Criminal Justice reflection assignment

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Chapter 8:

CROWD violence

Introduction

Like all violence, mob violence is not something unique to our nation or the modern era.
From ancient times to the present, many societies have confronted the problem of group violence.
Ancient Greek society experienced it so often that Euripides suggested that, “mobs in their emotions are much like children, subject to the same tantrums and fits of fury.”
Rome had so many riots that the emperors resorted to games to keep the mob happy.

Mobs and Crowds

What is the difference between a mob and a crowd?
A crowd is nothing more than a collection of individuals who may or may not share a common purpose, for example, a group waiting in line for a bus, standing in line, or listening to a concert.
Crowds are usually temporary in nature and do not usually act in a unified and singular manner.

Mobs and Crowds

The word mob comes from the Latin mobile vulgus, which literally means “the movable common people” and was meant to refer to the fickleness or inconstancy of the crowd.

Generally speaking, there are three main types of mob violence:
Riots
Lynch mobs
Vigilante groups
All three forms of collective behavior are relatively spontaneous and unplanned (although there are exceptions), and the groups are relatively unorganized.
Riots are the least planned and most spontaneous.
Vigilante groups are the most planned and least spontaneous.

Social Creatures

Because we are social creatures who need to live and work in groups, there is something fundamentally frightening about large groups of people engaging in what is perceived as mindless and excessive brutality.
We need to trust and rely on friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens; we want to feel safe.
Mob violence calls into question our security in these groups.
How can we function within groups when they are potentially so dangerous?

Fears

By their very nature, riots target anybody and anything unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In these situations, no one is safe.
Seemingly rational and reasonable people appear to act irrationally and unreasonably.
But is this an accurate picture?
Do crowds simply “erupt” into violence, or is there something more to it?
Why do some crowds explode into violent behavior while others do not?

Reasons for Violence

Sid Heal has suggested that there are eight specific psychological factors that serve to lower or remove our prohibitions against violent behavior and thus facilitate individual participation in mob violence:

Novelty	Suggestibility
Release	Stimulation
Justification	Conformity
Power	Deindividuation

Typology of Crowds and Mobs

Mob Mentality

Why do people often behave differently in crowds than they do when they are on their own?
Solon, the ancient Greek lawgiver, suggested that Athenians were clever as foxes when minding their own affairs, but as soon as they congregated, they lost their wits.
The playwright Aristophanes also described his fellow Athenians as reasonable old men at home and as fools at the assemblies.

Riots

Federal Criminal Code describes riots as a public disturbance involving:
An act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons, which constitutes a clear present danger of damage or injury
Threats of the commission of an act of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons having the ability to execute such threats

Race Riots

Discontent perceived by some minority groups expressed through rioting and accompanying violence
Exploded in the U.S. consciousness during the 1960s and again in the 1990s
Ultimately about class, too
Tulsa Riot Act of 1921
Los Angeles City Riot of 1992

Lynching

Extralegal execution by a mob
Form of popular justice
Perpetrated against groups that are perceived as threatening some established social order
Blacks weren’t targeted until after the Civil War
Why were Blacks lynched en masse following the start of the Reconstruction Era?
Extralegal social control buttressed by Black codes
Legislative initiatives in the Southern states intended to limit the rights of African Americans
Ku Klux Klan
Established in 1866 to fight Reconstruction efforts

Vigilantism

Organized extralegal movement in which participants take the law into their own hands
Protect the status quo
Applying their own brand of law and justice to outlaws threatening established social order
Efforts made to establish law in an often lawless setting (New Frontier)
Not the same as lynching, which seeks to get around established law

Typologies of Vigilante Groups

Crime-control
Focused on the elimination of crime and deviance
Social group-control
Goal is to keep some population in its place, within the lower levels of class structure
Example: lynch mobs
Regime-control
Effort to control the government if it strays from an acceptable course of action or policy
Contemporary vigilantism
Guardian angels
Sex offender registrant regulation
Individuals who take it upon themselves to deliver their own brand of justice

Conclusions

Mob violence has a long history in the United States.
Lynching of the past takes on new forms in hate-motivated killings to instill a climate of fear and terror among minority groups.

Open-Access Student Resources

· SAGE journal articles

· Multimedia resources

and more at study.sagepub.com/alvarez3e

Alvarez/Bachman, Violence: The Enduring Problem, 3rd Edition