A shocking lack of hopes and dreams in English youth contributed to the riots last summer, the independent inquiry set up by the government said in its interim report, published November 28.

“We were shocked by the number of young people we spoke to who had no hopes or dreams for their future,” wrote the chairman of the Riots Communities and Victims Panel, Darra Singh, in the report’s Foreword. There is a “collective pessimism about the future,” he wrote.

Singh wrote that “there was no single cause of the riots and there is no single solution,” and warned that the riots could “quite possibly” happen again.

“The fact that many people abused society’s moral and legal codes when the opportunity arose paints a disturbing picture,” states the report.

“Most disturbing to us was a widespread feeling that some rioters had no hope and nothing to lose,” it says.

The next phase of the panel’s research will focus on six areas, the first of which is hopelessness. “The absence of hopes and dreams amongst many we spoke to is a danger for society,” the report says. “We need young people who are able to improve their education, get a job that fulfills their ambitions and allows them to achieve their potential. We were concerned at the level of despondency and anxiety amongst the young in particular.”

Other areas of investigation included building resilience in young people to combat this hopelessness, and how the government can combat rioting by raising the standard of parenting.

The book of Proverbs states, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” This is merely a stronger way of saying, “The absence of hopes and dreams … is a danger for society.”

The second part of that proverb is: “but he that keeps the law, happy is he.” Where there is vision and hope, there is law and happiness. Lack of vision causes lawlessness, and lawlessness causes destruction.

The inquiry found that hope of a job, hope of an education, hope of a better future for their child, was enough to keep someone from rioting. But too many had no hope, no goals and no ambition. With no hope, a person sees no reason to keep the law. Until Britain is given that vision, the riots will get worse.

A major source of vision and law is the family. Broken families leave youth with no hope and no standards.

As things look more hopeless, the rioting will only get worse. The solution is beyond Britain’s government. It is more than fixing youth unemployment. Families must be rebuilt. Children must be given real hope for the future. And they must be taught to respect the law from an early age.

For more information on Britain’s crumbling society, and the great hope there is for Britain, see our article “Why London Went Up in Flames.”