Unit 2 AO3&AO4 AO3-Describe how the identified current affair has impacted on the public services involved AO4-Explain

the positive and negative effects that media coverage of current affairs has on public
services

Introduction In this assignment the current affair I will be talking about is the 2011 London riots. I will be talking about the following points in this essay: Impacts Operations (response/procedures/practice equipment/Training/working practices) Political Public relations Public confidence/perception Resources (e.g. staff) Legislation Managing the media Media bias Morale Changes to legislation Short-term impacts Long-term impacts Operations As a result of the riots a massive debate has started about whether or not the police should be allowed to use baton rounds. There are 2 types of baton rounds. 1 type is simply non-lethal rubber bullets fired from a specialized gun. The other type is also known as a bean bag round, again non-lethal, and fired from a normal 12 gauge shotgun.(www.wikipedia.org.uk it is believed that by allowing the police to use them, they would be able to control rioters far more easily than without them. However the counter argument to this is that many of the rioters were underage, some as young as 11 years old, so it would be unsuitable to use them against people of that age group. In response to the riots, all police leave was cancelled due to the shortage of staff. Prime Minister also returned from holiday along with several other party members to address the problem. This then was seen as a negative thing for the police as it looked as if they couldnt cope without the PM. After the riots the polices response was to launch a full scale investigation into the events leading up to and during the riots. The operation was led by Detective Superintendent John Sweeney of the metropolitan police service.(www.wikipedia.com) this shows the seriousness of the investigation because he is of such a high rank and if it was seen as not that big a deal they wouldnt have given control of the investigation to someone of such a high rank. Public relations and confidence Public confidence took a massive blow as a result of the riots. The police were blamed for the vast majority of it. Sometimes not even for how they dealt with it. For example, Rioters identified a range of political grievances, but at the heart of their complaints was a pervasive

sense of injustice. (www.metro.co.uk) As this quote shows, the police took the flak for the politicians with people taking their aggression out on the police rather than on the politicians which was to be excepted as most rioters were repeat offenders who were looking for a scapegoat. Pubic support also fell when as a result of the riots, several sporting fixtures including, England v Holland and Spurs v Everton. This then gave the impression that the police wouldnt be able to maintain order and control of the ground and surrounding area. The fact that the international match between England and Holland was called off was seen as a disaster as it was sold out and set to take in a lot of money for the surrounding area via bars, hotels etc. In the long term, if England fails to perform well in Euro 2012, it could be partly blamed on the cancelation of the fixture as the re-arranged fixture came at a time when several key players were injured including Rooney and Terry. In the short term it will be seen as lack of organisation and preparation to have been unable to deal with the strain. Estimated losses in London were indicated to be in the region of 100m.(www.wikipedia.com). Due to this massive loss in property and business the public were afraid to go shopping and attend sporting fixtures for example. To revamp public confidence there was up to 3 times more uniformed police on the streets of London in the days that followed the riots. The idea was to get people back in the streets and shops and by having so many police officers is plain sight It would be stupid to try and start anything, now said a police officer in Westminster on August 10th who was drafted in from south Wales to regain control of London. I was in London between the 9th and 11th so had the chance to speak to some people. My last point about public confidence is that people no longer felt safe within their own community. Many people were too scared to leave their homes and many were unable to get to their workplaces, even if they wanted to due to roads being closed. Recourses During the riots Police recourses were put under immense strain. As a result the Metropolitan Police force was unable to control the rioters sufficiently. To cope with the strain, 300 extra police officers were drafted in from 12 other forces across the UK. This doesnt include the specialist units such as mounted police (horseback) and dogs. A major flaw with this tactic was that the drafted police didnt know their surroundings. For example while I was in London I asked an officer from south Wales where the nearest tube station was and he replied Sorry, Im as lost as you. A hazard of this is that if there had been another concentrated attack on a street, they would take a lot longer to get there than the local police as they wouldnt know the quickest routes. Due to their lack of local knowledge, the local police and the drafted police worked closely together and often shared patrols. This public display of cooperation gave the public more confidence in the police and showed that in times of hardship the country will come together.

The fire service also came under a lot of pressure during the riots due to the increasing amount of arsonists.

(www.dailymail.co.uk) Scenes like this were common during the riots and the fire service was responding to call out like this on a regular basis. For example, 4 double decked buses were burnt out during the riots and the number of buildings damaged via arson is believed to be in the hundreds. Whilst putting out fires, several firefighters were attacked by the rioters. This turned out to be great for the fire service in terms of media because they were seen as heroes for doing their job whilst being attacked by mindless thugs as Joseph Barton called them. As a result the charity for injured fire fighters rapidly increased. This had an excellent impact on the fire services moral as they saw their friends and colleagues getting better things in life as a result of the charity. Media Coverage The media coverage of the London riots was clearly biased. With the tabloid newspapers condemning the police and blaming the police for the events. For example, why did the police lose control? (Green 2011) The majority of newspapers took a very negative view on the police. The news however was more positive saying the police were simply caught off guard and soon re-established control evidence of this would be the riots in other cities such as Manchester and Nottingham were much more competently dealt with. Also the 1000s of arrests that were made were only made public months after the riots took place leaving the polices reputation looking worse than what it should have been for too long .The fire service gained a lot of public support and confidence as a result of the riots. Mainly due to the reasons previously talked about where they continued to put out fires while under threat from rioters. The NHS was fairly unchanged as a result of the media, maintaining its high standards of health care and being able to cope with the sudden increase in patients. Josh Park 11DP