LONDON (Agencies) - British Prime Minister David Cam-eron vowed Thursday to hunt down the street gangsters and opportunistic looters he blamed for Britains worst violence in decades, and acknowledged that police force tactics had failed at the start of the rioting and looting. The fightback has well and truly begun, the Conservative leader, grappling with a defining crisis of his 15-month-old premiership, told an emergency session of the British parliament. As to the lawless minority, the criminals whove taken what they can get, I say this: We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done, Cameron said. Closed-circuit TV footage would be used to identify culprits, he said, vowing to let no phoney human rights concerns about publishing the pictures obstruct the effort. British leaders are concerned that the rioting could damage confidence in the economy and in London, one of the worlds biggest financial centres and venue for next years Olympics. Cameron is under pressure to ease austerity plans, toughen policing and do more for inner-city communities, even as economic malaise grips a nation whose social and perhaps racial tensions exploded in four nights of bewildering mayhem, first in the capital and then other major cities. The initial police response was inadequate, Cameron said. There were simply far too few police deployed onto the streets. And the tactics they were using werent working. Defending planned police funding cuts against criticism from opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband, Cameron also proposed more police powers, including the right to demand that people remove face coverings if they are suspected of crime. Cameron, who has already authorised police to use baton rounds and water cannon where necessary, said he would also explore curbs on the use of social media tools if these were being used to plot violence, disorder and criminality. He denied that deprivation had caused the problem, saying: This is not about poverty, its about culture. A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities. Cameron promised to compensate people whose property was damaged by rioters, even if they were uninsured. The riots will cost insurers more than 200 million pounds ($320 million), the Association of British Insurers estimated. Cameron had ordered a rare recall of parliament from its summer recess to debate the unrest which flared first in north London after police shot dead an Afro-Caribbean man. That disturbance then mutated into widespread looting and violence. The prime minister said criminal street gangs were at the heart of the violence. Territorial, hierarchical and incredibly violent, they are mostly composed of young boys, mainly from dysfunctional homes, he added. Arguing that police, local government and voluntary workers needed to work together to stop inner-city street gangs, as they had in American cities such as Boston, he said: I want this to be a national priority. Cameron, who waited two days before returning from holiday to deal with the crisis, has denied the unrest was linked to planned government spending cuts, mostly not yet implemented. But community leaders say inequality, cuts to public services and youth unemployment also fed into the violence in London, Birmingham, Manchester and other multi-ethnic cities. London police staged new raids on apartments Thursday recovering looted designer clothes and iPods. A surge in police numbers helped calm streets Wednesday night, but previous episodes of often unchecked disorder have embarrassed the authorities and exhausted emergency services. Businessmen and residents had come together to protect their areas. Police in some areas complained vigilantes were only complicating their task and asked people to stay at home. Police have arrested more than 1,200 people across England, filling cells and forcing courts to work through the night to process hundreds of cases. Among those charged were a teaching assistant, a charity worker and an 11-year-old boy.