Thinking about rioters' parents

[nancylebov]

I've heard a fair amount about rioters' parents (both in regards to the big riots in London and the smaller but still problematic flash mobs in Philadelphia) needing to take charge of their children. Now that I think about it, I've seen a rather refreshing lack of demands for more corporal punishment, but I'm still wondering what's actually known.

The parents of rioters might tend to be rather vague and lax-- this seems to be the usual assumption. However, the parents might be chaotically abusive, or thieves and bullies themselves who've raised their children to be the same, or not there at all. A BBC piece this morning had someone who mentioned that there are a lot of homeless teenagers in London-- no mention of whether this is more likely to be a result of the teenagers leaving their parents' houses (this happens often enough because of abuse) or being thrown out.

Is there any research on the subject?

Comments

[schemingreader]

Does anyone know enough about the rioters to assert that they are mainly minors?

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Whenever people start in on "these kids these days" or "modern parents are too lax" you could bring up the Penn Rowbottom tradition!

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Why always trying to blame the parents. Home life of people in riots tend to be poor and mostly unstable, at least from what i've seen of who has rioted here in DC and what we saw in LA post-Rodney King.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

From looking at more general studies on the poor, what I have read about is a large number of parents among the working poor who are simply either not present & are exhausted when they are around because they are working multiple jobs. I strongly suspect that much of the complaints of of so-called "lax parenting" are both an extension of the far too common belief that poor people are inherently lazy and are also actually an inevitable result of overworked poverty.