Why is there looting in england

By 9 August, the unrest had developed nationally, reaching other cities including Birmingham, Manchester and Wolverhampton. By the time the unrest subsided on 12 August, the capital had increased the number of police officers on the street from 3, to 16, During the period of violence, more than 3, arrests were made and five people died.

But how did the riots unfold and what is the legacy of this watershed moment in British culture a decade on? On Thursday 4 August, Duggan, a father of four, was shot dead by Metropolitan Police officers as he got out of a taxi in Tottenham, north London. His death happened during an intervention with officers from Operation Trident, a unit targeting gun crime in London, who were attempting to carry out an arrest, reported the BBC in A inquest found the shooting to be lawful but concluded that Duggan did not have a weapon in his hands when confronted by police and had thrown it from the taxi.

By 11pm that evening, a double-decker bus had been set alight, reported The Guardian, and many local shops along the high road had been broken into. Burnt out cars lie in the road after riots in Tottenham on 7 August This is an attack on Tottenham, on people, on ordinary people.

Then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson was criticised for not coming back from his holiday quickly enough. Over the next five nights, roughly 15, people took to the streets in towns and cities across England. The fullest data we have is below. What can you do with it? DATA: download the full spreadsheet. Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian. Search the world's government data with our gateway. Search the world's global development data with our gateway.

Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group Contact us at data guardian. Psychologists argue that a person loses their moral identity in a large group, and empathy and guilt - the qualities that stop us behaving like criminals - are corroded. When you have a large group that's relatively anonymous, you can essentially do anything you like," according to Dr James Thompson, honorary senior lecturer in psychology at University College London.

There may only be 20 or 30 people who are leading the trouble but the presence of several hundred onlookers makes it far less likely they'll get caught. He rejects the notion that some of the looters are passively going with the flow once the violence has taken place, insisting there is always a choice to be made. Watching people getting away with it can act as a motivation for others to start looting, says psychologist Dr Lance Workman.

And we tend to imitate what is successful. If you see that people are walking out of a shop with a widescreen TV and trainers, a certain kind of person thinks why shouldn't I do that?

Workman argues that some of those taking part may adopt an ad hoc moral code in their minds - "these rich people have things I don't have so it's only right that I take it". But there's evidence to suggest that gang leaders tend to have psychopathic tendencies, he says. This idea of a mob mentality can be found in football hooliganism.

Former Manchester United hooligan Tony O'Neill, says there is a similarity between this week's looting and the football violence he took part in for three decades. It boils down to the buzz, he says. You can't take away that thrill - the roar of the crowd.