noted. 12/06/2011

• English riots were 'a sort of revenge' against the police | UK news | The Guardian

  • "The police is the biggest gang out there." This view of the police, or variations of it, emerged frequently in 270 interviews of people who took part in August's riots across cities in England.

    Of those participants questioned for the Reading the Riots study, a Guardian/London School of Economics project, 85% said policing was an "important" or "very important" factor in why the riots happened.

    Again and again, rioters from different parts of the country described the police as a "gang", claiming its officers enforced a law they themselves played fast and loose with. Complaints included claims of being beaten up in police vans and "stitched up" over offences people were innocent of, but more often related to stop and search and the basic incivility police were accused of displaying in everyday interactions with communities.

• Communization and its Discontents: Contestation, Critique, and Contemporary Struggles

  tags: engarde toread

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.