{"id":25730,"date":"2024-09-10T15:21:57","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T14:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=25730"},"modified":"2024-09-10T15:21:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T14:21:57","slug":"grenfell-was-not-a-state-failure-it-was-institutional-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/grenfell-was-not-a-state-failure-it-was-institutional-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Grenfell was not a state \u2018failure\u2019 \u2013 it was institutional violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the findings of the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry Victoria Cooper, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Criminology at The Open University<\/a> and David Whyte, Professor of Climate Justice from Queen Mary University of London, examine how ‘institutional violence’ played a part.<\/em><\/p>\n

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People are not used to thinking of decisions made in boardrooms or by housing authorities as \u201cviolent\u201d. Yet the findings of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire show how they can be.<\/p>\n

The report lays out<\/a> how routine decision-making by private construction companies and local authorities prioritised their own immediate economic benefit, in ways that knowingly produced an imminent threat to safety.<\/p>\n

To prevent future tragedies like the Grenfell fire, it is important to understand these power relations \u2013 between those making the decisions and the tenants who were subject to the deadly outcomes \u2013 as a form of violence.<\/p>\n

Most people understand \u201cviolence\u201d as something that happens between two people or groups of people as a result of sudden or extreme behaviour. Yet often, the most extreme forms of violence occur as a result of mundane decisions made by governments or institutions over a long period of time.<\/p>\n

In 2017, we described the practices that caused the Grenfell fire as \u201cinstitutional violence\u201d<\/a>. This occurs in the cumulative decisions made by governments, companies, regulators or other institutions that leads to psychological or physical damage to people.<\/p>\n

It can be through deliberately harming a group or, as highlighted in the Grenfell report, by ignoring or overlooking information that could prevent harm. Institutional violence does not necessarily involve a deliberate attempt to cause harm to people, but commonly involves making decisions that are likely to lead to harm.<\/p>\n

Martin Moore-Bick\u2019s report characterises the root causes of the Grenfell fire as \u201cfailures\u201d of government policy and decision-making.<\/p>\n

The inquiry\u2019s report blames several, interconnected institutions that it says were partly responsible for the fire. These include a profit-hungry construction industry, an elitist and cost-cutting local authority, a regulatory system that was completely gutted, the privatisation of building safety testing, and a fire service with inadequate controls.<\/p>\n

Along the way, people made repeated decisions to prioritise profit, ignore safety warnings and evidence, and ultimately, to cause violence to the residents of Grenfell.<\/p>\n

Describing these institutions as having \u201cfailed\u201d misrepresents the reality of why Grenfell happened. Deregulation, cost-cutting and outsourcing were not \u201cfailures\u201d of government, but flagship policies of austerity<\/a> that were carefully planned and coordinated.<\/p>\n

The violence of austerity<\/h2>\n

Since 2010, cuts made under the banner of \u201causterity\u201d have plunged working-class communities into a perpetual state of anxiety and distress<\/a>. These decisions gave a stamp of approval to all of the institutional violence that produced Grenfell.<\/p>\n

Social housing investment has declined by 60%, and social rents in vacant properties have increased by up to 80% of private market rates<\/a>. Welfare reforms such as universal credit, the bedroom tax and benefit cap have thrown social housing tenants into colossal debt or eviction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Local authorities and housing management groups chose to ignore tenants\u2019 rights and [downplay their concerns]. This negligence was often linked to \u201chostile environment\u201d immigration policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In tandem with the austerity agenda came a campaign of privatisation and \u201cbonfire of red tape\u201d. The inquiry\u2019s final report puts a great deal of blame on the deregulation drive under David Cameron\u2019s coalition government. But it falls short of criticising Cameron\u2019s plan for austerity. In 1,672 pages, the word \u201causterity\u201d is mentioned only once.<\/p>\n

Since 2010, Conservative-led governments have used austerity to savage the country\u2019s regulatory systems, including the health and safety executive<\/a> and local council housing inspection schemes.<\/p>\n

Fire protection \u2013 including jobs, training and fire stations \u2013 has been similarly compromised<\/a> by cuts. Fire risk checks reduced by 25% in the five years leading to the Grenfell fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n