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”
Tim Duckett
A crowd psychology analysis of the riots http://zite.to/qa2q4F ALL behaviour has meaning.
Serena Snoad
A crowd psychology analysis of the riots http://zite.to/qa2q4F ALL behaviour has meaning.
Garry Ladd
RT @leftfootfwd: A crowd psychology analysis of the riots http://t.co/5pvS9hz
John Green
Clifford,
There is a lot of muddled thinking in your article.
Vicious rioting by mobs intent on creating havoc and destruction is bound to provoke vitriolic debate. I feel very vitriolic.
Unfortunately our society is not “under attack from outsiders hell bent on ‘mindless criminality’”. This series of attacks came from the layer of scum that floats on the surface of our society. The riots were classically copycat in nature. What was witnessed in Tottenham on the first night appealed to scum in other areas who fancied some of the same action. There was nothing “irrational” in this. It was obvious to anyone with a television that the police could not cope and were standing back from intervening. While some pieces of scum were invited by Blackberry messages to participant, the majority saw their opportunity and jumped on their bikes.
There is nothing surprising or significant in the fact that looting mobs go for merchandise with the highest value. It is ever thus. They would be stupid not to.
One aspect of the riots that has disturbed many people is the vicious vindictiveness of those pieces of scum who, having broken into commercial properties and stolen what they lusted after, then ransacked the property and set it alight. They did this because they could and because, to them, it was fun. They wanted to get some “free stuff” as many admitted on camera. They were not “smashing up their own communities”. This scum has no community allegiance except in the context of gangland territorial feuds.
The meaning behind these riots and the contextual issues are as follows:
A) these rioters are the spawn, by and large, of useless parents
B) many have refused to benefit from our educational system and have therefore rendered themselves unemployable
C) they have no respect for any aspect of society
D) they have a keen knowledge of their “rights” and a complete ignorance of their obligations and duties
E) they have an obsession with, and an overwhelming sense of envy for, fame, celebrity, bling and personal possessions
F) most have a belief in a lifestyle built around dropping out of school at an early age and claiming benefits for life, supplimented by crime and often drug-dealing
This is how they earn the sobriquet “scum”.
The “proactive intervention” that you are seeking is taking place at this moment. The very good news is that in excess of 1,600 pieces of scum have been arrested so far. More than half of these have appeared in court and been sentenced or referred to a county court. Some have begun prison sentences and the first evictions from social housing are taking place in Labour boroughs in Wandsworth, Liverpool and Manchester. Convicted students are being thrown out of college and hopefully some of this scum will lose their employment. We can only hope that the rest of the thick layer of scum floating on the surface of our society will take note.
Clifford, please put a little more constructive thought into your future articles.
Jim Thomerson
In the 1960s, in the US Army National Guard, I received riot control training on two occasions in two different Divisions. Basic idea is that you go in in formation and hold formation. It is not individual against individual, but formation against individuals. The purpose is to break up the mob into smaller and smaller groups. The rioters are your friends and neighbors who are temporarily insane. Get them into small groups and they regain their sanity and go home. Perhaps this is the naivety of the ’60s but fortunately I did not have to put it into action.