The UK police’s latest problem: crowds of unruly teens
Disorder in London and other cities threatens public sense of order, even though it may fall short of widespread criminality
When police officers were called to Clapham High Street, south London, on the evenings of March 29 and 31, they faced a baffling situation.
Hundreds of teenagers had met up nearby, using TikTok and other platforms, and were running through shops — shouting, swearing and filming each other.
The incident, and the copious amounts of video it generated, set back efforts by London Mayor Sadiq Khan to project an image of London as safe and orderly. Thinus Keeve, retail director of retailer Marks and Spencer, complained about “brazen shoplifting”.
There have also been similar, rowdy “link-ups” in Solihull, in the West Midlands, also on March 31, in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, on April 1, and in Birmingham on April 8.
Together they illustrate how difficult it has become for police forces to deal with antisocial behaviour. Police are often unfamiliar with the messaging networks — including TikTok and Discord servers — that young people use to arrange the link-ups. In videos from Clapham, officers are mainly seen remonstrating with the youngsters and shooing them out of shops, not arresting them.
London’s Metropolitan Police has said that contrary to some reports, the force did not witness shoplifting or widespread criminal damage during the disorder. It arrested only six people over the two nights, although it said it would examine videos for further evidence of crimes.
The sudden arrival of large numbers of young people presents an “almost impossible” challenge for police, said Ciaran Thapar, director of public affairs at the Youth Endowment Fund, a charity that combats youth violence. “If you have numbers that high of young people meeting up, it’s going to be really hard to control.”
Dal Babu, a former Metropolitan Police commander, said the best response would be to crack down on those making money from online content of the link-ups. “It’s fuelled by the entirely unregulated internet,” he said.
Khan, the mayor, launched a separate broadside on social media companies this week for spreading disinformation about London’s crime rates and multiculturalism.
Lib Peck, director of the violence unit in the London mayor’s office, said enforcement such as arrests had a part to play in tackling link-ups.
But she added: “We also need to be looking at the causes. What we want to be doing is inspiring young Londoners to get engaged in things that interest them and can take them on to meaningful jobs.”
The “link-up” phenomenon is undoubtedly unwelcome for the police. One Clapham video shows people cowering in fear from the crowds of young people.
In Birmingham, hundreds of teenagers descended on the city centre’s shopping district during Wednesday afternoon’s sunny weather, some wearing balaclavas or spraying water guns.
West Midlands Police said it had intelligence in advance of the gathering. Officers used pepper spray and issued 12 dispersal notices to break up some of the crowds, who remained until early evening, as well as seizing water pistols and issuing three community resolutions for cannabis possession.
The force also carried out eight stop-and-searches and said detectives were going through CCTV footage, including investigating an alleged assault. No arrests have so far been made.
Last weekend, Greater Manchester Police placed a Section 34 dispersal order — a reactive measure — on Rochdale town centre after youths harassed shop workers and reportedly caused criminal damage. No arrests were made but six individual dispersal notices were issued to teenagers.
Anthony King, chair of the Our Town community project in Croydon, said some young people from projects with which he was involved had travelled five miles to Clapham after seeing social media posts about the meet-up.
“[One] young man said, ‘We were only there to hang out. It was fun. We didn’t mean it to get out of hand,’” King said. “They’re just looking for things to do and be entertained and engaged.”
King, speaking on the sidelines of a holiday club he was organising, called for more investment in more constructive activities to channel teenagers’ energy.
Rio Carter, 16, one of those at the holiday club, said: “It just takes kids a while to mature . . . I genuinely think people just walking by shouldn’t be scared, because it’s very rare for a young person to get hurt or hurt a random person walking by. Nowadays this is what kids do for fun, whereas 20 years ago they would just go to the park.”
Carter said he had decided not to organise mass meetups after a bad experience in which police imposed a dispersal order when he attempted to arrange such an event.
Steven Buckley, lecturer in digital media sociology at City St George’s University of London, said research suggested people who participated in mass social media meetups did so mainly out of boredom: “So much of their life is now digitised online that they want to meet people in the real world.”
“I’m not saying police should be monitoring every Discord chat,” Buckley said, but he added it would be worth maintaining a police presence in some of the online spaces concerned. “That’s where the problems are.”
Greater Manchester Police, however, said the trouble in Rochdale was specifically linked to TikTok. The force had already been working with schools and community groups, it said, including voluntary “acceptable behaviour contracts” with youths aimed at reducing antisocial behaviour.
Babu, the former Met Police commander, and Thapar, of the Youth Endowment Fund, both attributed the police’s difficulty in tackling the link-ups to the loss of more than 20,000 police officers during the decade of austerity cuts after 2010. Both the past Conservative and current Labour governments have sought to reverse the cuts.
Peck, of the mayor’s office, was more optimistic that the problem could be brought under control. The number of young people murdered annually in London is running at about a third of the level it was seven years ago. That follows a concerted effort to engage those at risk of becoming involved in violence in activities such as boxing clubs or the creative arts.
Such activities had the potential to generate meaningful, real-life relationships for young people, Peck said.
“What I have seen is the connection. That can ground the young person and put them back on the right path.”