Quieting the rioting – American style

The video is familiar: silent, grainy movement captured by the CCTV camera of a local convenience store. Within seconds, twenty hooded figures have flooded the front of the shop. A scramble ensues, in which cigarette packets are snatched from behind the counter and the shelves are relieved of wine bottles, beer cans, chocolate bars and sweet packets. They depart as quickly as they arrived, leaving just enough time for one boy to upend a bottle of cola on the floor. The shopkeeper is shocked and helpless. ‘It became a feeding frenzy… It’s a pretty scary thing.’

It is the type of footage that dominated British news channels throughout August and September, and is likely to continue to do so as more and more rioters are tried and sentenced for their part in the London, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham and Liverpool riots.

However, this particular tape will not be produced as evidence for the trial of a UK looter. The camera was situated in a Las Vegas shop, where the robbery took place in May, three months before unrest broke out on our side of the pond. A 2011 survey, spanning five American cities, revealed that one in ten shops have fallen victim to similar mob-style lootings, dubbed ‘Flash Robs’ by the perpetrators, who will often brag of their stolen bounty on Facebook or Twitter.

We are not alone in our dismay. The question ‘what now?’ rarely produces uncontroversial responses. Some call for removal of rioters’ benefits (over 100,000 people signed
an online petition, crashing the UK government petitions website) while others suggest curfews and counselling for parents. Yet these are only short-term solutions to what Kids Company founder Camilla Batmanghelidjh has diagnosed as a ‘detachment from society,’ whereby young people see nothing immoral in attacking a community they feel they have no stake in. With no affirmation that their role in society is valued, and no opportunities to succeed socially or financially, she argues that the forming of ‘parallel antisocial communities with different rules’ is inevitable.

If Ms. Batmanghelidjh has indeed identified the root of the social collapse witnessed in 2011, what are we to do? How do wealthy nations who consider education fundamental to opportunity and subsequent success reach out to those who have fallen upon the ‘wrong side of the Opportunity Divide’?

It is the problem that Gerald Chertavian has been tackling in the US for the past eleven years. Having graduated from Bowdoin College and later Harvard Business School, Mr. Chertavian founded Year Up, an intensive one-year course that aims to teach students ‘not only the skills needed to become a valued knowledge worker in the US economy but to believe that they can overcome obstacles and accomplish their goals’.

Year Up is a non-profit organization that works with young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who have come from low-income families and never progressed beyond high school in terms of education. Over the course of 12 months, students are given a crash course in either Information Technology or Investment Operations, giving them a leg up on the ladder to careers such as IT or consumer banking. But learning is not confined to the technical side, as Chertavian points out: ‘We aim to teach our students both the hard and soft skills – business dress, etiquette and workplace behavior.’ Upon starting at Year Up, the first thing many students learn is how to properly shake hands.

Does lack of opportunity lead to looting? ‘Our students often grow up acutely aware of the obstacles between them and greater opportunity, and develop feelings of hopelessness and lack of self-worth. It is easy to see where this could transform itself into rioting and violence, whether or not they “act out” due to boredom or frustration, many do enter the program discouraged.’

Year Up’s rigid application process asks for students with ambition; interns are paid $150 a week during their time in the program and up to $250 during the six month internship that follows. Poor behaviour or tardiness results in a ‘pay cut’ for the week – more than enough of a deterrent for most.

Stanley Narcisse, a Year Up graduate, spent a number of months homeless after his mother kicked him out. He had fallen into the role of a ‘stereotypical disconnected inner city youth,’ and it was not until he heard about Year Up that his life took a dramatic and positive turn. ‘I didn’t really know what to expect. All I knew is that I was being paid to come to school, and that was enough for me. Little did I know I was embarking on a life altering journey.’ Stanley was given a grounding in technology which allowed him to then excel when he interned at Goodwin Proctor, where he is now employed as a valued member of the team. His success is not unique; Mr. Chertavian has high hopes for the future of Year Up, which currently serves over 1300 students a year, moving towards a short term goal of 2,500.

‘In the future, our ultimate goal is to scale our program to serve as many of the 5 million disconnected young adults who need our help as we can. We want to change the underlying social factors that cause opportunity divide in the first place – for instance, promoting a tax credit to entice employers to hire disconnected young adults – a talent pool they may not have considered before.’

It is an enormous project, but one that has so far achieved impressive results. Could a program like Year Up work in the UK? A dismal September walk down the boarded up streets of Clapham, Ealing, Tottenham and Croydon suggest that it is certainly worth a try.