Police are struggling to connect with black and disadvantaged communities because they are “on the frontline of social failure”, the Shadow Communities Secretary has said.
Steve Reed told the Mirror police cannot improve community relations which could help tackle criminal networks because of the Tories drastic cuts to services over the last decade.
Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the 2011 London riots, Mr Reed said police officers face a much tougher role “because if you take away social workers, family intervention, if you take away youth workers, the police force are left to pick up the consequences of that”.
He added: “Police are having to pick up the pieces of those services being taken away.
“My borough of Croydon went up in flames 10 years ago. Yet funding for those services in that are have been cut by 76% in 10 years.
“Fewer police have been left to deal with the consequences of public failures, and that does have a direct relationship on their ability to connect to their community that they’d be able to do if they had the proper resources behind them.”
Mr Reed was part of a panel at an event hosted by West Croydon Voice - a community organisation made up of people affected by the riots.
The riots broke out across the city on August 6 2011 after Mark Duggan was shot by police officers in Tottenham two days earlier.
Over five days, around 15,000 people looted shops and set fire to businesses.
Burshra Ahmed, one of the victims of the riots, described the moment she realised many of the youths involved in the uproar had been failed by the Government.
“I was watching [the riots] from my window. I was watching young people coming out from the houses in the roads in front of me and those are the people who are doing this. And they have no fear.
“I thought to myself how did we as adults allow this to happen?”
Darra Singh, who acted as the independent chairperson of The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel set up by the coalition Government, described the past 10 years as a “wasted decade of opportunity”.
The Labour Party said the Government had only implemented 11 of the 63 recommendations made by the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel in 2012.
A report released by Labour on Thursday to coincide with the anniversary of the riots - which started in the capital before spreading to 66 other areas - found that the number of "forgotten families" where many of the young people involved came from was likely to have doubled in the past decade.
Labour's report said "the key risk factors identified by the [2012] report seem to be even greater today than in 2011", leaving London still at risk of riots.
In a statement released addressing the anniversary of the disorder, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: "Our city has been through a lot since the disorder of summer 2011, and there is no escaping the reality that some of the complex and entrenched causes of the riots - inequality, poverty, lack of opportunity and the need for better relations between our police and London's diverse communities - remain.
"It's crucial we tackle these challenges head on by advocating for increased funding and support to help regenerate the most deprived parts of our city."
A Government spokesperson said: "The events of August 2011 shocked the country, and the police and courts took commendable swift action to bring perpetrators to justice.
"We're strengthening communities by levelling up opportunities and ensuring local people are at the heart of decision making - identifying what matters to them and the best ways to achieve this.
"We've allocated £12 billion to councils since the start of the pandemic, with over £6 billion not ring fenced in recognition that councils are best placed to decide on local needs."
