The criticalness to concentrate on fierce unrests and, all the more thus, how they are (or ought to be) handled by the police, strengthened during the 1970s after the world saw a ruthless series of uproars in the mid-and late 1960s. These riots resulted in the deaths of many protesters.
Until the 1960s, the police’s most common strategy was to stand in front of the protesters, fire tear gas at the slightest provocation, then charge at them with batons and smash into them. The intention was to instill a sense of dread and fear in the protesters. This frequently resulted in multiple injuries and even fatalities. Also, these were “bad optics” for an organization that wanted to be seen as a legitimate force fighting for peace and order.
As a result, the majority of people and the media began to view the police in most countries as a symbol of brutality during and shortly after the 1960s. As images of police beating protesters became commonplace on television and in newspapers, it quickly lost any remaining support.
Over the course of the next three decades, a variety of new “crowd control” strategies were developed, despite the fact that police departments all over the world claim to have become more prone to becoming “aggressors” in such encounters and are now better equipped to manage and contain riots without causing casualties. Be that as it may, this generally occurred in Europe and the US; In dictatorships in Asia, Africa, and South America, old strategies to subdue rioters and protesters continued.
During protests, deaths and serious injuries remained common in these areas, as did the police’s reputation as a “brutal force.” Notwithstanding, things started to some degree change in these locales too from the 1990s onwards.
So, what new strategies were used?
In the United States, a “Broken Window Theory” from 1982 was one of the most well-known of these. Because ignoring a broken window will undoubtedly result in the emergence of much larger issues, the theory was dubbed the “Broken Window Theory.” Major crimes and widespread violence could be avoided, according to this theory, if minor offenses were punished rather than ignored or dealt with lightly.
The argument went that by doing this, society’s violent and criminal tendencies would be controlled and a law-abiding environment would be created. Additionally, this theory proposed that protests continue to be peaceful in environments where people adhere to the law. In 1990, the New York police put the theory into practice for the first time. It was also used in varying degrees in some European nations. However, it before long started to draw in analysis for having racial and class predispositions.
Second, its “achievements” were criticized because they were based on outcomes whose origins were unrelated to the Broken Window applications’ policies. Then there was the “faulty assumption” that political unrest and the severity of crime were linked.
But there was the “negotiated management” strategy before the “Broken Window” policies started to be seen as preventative measures based on hypotheses that turned out to be mostly wrong. In this, the public authority urged dissenters to haggle with the police in setting specific principles of commitment and the courses the dissidents were to take to stay away from brutality. However, most protesters frequently violate such agreements. As a result, the police resume taking more severe measures.
In an effort to contain the more severe consequences of riots, police forces developed two additional strategies in the 2000s and 2010. In the first, police troops face the nonconformists as layered developments, with left and right flanks, and a front and a middle. Along these lines, the soldiers can watch out for the nonconformists from different points and act from numerous sides. Additionally, this strategy provides strategic exit points for protesters who wish to leave the demonstration.
Then there is what M Christopher, a professor at the US Army War College, refers to as “command and control,” a strategy in which the police disperse small groups of people before they can form a mob. Physical barriers also prevent the gathering from happening.
