British Prime Minister David Cameron is blaming last week's riots in the U.K. on the "slow-motion moral collapse" of his nation, and promising tough new measures to turn things around. Among his contemplated fixes: Imposing curfews, blocking social networking sites from smartphones, and evicting looters from public housing to discourage lawlessness. There’s even talk of naming William Bratton — America's "supercop" — to head London's Metropolitan Police. But critics say a harsh response might simply aggravate the root of the problem: A contempt for authority. Is Cameron's crackdown the answer?
This will make matters worse: If this business of kicking rioters' families out of public housing sounds familiar, says Owen Hatherley at The Guardian, that's because it is just an extension of a longstanding policy to push "the 'undeserving' poor from highly profitable inner-city sites." This "will make our cities even more Balkanized and unequal, and it will make the young even more dispossessed and angry." If that happens, the next riots could be worse.
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