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Unit 2 AO3&AO4

AO3-Describe how the identified current affair has impacted on the public services involved

AO4-Explain the positive and negative effects that media coverage of current affairs has on public

services

Introduction

In this assignment the current affair I will be talking about is the 2011 London riots. I will be

talking about the following points in this essay:

Impacts

• Operations (response/procedures/practice equipment/Training/working practices) 

• Political 

• Public relations 

• Public confidence/perception

• Resources (e.g. staff) • Legislation 

• Managing the media

• Media bias 

• Morale 

• Changes to legislation 

Short-term impacts

Long-term impacts

Operations

As a result of the riots a massive debate has started about whether or not the police should be

allowed to use baton rounds. “There are 2 types of baton rounds. 1 type is simply non-lethal

rubber bullets fired from a specialized gun. The other type is also known as a bean bag round,

again non-lethal, and fired from a normal 12 gauge shotgun.”(www.wikipedia.org.uk it is

believed that by allowing the police to use them, they would be able to control rioters far more

easily than without them. However the counter argument to this is that many of the rioters were

underage, some as young as 11 years old, so it would be unsuitable to use them against people of 

that age group. In response to the riots, all police leave was cancelled due to the shortage of staff.

Prime Minister also returned from holiday along with several other party members to address the

problem. This then was seen as a negative thing for the police as it looked as if they couldn‟t

cope without the PM. After the riots the police‟s response was to launch a full scale

“investigation into the events leading up to and during the riots. The operation was led by

Detective Superintendent John Sweeney of the metropolitan police

service.”(www.wikipedia.com) this shows the seriousness of the investigation because he is of 

such a high rank and if it was seen as not that big a deal they wouldn‟t have given control of the

investigation to someone of such a high rank.

Public relations and confidence

Public confidence took a massive blow as a result of the riots. The police were blamed for the

vast majority of it. Sometimes not even for how they dealt with it. For example, “Rioters

identified a range of political grievances, but at the heart of their complaints was a pervasive

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sense of injustice.” (www.metro.co.uk ) As this quote shows, the police took the flak for the

politicians with people taking their aggression out on the police rather than on the politicians

which was to be excepted as most rioters were repeat offenders who were looking for a

scapegoat. Pubic support also fell when as a result of the riots, several sporting fixtures

including, England v Holland and Spurs v Everton. This then gave the impression that the police

wouldn‟t be able to maintain order and control of the ground and surrounding area. The fact thatthe international match between England and Holland was called off was seen as a disaster as it

was sold out and set to take in a lot of money for the surrounding area via bars, hotels etc. In the

long term, if England fails to perform well in Euro 2012, it could be partly blamed on the

cancelation of the fixture as the re-arranged fixture came at a time when several key players were

injured including Rooney and Terry. In the short term it will be seen as lack of organisation and

 preparation to have been unable to deal with the strain. “Estimated losses in London were

indicated to be in the region of £100m.”(www.wikipedia.com). Due to this massive loss in

property and business the public were afraid to go shopping and attend sporting fixtures for

example. To revamp public confidence there was up to 3 times more uniformed police on the

streets of London in the days that followed the riots. The idea was to get people back in the

streets and shops and by having so many police officers is plain sight “It would be stupid to tryand start anything, now” said a police officer in Westminster on August 10thwho was drafted in

from south Wales to regain control of London. I was in London between the 9th

and 11th

so had

the chance to speak to some people. My last point about public confidence is that people no

longer felt safe within their own community. Many people were too scared to leave their homes

and many were unable to get to their workplaces, even if they wanted to due to roads being

closed.

Recourses

During the riots Police recourses were put under immense strain. As a result the Metropolitan

Police force was unable to control the rioters sufficiently. To cope with the strain, 300 extra

 police officers were drafted in from 12 other forces across the UK. This doesn‟t include the

specialist units such as mounted police (horseback) and dogs. A major flaw with this tactic was

that the drafted police didn‟t know their surroundings. For example while I was in London Iasked an officer from south Wales where the nearest tube station was and he replied “Sorry, I‟m

as lost as you.” A hazard of this is that if there had been another concentrated attack on a street,

they would take a lot longer to get there than the local police as they wouldn‟t know the quickestroutes. Due to their lack of local knowledge, the local police and the drafted police worked

closely together and often shared patrols. This public display of cooperation gave the public

more confidence in the police and showed that in times of hardship the country will come

together.

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The fire service also came under a lot of pressure during the riots due to the increasing amount of 

arsonists.

(www.dailymail.co.uk ) 

Scenes like this were common during the riots and the fire service was responding to call out like

this on a regular basis. For example, 4 double decked buses were burnt out during the riots and

the number of buildings damaged via arson is believed to be in the hundreds. Whilst putting out

fires, several firefighters were attacked by the rioters. This turned out to be great for the fire

service in terms of media because they were seen as heroes for doing their job whilst being

attacked by „mindless thugs‟ as Joseph Barton called them. As a result the charity for injured fire

fighters rapidly increased. This had an excellent impact on the fire services moral as they saw

their friends and colleagues getting better things in life as a result of the charity.

Media Coverage

The media coverage of the London riots was clearly biased. With the tabloid newspapers

condemning the police and blaming the police for the events. For example, “…why did the police lose control?” (Green 2011) The majority of newspapers took a very negative view on the

police. The news however was more positive saying the police were simply „caught off guard‟

and soon re-established control evidence of this would be the riots in other cities such as

Manchester and Nottingham were much more competently dealt with. Also the 1000s of arrests

that were made were only made public months after the riots took place leaving the police‟s

reputation looking worse than what it should have been for too long .The fire service gained a lotof public support and confidence as a result of the riots. Mainly due to the reasons previously

talked about where they continued to put out fires while under threat from rioters. The NHS was

fairly unchanged as a result of the media, maintaining its high standards of health care and being

able to cope with the sudden increase in patients.

Josh Park 11DP

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