Kozlowski: The riot policeman’s dilemma

Why do people decide to riot? And what is the proper response by authorities?

Both of these… Why do people decide to riot? And what is the proper response by authorities?

Both of these questions are easy to answer in a totalitarian regime. People are rioting because they don’t like how things are going. The authorities, without the rule of law and respect for human rights to restrain them, respond in the most heavy-handed manner possible.

However, when it comes to the recent riots in a Western democracy such as the United Kingdom, both of these questions have complex answers. Depending on whom you ask, you’ll hear that the riots were caused by anything from frustration at government benefit cuts to rage at income inequality, the shooting death of a resident, the breakdown of the family or general moral degeneration. The response from police has been roundly bashed by those who saw the bobbies unable to control four nights of mayhem.

I have experienced four riots here in Oakland: when the Phillies won the World Series; when the Steelers won the AFC and then the Super Bowl, and the G-20 conference. Although I’m not anything more than an armchair psychologist, I noticed a few things about the behavior of crowds that might help analyze the trouble in England.

The most important thing to recognize about a mob — especially an angry one — is that it is mostly disorganized and mostly does nothing. Most of those caught up in the G-20 were out on Forbes because they heard something was going on and didn’t want to miss the excitement. Second, riots easily deviate from their supposed purpose. During one of the Steelers riots, although there was much waving of Terrible Towels, I noted that a couple of enterprising gentlemen had no luck selling commemorative Super Bowl T-shirts. Though much of the crowd members were wearing Steelers gear, a lot of them weren’t. And there is no explanation as to why smashing street signs, destroying a bus stop, breaking windows and bending parking meters has anything to do with a football game.

Now consider the mayhem in England. The explanation that the riots were caused by government austerity is preposterous. The cuts to government benefits were proposed months ago, but have yet to take effect. Furthermore, the targets of the rioters — high-end shops with plenty of valuable stuff to steal — are not consistent with an anti-austerity narrative. Shops are not the primary targets of political protesters who dislike what the government is doing to them. If the mob  focused on coherent political objectives, we would see more damage to structures visibly associated with government, such as party headquarters and police stations. Indeed, when protesters were explicitly protesting austerity measures months ago, they saved their most destructive impulses for the headquarters of the Conservative Party.

So why did the rioters cause so much mayhem? Because they could. The benefits to joining in the riots, such as shopping without the hassle of having to pay, outweighed the consequences of unlikely arrest. Once in a mob, a person feels a sense of invulnerability. With protesters doing illegal things right and left, odds are not all of them are going to get caught. The rioters’ thought process turns to: why not do something illegal ourselves?

Now that we understand the rioters, we have to understand the impossible position of the police. Compare the English riots to our G-20 riots. During that “crowd-control incident,” the police were not at all squeamish about the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, sonic weapons, truncheons or mass arrests against rioters, bystanders or reporters. Although there was widespread and justifiable outrage about violations of civil rights expressed in this paper and elsewhere, you have to admit that property damage was minimal.Anarchist websites are only boasting about $50,000 in damages, and there were only about 200 arrests. The numbers compare quite favorably to more than 500 arrests and at least $750,000 in damages incurred when Toronto hosted the same event.

In a Western society which values civil liberties, the police cannot win. If the cops during the G-20 had exercised more restraint in exchange for more damage, we would have heard a chorus of complaints about how the cops let anarchists loose on the streets. If the police in London had immediately turned to rubber bullets, tear gas, stun guns and water cannons, there would have been weeks if not months of editorials about how the police are a bunch of Nazis.

Is there a happy medium between too much force and too little? Maybe. But can that happy medium be found in the heat of the moment? Even with the benefit of years of hindsight, nobody knows the exact amount of force that would have been needed to keep Oakland peaceful during the G-20 and Steelers riots. This is not to say that the police shouldn’t be held accountable when abuses occur — they should. It’s just to say that the answer as to why people rioted so viciously in Britain is simple — because they could — and the answer as to what the correct response from the police should have been is complicated and unknowable.

Write kozthought@gmail.com.