Cameron said his coalition government would outline new policies designed to tackle a culture of laziness, irresponsibility and selfishness which he believes fueled Britain's unrest.
He also pledged to toughen rhetoric from ministers and officials, who he claimed had too often had shied away from promoting strong moral standards.
His government would no longer be timid in discussing family breakdown or poor parenting, or in criticizing those who fail to set a good example to their community.
"This has been a wake-up call for our country. Social problems that have been festering for decades have exploded in our face," Cameron told an audience at a youth center in Witney, his Parliamentary district in southern England.
"Just as people last week wanted criminals robustly confronted on our street, so they want to see these social problems taken on and defeated," he said.
Cameron insisted that racial tensions, poverty and the government's austerity program -- much of which is yet to bite -- were not the motivations for the riots across London and other major cities.
Criminality and a lack of personal responsibility were at the roots of the disorder, Cameron said, pledging that the government would intervene to help 120,000 of the country's most troubled families before the 2015 national election.
Behind him, the wall bore a graffiti-style mural centered on characters wearing the kind of hoods and masks associated with those widely seen on television ransacking shops last week.
More than 2,800 people have been arrested since a protest over a fatal shooting by police on August 4 prompted rioting and looting in the poor north London area of Tottenham. That spread across the capital and sparked violence in other English cities.
Cameron, who returned from holiday abroad last week after days of unrest, is seeking to tap into widespread public anger over the protests. They came 15 months after he took office at the head of a center-right coalition committed to cuts in welfare and other spending that critics say will hit the poor.
"This has been a wake-up call for our country. Social problems that have been festering for decades have exploded in our face," said Cameron, who also faces criticism for plans to cut police spending and for his management of the crisis.
"Now, just as people wanted criminals robustly confronted on our street, so they want to see these problems taken on and defeated. Our security fightback must be matched by a social fightback."
The stakes are high for Cameron. Any repeat of last week's lawlessness, in which shops were smashed up and set on fire and five people were killed in related violence, will sap public confidence in his government.
However, analysts say Cameron, a 44-year-old former public relations executive from a wealthy establishment background, could benefit politically if he provides the tough law and order response some voters are seeking.
Cameron has taken a hard line in rhetoric. His speech on Monday talked of the dangers of indiscipline in schools and family breakdown, succor to traditional Conservatives who feel their young leader has been too liberal on social issues.
At Witney Ecumenical Youth Trust, where Cameron gave his speech, young people stressed the importance of organizations like theirs -- a charity which relies on donations and which almost closed a few months ago.
They fear government cuts, which have meant local councils cutting back on services like youth centers and care for the elderly, could exacerbate social problems.
"If they try to close this place down, there will be a riot," said 19-year-old Jesse Day, who felt the Trust's facilities had helped keep him out of prison. "I would have been banged up by now if it wasn't for them. It's my family."
Opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband said the government had to help young people who felt they would face tougher lives than their parents or grandparents.
"Are issues like education and skills, youth services, youth unemployment, important for diverting people away from gangs, criminality, the wrong path? Yes. They matter," Miliband said in a speech at the London state school where he was educated.
Miliband said a lack of morality was not confined to a "feral underclass" but had also been displayed by risk-taking bankers, legislators who fiddled their expenses and newspaper reporters who hacked into telephones for stories -- all major topics of debate in Britain in the past couple of years.
"When we talk about the sick behavior of those without power, let's also talk about the sick behavior of those with it," he said.
It was a line echoed by Cameron. Politicians are conscious that voters, disillusioned by what many see as a failure to punish bankers they hold responsible for the financial crisis, could take unkindly to being lectured by politicians, many of whom were also embroiled in a 2009 expenses abuse scandal.
Cynicism toward those in power has been further fueled by a phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper, which exposed a cozy relationship between British politicians, the press and police.
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