Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, civil strife, or turmoil, are situations where the general populace or some sector of it engages in behaviour outside the norm in the cause of effecting change or reform of government policy, or amelioration of what is perceived as a social ill or inequality. Law enforcement and security forces are often called on to maintain public order, tranquility or normality.[1][2]
Civil disorder includes protests and demonstrations, acts of civil disobedience, and blockades of roads and occupations of buildings. Acts of civil disorder may begin and end peacefully; they may start out peacefully and become violent, sometimes in response to actions taken by law enforcement forces or lack of attention by government officials. In cases such as some riots, they may be violent at their inception.
They may be targeted at garnering attention form the public to draw them onside in a dispute. They may be done in hopes of ratchetting up the level of public fear or uncertainty and disruption of normal life, thus making the status quo untenable or unattractive. They may be unplanned and arise on the spur of the moment and act as a release of pent-up emotion; they may be planned in advance with careful consideration of tactics and the goal in mind.
Causes
Various things may cause civil disorder. Sometimes there is a single cause; sometimes a combination of multiple causes. Mostly civil disorder arises from political grievances (such as opposition to an oppressive or authoritarian state), feeling of victimization due to economic inequality or disparities]], or other form of social discord. Historically many incidences of civil disorder have been the result of long-standing oppression by a group of people over another group. Civil disorder has in history arisen from economic disputes, political disagreements (such as opposition to oppressive or tyrannical government forces), religious disagreements, racial oppression and social discord arising from poverty or lack of opportunity.
Incidences of civil disorder arising from political grievances include a variety of events, ranging from a simple protest to mass civil disobedience or acts of violence. These events are sometimes spontaneous and sometimes planned. Even if they start out peaceful, They events may turn violent especially if participants and law enforcers overreact to each others actions.
radicals may Exploiting a crowd's angry mood and manipulate and weaponize a crowd, using agitation to coax the crowd into violence and turn it into a vengeful mob, then directing the mob's aggression and resentment at the agitator's chosen target.[1]
Agitators can use media, including social media, to connect with potential crowd members and incite them to break the law or provoke others, without personal contact. Conversely, a leader may calm or divert a crowd using strategic suggestions, commands, or appeals to reason, and de-escalate a potential-harmful situation.[1]
Emotional contagion plays a significant role in crowd behaviour by fostering a sense of unity among its members. This unity may lead the crowd to adopt a mob mentality and engage in mob behaviour. Crowd members may amplify each other's emotions and create a heightened state of collective emotion. Ideas may spread among the group and to bystanders, observers, and mass media.[1]
When emotional contagion prevails when raw emotion is strong and self-discipline or group discipline is weak. Personal prejudices and unsatisfied desires – usually restrained – may be unabashedly released.[1] This incentivizes crowd membership, as the crowd provides cover for individuals to do things they have wanted to do but would not dare try to do alone. The desire to act out may become greater for the crowd than its concern for law and authority, leading to unlawful and disruptive acts. A crowd thus excited may effectively becomes a mob and act in emotional, unreasonable, potentially violent ways.[1]
Behavior
Crowd behavior is the emotional needs, fears, and prejudices of the crowd members.[1] It is driven by social factors such as the strength, or weakness, of leadership, moral perspective, or community uniformity, and also by psychological factors of suggestion e.g. imitation, anonymity, impersonality, emotional release, emotional contagion, panic, etc.[1]
During civil disorder, any crowd can be a threat to law enforcers because it is open to manipulation. This is because the behavior of a crowd is under the direction of the majority of its members. While its members are usually inclined to obey the law, emotional stimuli, and the feeling of fearlessness that arises from being in a crowd, can cause crowd members to indulge in impulses, act on aggressions, and unleash rage. When law enforcement limits the full realization of these actions, the crowd will channel this hostility elsewhere, making the crowd a hostile and unpredictable threat to law enforcers.[1]
Crowds want to be directed, and can become frustrated by confusion and uncertainty; therefore, leadership can have a profound influence on the intensity and conduct of a crowd's behavior.[1] The first person to authoritatively direct a crowd will likely be followed. Opportunity for radicals to take charge of a group emerge when no authoritative voice emerges, and the crowd becomes frustrated without direction.
Panic, which is extremely and quickly contagious, also affects crowd behavior by influencing their ability to reason, lending to frantic, irrational behavior that can not only endanger the crowd, but also others.[1] During civil disorder, panic can set in when a crowd member realizes –
They are in danger and fleeing is necessary to escape arrest or harm
Few escape routes exist
The few escape routes are congested with traffic
Their actions have caused harm to others
When they have not dispersed the scene quickly enough, that their life, or freedom, is at risk from encroaching law enforcement agents[1]
A goal of violent demonstrators is to spur law enforcers to take action that can be exploited as acts of brutality in order to generate sympathy for their cause, and/or to anger and demoralize the opposition.[1] Crowds can use a range of tactics to evade law enforcement or to promote disorder, from verbal assault to distracting law enforcers to building barricades.
Well-planned tactics may create more effective protest or disruption of normal life. For example, crowds may form human blockades to shut down roads; they may trespass on government or private property; they may incite mass arrests; they may handcuff themselves to things or to each other. They may lock arms, making it more difficult to separate them apart. They might create confusion or diversions through sti-ins or occupations. They engage in criminal acts such as rock throwing, arson, or terrorist acts.
In response to any of these activities, law enforcement personnel may respond forcefully or with excessive force, whci is harmful to the protestors but also the prestige of the force involved. The balance of these opposite effects is in part determined by the tone of the media coverage.[1] If law enforcement responds to an armed mob, by returning fire, innocent civilians killed or wounded in the chaos and cross-fire may make law enforcement look undisciplined and oppressive.[1]
Most participants of civil disorder engage on foot. However, organized efforts may use vehicles, wireless communication, drones and other devices.[1]
Participants have been known to use scanners to monitor police frequencies or transmitters to learn of, respond to or sabotage law enforcement communications or actions.[1]
If a crowd turns violent, effectively becoming a "mob," it may execute physical attacks on people and property, such as by throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks, bottles, or other primitive projectiles, firing small arms, and exploding improvised explosive devices.[1] A crowd may resort to throwing rocks, bricks, bottles, etc. If violence is pre-arranged, the crowd may hide their weapons or vandalism tools in advance of the crowd formation, potentially catching law enforcement forces by surprise.[1]
A mob may erect barricades to impede, or prevent, the effectiveness of law enforcement. For example, they may use grappling hooks, chains, rope, or vehicles to breach gates or fences.[1] They may use sticks or poles to limit law enforcement's use of billy clubs and bayonets.[1] They may set on fire or overturn vehicles to impede troops advancing to engage them, and may vandalize law enforcement vehicles to try to spark over-reaction from law enforcement or incite further lawlessness from the mob.[1]
Mobs often employ fire, smoke, or hidden explosive devices e.g. bombs strapped to animals, masked in cigarette lighters or toys, or rigged to directed vehicles.[1] These devices can be be used to create confusion or diversion, and can also be used to destroy property, mask looting by mob participants, or provide cover for mob participants firing weapons at law enforcement.[1]
According to the U.S. Code, a person is engaged in civil disorder if he or she -
(1)"...teaches or demonstrates to any other person the use, application, or making of any firearm or explosive or incendiary device, or technique capable of causing injury or death to persons, knowing or having reason to know or intending that the same will be unlawfully employed for use in, or in furtherance of, a civil disorder which may in any way or degree obstruct, delay, or adversely affect commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce or the conduct or performance of any federally protected function; or...
(2)...transports or manufactures for transportation in commerce any firearm, or explosive or incendiary device, knowing or having reason to know or intending that the same will be used unlawfully in furtherance of a civil disorder; or...
(3)...commits or attempts to commit any act to obstruct, impede, or interfere with any fireman or law enforcement officer lawfully engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties incident to and during the commission of a civil disorder which in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or adversely affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce or the conduct or performance of any federally protected function."[3]
Like mob participants, law enforcers are also susceptible to crowd behavior. Such tense confrontation can emotionally stimulate them, creating a highly emotional atmosphere all around.[1] This emotional stimulation can become infectious throughout law enforcement agents, conflicting with their disciplined training.
When emotional tension is high among law enforcement agents, they may breach their feeling of restraint and commit acts, against people in the mob, that they normally would suppress.[1] The emotional atmosphere can also make them highly susceptible to rumors and fear.[1]
Like mob members, law enforcement agents, acting as a group, can also lose their sense of individuality and develop a feeling of anonymity.[1] Under emotional instability, individual prejudices, that any individual law enforcement agent may harbor against the mob, or against individual participants of the mob, may influence the behavior of the law enforcement agent.[1] Like the mob, these conditions make law enforcement actors more likely to imitate the behavior of each other, which can result in a chain of biased, excessive, or otherwise, dangerous, behavior in which law enforcement agents act upon mob agents as impersonal threats and not as human beings.[1] Such action is heightened in which law enforcement agents are monolithic, across race and ethnicity, as law enforcement will become more susceptible to framing the disorder as a confrontation between "them" and "us."[1]
Actions by law enforcement agents are often used as evidence against their ill will toward a crowd, with their behavior seen as further inflaming confrontation rather than reducing it.[1] However, in such situations, law enforcement agents may not be held accountable for all their actions.[1][4]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
