Antisocial behavior and society’s response to it is kind of my theme for the next few days, largely because I’ve been trying to reflect on the recent riots in England and the British government’s response. Via Matt Yglesias’ blog I found this commentary on Bloomberg by Edward Glaeser. Glaeser argues that large social forces like poverty or anger at the government are not the main reason that riots happen in democratic societies. Rather, the biggest ingredient is simply a large mass of people. The more people you have in an area, the harder it is for authorities to catch any one wrongdoer. So when a crowd gets large enough, like it did in Vancouver at the end of the Stanley Cup Finals, a small number of malcontents will use the larger crowd for cover and start acting out. Once this begins, other people will see an opportunity to act out without consequence and join in. At a certain point you reach a critical mass, lots of people get swept up in the passion, and you have a full scale riot that can only end with a massive deployment of forces to get the numbers back under control.
Toward the end of his article Glaeser points to how the New York police prevented any riots during the 2004 Republican National Convention – they staged mass arrests that got over 1000 people off the streets, and then let those people go. As Glaeser puts it:
But in the case of riots, it is awfully hard to actually prove wrongdoing and extremely important to clear the streets. Arresting widely and temporarily can be far more effective.
If you can’t prove wrongdoing and you’re just trying to clear the streets, it seems clear that you’re going to be arresting people who are doing nothing more than trying to make use of their right to assemble. Is that a price we should pay to avoid the chance of a riot? Benjamin Franklin’s quote about liberty and security starts running through my mind now, and I wonder what the appropriate balance point would be. My gut instinct is to say that I believe you should prepare for the worst, but not assume it. But those preparations may require some restrictions that we should find chafing in a democratic society.