Theresa May says most rioters were not in gangs

The "majority of people" involved in the riots appear not to have been in gangs, the home secretary has said.

Theresa May told MPs it appeared the role of gangs was "not as high as people first thought". In London 19% of those arrested were gang members.
But there was "some evidence" gangs were involved in inciting rioting on social media, she said.
More than 2,700 people were arrested after violence and looting spread from London to other English cities.
Gangs got much of the blame for the spread of disorder - Prime Minister David Cameron promised a "concerted, all out war on gangs and gang culture", a gangs task force has been set up and former police chief of Los Angeles and New York Bill Bratton is to advise the government on the issue.
Criminality Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith - who is part of the task force - has warned Britain is in the "last chance saloon" and told the Spectator last month there was "pretty good evidence" gangs were at the centre of the riots.
Mrs May said the Metropolitan Police and other forces were looking at the number of people arrested with known gang affiliations - the percentage of which had fallen over time, as total arrests have risen. About 25% of those arrested were juveniles, she said.
The home affairs committee has already heard evidence that, of those arrested in London, about 19% were gang members - down from almost a third of those initially arrested.
"On current evidence it would seem that the majority of people involved were not individuals who've been involved in gangs, although obviously a number of people involved were involved in gangs," Mrs May said.

Continue reading the main story

Dominic Casciani Home affairs correspondent, BBC News

---

The government's official "Victims Panel" will deliver its conclusions on the riots next year - but today MPs heard first hand about how lives were turned upside down.
Niche Mpala Mufwankolo, a pub landlord in Tottenham, was near to tears as he recounted sliding down a drainpipe to escape looters.
"All that I had put into my business vanished in minutes, he said."
The name of his pub? The Pride of Tottenham.
Nick de Bois, the MP for Enfield North, witnessed rioters armed with a crowbar walking past him, organising looting on their mobiles.
The police made no attempt to arresting them.
"They had a very determined arrogance that they would not get caught."
Witnesses said the police had appeared powerless to intervene in a situation completely out of control.
David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, said no comparison should be drawn with previous disturbances after deaths involving the police.
Mark Duggan's shooting sparked anger - but that anger was soon hijacked.
The rioters attacked communities - not the police.

• Dominic Casciani's page

"But there is some evidence that obviously there was some gang activity taking place in terms of encouraging people to take part in these events and as we saw, some of that encouragement was being propagated on social media."

About three quarters of those arrested so far, had some form of criminal record and arrests were expected to continue for some time, she said - and as a result the picture of who was involved would keep changing.
The home secretary is involved in a cross-departmental group looking into gang issues. She said she would be hosting an international conference in October, "looking at other countries that have gang problems" - such as the US - but also at examples of work in London and Strathclyde, seen as a success story in tackling gang culture.
Earlier this week Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said that there was a sense that a "hard core of rioters came from a feral underclass".
Asked what caused the riots, Mrs May said that was "very difficult to say" and that there appeared to be different causes in different areas.
"It's not helpful for politicians to suddenly speculate over what happened," she said.
"Wider issues" rather than just policing tactics had to be looked at, but only "on the basis of a proper analysis of who was involved". But she said while it was possible that the involvement of gangs in the riots was "not as high as people at first thought", it did not mean the government should not be looking at the issue.
She said she would be "very cautious" about suggesting a direct link between the riots and the shooting of Mark Duggan in north London by police - the first violence broke out in Tottenham after a demonstration about his death.
"Quite what happened in relation to those people who went out on those streets and act in a criminal way... what led them to do that and what initiated that I think is something that none of us can actually wholeheartedly say we know."
'Lazy' Tottenham MP David Lammy told the committee that "a death of this kind, we know from experience of London, can trigger unrest" - and said Mr Duggan's family had been "left floundering" due to a lack of information.
But he said he had learned of attempts to orchestrate violence by text message before the demonstration about Mr Duggan's death. The message, sent to a 14-year-old boy, referred to starting disturbances in neighbouring districts and did not appear to be linked to Mr Duggan's death.
Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan criticised Mr Clarke earlier, saying: "Casting simplistic assertions about a 'feral underclass' as Ken Clarke has about those involved in the riots is lazy. This kind of language absolves people from responsibility for their actions, implying that somehow they had not self control or no choice."
He said government cuts were undermining efforts to deal with young criminals - as gang intervention projects were reducing their services or being closed down - which was in turn restricting sentencing options open to judges where community punishments might be more suitable.

taken from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14834827