Theodore Dalrymple’s op-ed in today’s Globe argues that the British justice system deserves the blame for this shameful rioting. He says “the guilty parties are obvious: my lords, the Queen’s justices… In view of their leniency, the wonder is not that we have scenes such as those that have astonished the world in the past few days but that we don’t have them all the time.”

While this certainly isn’t the whole story, there are legitimate questions to be asked as to why, as he says “criminality is embedded in the culture and minds of at least some of the British population.” It speaks to a reality which has not been widely discussed in the chattering class.

In an interview by a BBC reporter with two of the rioters we get picture of why the rioters did what they did. “How many people have they arrested?” asks one of the looters. “Like ten. I’ll keep doing this every day, until I get caught.”

In response to the question of whether their parents know about this, they are reflexively apathetic: “When I get home, nothing’s gonna happen to me. I might get shouted at, that’s it. I’ll live with that; keep doin’ it.” That lack of concern extends right up to the state. When the reporter asks whether the boys are concerned about getting caught by police and marked with a criminal record they reply: “I”m not worried about that. It’s my first offence—I’ll take a caution. The prisons are overcrowded. What are they gonna do?”

Yes, we’ve come to the root cause behind all of this madness: because they can.

What advice does this offer to policy makers and those trying to make sense of this mess? I believe there are three points to consider:

1. That the state needs to reacquaint itself with its basic founding function: namely, coercive power. If citizens live with complete lack of fear of negative, state-imposed, consequences, society is likely to crumble more quickly than many of us can imagine. I’m not suggesting that English government morph into the hideous beast of regimes like, Syria, but it does need to remember that use of serious, robust force—within the bounds law—to maintain order is not only acceptable, but necessary. And citizens need not only to accept this, but actively support it.

2. That the state needs to make hard choices as to which types of crimes it deems worthy of bringing the full weight of the law to bear. The youth’s suggestion that the prisons are so overcrowded indicates, perhaps, a misguided sense of state priorities when it comes to law enforcement. Canadian politicians looking to get “tough on crime” should heed this warning as well.

3. That society relies on a complex, interdependent infrastructure which requires constant, diligent maintenance. The parallels between the youth’s lack of concern for domestic discipline and state discipline is not incidental; a healthy state requires a set of robust and healthy institutions below it.