NCJ Number
92333
Date Published
1983
Length
17 pages
Annotation
While the Miami and Liverpool riots of the 1980's had similarities, their contrasts are significant enough to discourage similar governmental responses; both riots, however, represent a new departure from the 1960's riot patterns described by the Kerner Report, as they both resulted from the economic and political crisis of the last decade.
Abstract
The Liverpool and Miami riots were similar in that racial resentments focused on high unemployment and a perceived threat from right-wing terrorism, while the justice system was viewed as being deeply biased against the poor and unwilling to reform itself. Contrasts between the American and British disorders were profound, however; e.g., British events where characterized by little of the ethnic hostility and conflict between racial groups that marked the Miami events. The British riots were much more politically motivated, as rioters were inspired by a sense of class rivalry. The British riots portend a future of ideological riots perpetrated by the politicized underclass of Europe, while American disorders are more likely to be severely violent race riots. The Kerner analysis of the riots as being primarily a response to economic crisis and relative deprivation holds goods, but the economic crisis has grown far worse, and improvement is not in sight in this century. Perhaps it is not to be hoped for within the present social or economic framework. Riots on the 1960's pattern are likely to recur in this decade, probably on at least as large a scale and probably on new and more dangerous lines. Either they will be Miami-type riots, setting community against community, or they will be Liverpool-type riots, challenging governments and the social order. Forty references are provided.