Men with faces

Well, that was some August. Rebellion in Libya, eurozone financial collapse, famine and despair in the Horn of Africa, monsoon weather in temperate old UK, and riots spreading like the fires they caused from city to city. There can be few more terrifying events than a full-blown city riot: the images were bad enough for those safely ensconced in foreign parts or Scottish huts '“ the pictures of London streets in flames were distressing beyond belief for any Londoner. And what it must have been like for the people living and working in those streets is unimaginable.

History is meant to be a comfort in times like these: a reminder that not only is there nothing new under the sun, but that cities and their inhabitants are nothing if not resilient. Our tattered old capital has seen it all before '“ from Jack Straw and the poll tax riot (the 1381 one that is, otherwise known as the Peasants Revolt) London has experienced riots, mayhem and civil disorder time after time. And the history of the London 'mob' '“ now perhaps called the feral underclass? '“ is one of civil disobedience terrifying the authorities who dished out draconian repression as a result.

But of course riots are not just a London habit: the Luton 'Peace Day' riots of 1919 resulted in the Town Hall being burnt to the ground. That riot was triggered by unemployed ex-service men and women unhappy, as well they might be, that after a long and savage war they were left high and dry. And they looted too '“ not trainers and tellies, but pianos, which were dragged out of a music shop and played in the street, to dance to...

Both worthy and repellent causes have triggered London riots: Spitalfield weavers were a highly riotous lot, taking to the streets regularly with economic grievances. In 1719, 4,000 of them invaded the City, protesting about the growing fashion for printed Indian calicos and cottons rather than home-manufactured goods. They targeted women wearing the despised materials, sousing them with ink and other less pleasant liquids, or ripping clothes of their backs. The troops were ordered in, and shots were fired: three weavers were injured.

The Bawdy House riots of 1668 involved 40,000 Londoners at its height, all highly organised into military-type regiments or bands. They attacked brothels as a protest against the moral laxity of Charles II court and had a revolutionary agenda '“ one of their slogans was: 'We have been servants but we are the masters now!' When the order came to arrest some of their number, they attacked the jail and freed them.

Over and above actual riots, the London apprentices have caused endless trouble over the centuries: belligerent and xenophobic, they hung about street corners looking for trouble '“ despite the fact they were, formally, in a trade. A comment perhaps on the soothing effects of education, employment and training? In 1517, a thousand of them banded together to attack foreigners in London, which they did, nastily, looting their houses and again storming the jails to free prisoners previously arrested for racist assaults. Five thousand troops were brought into the City to quell the disorder, an extraordinary number when the population of London at that time was only 60,000. Unusually for pre-20th century riots, where the authorities tended to limit arrest to the ring leaders, 300 apprentices were nicked. No trials though '“ no late-night sittings of magistrates to dispense justice. Instead they were given an audience with King Henry and pardoned for the sake of their mothers and families. But the Tudor equivalent of 'hug a hoodie' stopped there. Thirteen of their leaders came to a less happy end '“ hung, drawn and quartered.

The hundreds, possibly thousands, of defendants from our own turbulent August will not suffer quite that fate, although a four-year stretch for unsuccessful rabble rousing on a social media site looks ferocious enough. Another ferocious aspect of the lengthy sentences passed so far is that they take such account of the circumstances in which the offences took place, upping the prison terms beyond any existing guidelines. If the courts want to impose riot sentences, defendants should be charged with riot rather than burglary, theft or criminal damage: alternatively, the 'circumstances' should be considered in all the ways in which they clearly affected behaviour.

The 17th and 18th century policy makers talked about 'the mob', a term which is actually useful in understanding what happens in crowds. Individuality, and the specificity of moral behaviour which pertains to an individual, is readily lost in groups. Impulse control is damaged by group behaviour '“ in other words, people behave in crowds in ways that they shudder at the next day. When they plead guilty and shudder in the dock, it is a wise judiciary who sentences them as the individual they have become again. It is an unwise judge who sentences them as a faceless representative of social breakdown.

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