Rioters were the deprived criminals

I am shocked, shocked that the rioters had criminal records.

From the Belfast Telegraph (emphasis added):

Three quarters of all rioters had a criminal record, with two thirds of these never having been to jail despite having a slew of previous offences, figures show. 

Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said the statistics confirmed that "existing criminals were on the rampage" last month.

A quarter of people charged over the violence and looting that swept through English cities last month had committed more than 10 previous offences, with one in 20 having more than 50, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures showed.

But only a third of those who had committed previous offences had ever been sent to jail.

So they weren't deprived, alienated souls who were reaching out to the society that had abandoned them.  They were crims who were half-inching whatever was going.  Who would have thought?  Not the blinkered Political Class and Chatteratti.

This is damning both of the rioters, who turn out to have been nothing more than rampaging criminals, and the British authorities who are no longer capable of recognising criminals and have forgotten how to handle them.  If Great Britain was still a civilised nation, then every single rioter with a criminal record should have been banged up for a very long time.

Come to that, they should have done porridge in the first place.  As for those underaged, it should have been borstal. Mind you, with judges now lumbered with the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, various supranational courts, and contradictory orders from the Political Class to go soft and run rough on criminals while acting as social engineers charged with "nudging" the public, it's a wonder we all don't just throw up our hands and bring back trial by ordeal and public floggings.