On 19th December, the Department of Communities and Local Government hosted a young peoples riot panel with minister Andrew Stunell (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) and Baroness Newlove (Government Champion for Active, Safer Communities). The Young Advisors who attended the panel were:

Rickisha Dalson, Darnel Sharpe and Sean O'Halloran (Waltham Forest)
Luke Clewes and Emma Hazlehurst (Sheffield)
Dereckston James, Joy Owusu and Jimmy Russell (Haringey)
Tara Westwood, Chad Wheeler, Lana Durden and Tom Smith (Dudley)
Merhawit Ghebre and Muhammad Altamash (Hammersmith and Fulham)

Some of the main points were:

Young people didn't get involved because they had more to lose than to gain
Relationships with police are strained and also markedly different - i.e. kids might get on with a community police officer, but that relationship doesn't translate to rapport with riot police etc
Tensions in the communities caused by 'haves' and 'have nots'

If you would like to see the agenda of the meeting, click on the document:

To see more Young Advisor work responding to the riots click here