymple examines the possible explanations for the London riots. On one such possible cause:

When one bears in mind that leniency is shown toward criminals who have committed other serious offenses as well, it is no surprise that the young and criminally inclined should believe in their own impunity. They may not be able to do arithmetic, but they can certainly recognize long odds when they see them. They know, too, that they have respectable society on the run when successive lord chief justices have complained that too many Britons are sent to prison and that such sentences should not be administered to first-time burglars (meaning, of course, the first time that they get caught, not the first time that they burgle, a distinction that seems to have escaped their lordships). It would not be too much to say that recent lord chief justices of England are a major cause of the riots. 

(Image: "Police officers in riot gear walk past a burning building in Tottenham on August 7, 2011." Stefan Wermuth/Reuters, via Boston.com, WSJ)