*
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Factors-Considerations-Undergrounds-Insurgencies/dp/0898755409[/QUOTE]
That looks like an interesting read, I may have to buy it. But there is an older work about mobs and riots, by Gustave Le Bon, entitled
"The Crowd; Study of the Popular Mind"
It is also available on Amazon, and should be in any decent Library.
I remember it from college as being a bit dry and stilted to read, but I was young then. At the time, despite the rather awkward writing, ( it was a translation), it gave a fascinating view into mob behavior and psychology, and talked a lot about riots. I strongly recommend it for anyone interested in crowd behavior, mob control, or riots. I hope the police and Civil Authorities in England are reading it.
Allegedly, Hitler and Mussolini both used the book as a primer on how to stir up and control mobs.
In the United States, I seem to remember that the Rodney King riots seemed to be used by a great many people, who cared little about the incident, as an excuse to rampage and loot, much like what is happening in London. I think there are a lot of parallels between the two incidents.
I think that, from what I remember of Le Bons book, mobs and riots usually are caused by people who don't have to get up and go to work in the morning. Not necessarily the poor or unemployed, as I remember the College anti-war riots of the sixties and Seventies, those were not poor people. But by people who don't have responsibilities, are idle, and quite frankly bored with their life. Some of the interviews of rioter seem to bear that out.