CIVIL DISTURBANCES

In a civil disturbance environment, any crowd represents a threat to law and order because a crowd can be easily manipulated by skillful agitators and create a capacity for violence.

Collective behavior as it relates to civil disturbances is characterized by the following situations:

l Curious bystanders and sympathetic onlookers join forces with activist groups and individuals.

l Crowds that are normally peaceful become irrational mobs as behavior factors take hold.

l Skillful leaders, through various techniques, agitate and incite crowds into irrational action.

l Crowds demonstrate grievances by transferring aggression from social or economic problems to some group or individual, who becomes an object of hostility.

Remember, in order to successfully accomplish civil disturbance control, you must have an understanding of collective behavior and the patterns of disorder involved. The psychological influences on collective behavior are also a factor.

PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR

LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Identify and explain five psychological influences on collective behavior. Describe how these influences affect both group and control force behavior.

Psychological influences contribute to the irrational extremes of behavior in groups, and control force members are also affected by these same factors. These influences must be considered in planning and training for a disturbance, and in control and supervision after arriving at the disturbance site. Anonymity, impersonality, suggestion and imitation, emotional contagion, and release from repressed emotions are the psychological influences to be considered.

ANONYMITY

Crowds are anonymous because they are large and most often temporary. A crowd member acts with a sense of safety, feeling a part of a faceless mass. The

individual acts without conscience, thinking that moral responsibility has been shifted to the crowd.

The size of the control force and the nature of interaction with the dissidents may remove the sense of individual responsibility from control force personnel as well. This feeling of anonymity may also cause a control force member to commit acts normally suppressed. The commander must assure that supervisors instruct the control force so that these anonymous feelings are prevented. Every leader should know each member of the control force by name, and address each by name at every opportunity.

IMPERSONALITY

Collective behavior is impersonal. In a race riot, for example, individual distinctions are not made. Each member of a certain race or ethnic group is considered to be as good or bad as other members of the same race or ethnic group.

Impersonality affects members of the control force in the same manner it affects the crowd. It could cause the control force to respond to a situation inappropriately because the response would be based on who was involved rather than on what took place. Racial and ethnic balance within the control force itself can help stem impersonality, as can an understanding of the people involved in the disturbance.

SUGGESTION AND IMITATION

A large number of people in a disturbance discourages individual behavior and makes individuals act readily to suggestion. The urge to do what others do is a strong instinct; they look to others for cues and disregard personal background and training. Only individuals with strong convictions can resist the compulsion to conform to the group.

In the confrontation environment, control force personnel also are susceptible to suggestion, and may imitate the actions of others. In such a situation, one improper action may be imitated by others in the control force and cause a broad reaction that may be inappropriate to the situation.

EMOTIONAL CONTAGION

The most dramatic psychological factor in crowd behavior is emotional contagion. Excitement is transmitted from one person to another and a high state of collective emotion builds up. Ideas conceived by the leaders and dominant members of the crowd are rapidly passed from person to person. These ideas and general mood of the crowd sweep to bystanders and curiosity

seekers who are caught in the wave of excitement and crowd action. Emotional contagion is especially significant in a civil disturbance environment for the following reasons:

Emotional contagion provides the crowd with

psychological unity. This unity is based on common emotional responses and is usually temporary, but it may be the only momentum a crowd needs to turn to mob action.

When emotional contagion prevails, self-discipline is usually low. Individuals disregard normal controls and give way to raw emotions.

Emotional contagion exceeds the bounds of personal contact. Crowds can also be stimulated by television, radio, and the print media.

Emotional contagion narrows the field of consciousness and diminishes the critical thinking ability of the control force, as well as that of the crowd. Control force personnel are apt to be emotionally stimulated and be affected by rumor and fear because of the tension in the confrontation environment. When the control force is affected by this tension factor, self-discipline tends to be low and the individual may feel free of normal restraints. Supervisors must be cognizant of this factor and be prepared to take appropriate action to counteract its effects.