Just two months ago, and one year before the Summer Olympics of 2012, London, England was overrun by chaos, gangs, and fire. From August 6-10, five people were killed by the gangs, along with over 200 injuries. These riots were the second time in the last year that London residents gathered and protested.

Hundreds of London residents didn’t feel safe for weeks, as they were unsure whether or not the rioters would return. They boarded up shop windows, and locked themselves in their houses, praying for the riots to end.

“The police were patrolling my area, with guns and everything, even though I live in a nice area.” said Laure Ellis, a fourteen year old resident of London. ” Also, the Notting Hill Carnival, which happens every year at the end of the summer, was asked to close early everyday.”

An article in The London Sun, from August 10, 2011, points the cause of the riots at the government, not the police. “The ugly riots have come as a nasty shock for a Prime Minister who has seen his dream of a Big Society turn to ashes,” Trevor Kavanagh wrote. “Instead he is confronted by voters who want to know why their lives were put at risk by a disastrous failure of leadership at the highest level. For this was an entirely avoidable disaster.”

However, not everyone believes that the British government is at fault for these riots. “It seems to me it would be difficult to blame the riots primarily on the British government. Certainly, one could ask why the gangs exist and have grown recently, and public policies could have some responsibility,” said Dr. Matthew Gabel, professor of the Politics of the European Union class at Washington University. “And, I think, in retrospect, the police could have responded more quickly and in larger numbers.”

While Great Britain’s economy may be in a recession, with over 1 million people from the ages of 16-24, the government still needs to make sure that the citizens are generally happy and content, so that they don’t have another set of riots when the world comes to visit in a year’s time.

(Photo: STEPHANIE ALLMON/MCT Campus)