The difficulty we are faced with, as a society in the context of a ‘politics of riot’, is that meaningful dialogue to address this important question is almost impossible.
By Clifford Stott, senior lecturer in crowd psychology at the University of Liverpool, and chief scientific officer for pan-European football police training project
How did a peaceful protest on Saturday evening escalate to the serious rioting over consecutive nights on a scale not witnessed since the ‘inner city’ riots of the 1980s?
The difficulty we are faced with, as a society in the context of a ‘politics of riot’, is that meaningful dialogue to address this important question is almost impossible.
What dominates at present are vitriolic debates loaded with moral indignation that are as much about pathologising crowd action, attributing blame and denying responsibility as they are about truth and objectivity.
If the political discourse is anything to go by our society is under attack from ‘outsiders’ hell bent on ‘mindless criminality’ from whom we need protection through robust policing.
The spread of this ‘disorder’ to other areas such as Hackney, Peckham and Croydon is described as ‘copycat’; a notion that conveys that people are drawn into the looting and attacks not because of any meaningful processes but simply because they have seen these things going on.
Another feature that is a focus of media analysis is the potentially negative role played by the Blackberry mobile phone and its unique ‘closed’ and relatively anonymizing mass messaging system.
But this transition from peaceful to riotous crowds is, of course, one of the fundamental questions of crowd psychology.
In addressing it over the last thirty years my colleagues and I have made some important advances in scientific understanding of how and why riots come about.
Of central importance is that we know that ‘riots’ cannot be understood as an explosion of ‘mob ‘irrationality’. Nor can they be adequately explained in terms of individuals predisposed to criminality by nature of their pathological disposition.
The behavior of these people in smashing up their ‘own communities’ may seem irrational to some but to the ‘rioters’ themselves these targets are highly meaningful. These meanings in turn always relate to their sense of themselves as a social group and of the illegitimacy of their relationship to others around them.
In this respect it is highly meaningful that these riots began in a context of the shooting of Mark Duggan. This incident represented for many within his community the ongoing antagonistic relationship they have with the Metropolitan Police that fed into the social and psychological dynamics of the events on Saturday night.
It is highly relevant that in the context of these riots people have taken the emerging opportunity to target shops selling high-end electrical goods, clothes and jewelry.
In this age of austerity, such items are becoming increasingly unobtainable to ever-larger sections of the working class and it should not be surprising that some are using the riots as an opportunity to obtain them.
To render crowd action as meaningful and driven to a large degree by contextual issues is not to act as an apologist for these riots. Nor is it to accept as legitimate the attacks against ordinary working people, businesses, homes and families.
In fact our work has played an important role in developing policing methods that prevent riots from happening. Our science also underpins many of the recent recommendations made by the HMIC following the death of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests.
These approaches do not rely on the reactive use of force. Instead they prioritize proactive interventions based upon dialogue as a means for building and maintaining police legitimacy.
Our argument then is that to render the riots meaningless is actually to deny the opportunity that we must take to understand them if we are to take the appropriate measures that will prevent them in the future.
153 Responses to “A crowd psychology analysis of the riots”
Ed's Talking Balls
‘In this age of austerity, such items are becoming increasingly unobtainable to ever-larger sections of the working class and it should not be surprising that some are using the riots as an opportunity to obtain them.’
The working classes may well struggle to buy some of these luxury items. That is the nature of our society: some people can afford things others can’t. The solution isn’t to take the immature and utterly outrageous attitude that, somehow, you are entitled to something simply because others have it and that you will stop at nothing to get your greedy mitts on said item.
You want a plasma TV? Work for it and save up. That’s what the rest of us do.
And no matter how hard most of us work, we’ll never be able to afford a house like Bill Gates. Does that mean we have a right to rob him? No. The middle classes can’t afford yachts and Caribbean islands and I’m sure many of us desire such things. This is the real world, not some fairytale (a point made excruciatingly clear due to the actions of selfish individuals who make others’ lives harder than they already were).
Grow up. Life’s unfair. Those of us who were brought up rather than dragged up had that harsh but important lesson instilled in us from a very young age.
Leon Wolfson
I do, of course. But the duty of government is not to only look to the short term. Unless they take appropriate action – which does NOT mean punishing the poor – and in short order, this will happen again.
It’s no theory, sadly, but backed by evidence from dozens of countries civil unrest. You’ll just blame the poor and call for more crackdowns every time though, a typically monomaniac response, devoid of leadership.
Oh, and the Tories called for less bank regulation. So you have no grounds to stand on, as usual.
Khephra Maley
A crowd psychology analysis of the riots – http://j.mp/pSNKWt [ #uk #news #sociology #anthropos ]
vaL Aguirre
Una pequeña nota de la psicología de masas respecto a las protestas en Londres: http://t.co/osTBeu6
Anon E Mouse
Ed’s Talking Balls – The problem is the Labour Party was only elected by Middle England whilst Tony Blair was leader and because they have lost Scotland to the SNP they are now desperate for votes.
Realising that the working classes would sooner vote for a monkey than the current Labour MP’s they are stuck and so have to start trawling for supporters amongst the real underclass.
Labour will always have zombies like Leon Wolfson – literate but not clever but they won’t win elections for them – there just isn’t enough of his type available so off they go looking for votes.
This rioting has occurred because Labour has pandered to the underclass and tries to convince them that they have rights to things and that they are victims. Social Workers now have “Service Users” and we now have a “Police Service” and not a “Force”. It is small wonder with the message Labour has sent out for the last decade that these feral criminals behave like this.
If people are poor then they cannot afford things that people who are not poor have. In the old days when Labour represented the Working Classes they would have encouraged people to get jobs, night school whatever, to better themselves but now they just bribe them to stay workless.
And to do the jobs these people should be doing they import foreigners which is straight forwardly racist to me. To have a foreigner cleaning the streets or flipping burgers to pay taxes to allow Brits to sit on their arses doing nothing and getting bored is madness.
Labour needs to reboot the party ASAP. It needs a complete rethink but under the current leadership there is no way it will happen.
Labour needs more Frank Fields and Charles Clarkes and less lying supporters like matthew fox and Leon Wolfson – those excuse merchants just put people off…