Post-riots clampdown is class hate orgy

Submitted by Matthew on 26 October, 2011 - 10:11

New government figures show that the clampdown by police and courts after the August riots has been a class-hate orgy.

The riots didn’t help the working-class areas in which they took place. The clampdown is doing worse.

66% of the school-age people arrested in the riots were officially classified as having special educational needs. 33% of those aged between 10 and 17 had been excluded from school during the previous year.

Only 13% have been officially tagged as “gang members”. These are not hardened anti-social thugs: just young people getting the roughest deal from the system — young people whose families are losing jobs, living standards, decent housing, benefits, and access to education through the Government's cuts.

The response of the cops and the courts has been to block these young people's access to a decent life even more solidly, by extra-long jail sentences.

Last month the Guardian reported that 315 of 1,715 defendants from the riots had so far been sentenced. Other cases are going to the crown courts, with longer delays and longer jailed terms to come.

Even so far, the average sentence for violent disorder has been 10.4 months compared with 5.3 last year. The average for theft has been almost three times longer than last year.

During 2010, just under a quarter of all burglaries dealt with at magistrates' courts in England and Wales led to an immediate jail sentence.

For those arrested in the riots, the percentage jailed has been double that.

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