English riots´ aftermath

Bristol, the sixth largest city in England with a metropolitan population of one million people, witnessed two nights of rioting on Monday and Tuesday last week. According to the Bristol Evening Post, hundreds of young people were involved in the areas of St Paul’s, Montpelier, St Werburgh’s, Kingswood, Stokes Croft and Cabot Circus shopping centre. Eyewitness accounts indicate the incidents erupted separately and were not the result of one group moving from one place to another: here.

Workers speak out on British riots: “The system is not viable”: here.

Government considers curfew powers following UK riots: here.

Jails were said to be on the brink of becoming “human warehouses” today as prisoner numbers hit a record high for the second week running in the wake of the riots: here.

Judge Andrew Gilbart’s release of Ursula Nevin from her five-month jail sentence for receiving a stolen pair of shorts stands out as an island of reason in an ocean of legal insanity: here.

UK riots: nearly 2,000 arrested so far, say police: here.

Prison reform campaigners said today the rush to remand suspected rioters in prison has “compounded a long-standing problem of excessive use of custody”: here.

Campaigners warned against police being allowed to act with impunity today after an alarming escalation in deaths in custody in recent weeks: here.

CRISPIN Blunt, the justice minister, announced yesterday that instructions were being issued to the courts to the effect that unemployed offenders sentenced to the new community payback scheme would be forced to work for eight hours a day in ‘community service’ and on the fifth day they should be forced to look for work: here.

An innocent man who spent nine days locked up after being wrongly accused of setting fire to a Miss Selfridge store in Manchester spoke of his prison “hell” today: here.

Three weeks after the outbreak of widespread rioting in London, the Metropolitan Police continue to hunt down anyone suspected of involvement: here.

One month after major disturbances were provoked by the August 4 police killing of Mark Duggan in north London, the Metropolitan Police are intensifying raids on working class neighbourhoods: here.

Last month’s riots were again linked to poverty today by new research that showed that more a third of those taken to court in London lived in the city’s poorest boroughs: here.

The riots triggered by the police killing of Mark Duggan on August 4 have unleashed a wave of legal repression, including numerous raids by armed response units seeking to arrest alleged rioters: here.

TUC: inequality and cuts lie behind riots: here.

The news that yet another person has died after a confrontation with the police brings the total of deaths arising out of such incidents to a staggering three in eight days that have involved the use of Taser stun guns and pepper spray: here.

UK television broadcasters—the BBC, ITN and Sky News—are in the process of handing over hundreds of hours of untransmitted video footage from the riots in London in August to the Metropolitan Police: here.

Saturday saw the 13th annual United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) march in protest at deaths in police custody and in secure psychiatric hospitals. The list of deaths in custody gets longer, and now stands at more than 3,100. The police killing of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four in Tottenham, which triggered August’s riots, brought many to the demonstration: here.

The wave of riots in numerous English cities this August did not lead to widespread disruption anywhere in Wales. Despite this, several people in Wales have been arrested for riot related offences, some of whom have been denied bail and handed highly disproportionate sentences: here.

Welsh Assembly Member Keith Davies demanded an apology at the weekend from the government and military for killings that took place in Llanelli during the 1911 railway strike: here.

USA: New York police anti-riot units were brought together last weekend at a training facility to prepare for an outbreak of civil unrest similar to those that have occurred recently in Britain: here.