Riots

Riots have been a feature of countries throughout the world since history began. There are, of course, legal definitions for riot, but they are more appropriate to criminal prosecutions than to providing a working definition. Riots are generally regarded as occurring when large numbers of people are involved in violence, over a considerable period, that includes breaking into premises (including in some cases setting fire to them), looting, and attacks on law enforcement officers. In the United States, a riot is likely to result in the deployment of the National Guard and other federal forces in addition to the normal law enforcement agencies of the area in which it takes place. Elsewhere, it will involve the deployment of either a third force, such as the Compagnies Republicaines de Securite (CRS) in France, or, as in the United Kingdom, squads of law enforcement officers who have received specialist training in handling riots.

The causes of riots are many and varied but can broadly be divided into eight categories. They can occur as follows:

• 1.
  During protest meetings or processions where people are demanding economic (including that associated with food shortages), social, or political reform, or protesting against actions either proposed or taken by their own government, or protesting against the actions of a foreign regime, for example, Seattle in 1999.
• 2.
  In prisons when those incarcerated are either protesting about the conditions in which they are detained or because they have some other kind of grievance against the prison regime, for example, the Apodaca prison riot in Mexico in 2012.
• 3.
  During industrial disputes where employees are in dispute with their employer(s), or some employees are working while others are on strike, or employees, having gone on strike, have been permanently replaced by others.
• 4.
  At political meetings or processions where one group of people is opposed by a group with contrary views, such as fascists and antifascists, for example, those that occurred in the United Kingdom in the 1930s and 1970s, and Germany, particularly since reunification.
• 5.
  As a result of disorder where a section of the community confronts the forces of law and order, often referred to as “urban riots,” for example, Los Angeles in 1992.
• 6.
  During what is commonly referred to as “race riots,” in which people from one or more of the ethnic communities are [Page 833]confronted by a section of the indigenous population, for example, Notting Hill, London in 1958, and those that swept the United States between 1963 and 1967.
• 7.
  As a result of clashes during which people of one religious persuasion are confronted by those of another religious persuasion, for example, Gujarat, India, in 2002.
• 8.
  In association with sporting events where groups of supporters from opposing teams confront each other, for example, Brussels in 1985, or go on a rampage after their team has lost an important game or, on some occasions, won an important game, for example, Vancouver, Canada, in 2011.

Riots in countries that tend to be ruled by dictators are often brutally put down by law enforcement agencies and sometimes the military. In a liberal democracy, however, there tend to be a number of principles that the law enforcement agencies ignore at their peril. Preventive deployment, that is, the deployment of law enforcement officers in such a way that it stops large crowds from assembling, was introduced in the United Kingdom in the early years following the formation of the Metropolitan Police in London in 1829, when dealing with the Ultra-Radicals and the Chartists. In those early years, the police quickly learned that the wisest use of manpower was always to prevent violence from breaking out, rather than to suppress it after it had done so.

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