alarmist story by BBC about plastic bullets

The BBC has put out a rather sensationalist story about the the upcoming student demo in London on Nov 9th,  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15625213) using the headline;

'London tuition fees protest: Rubber bullets 'available'

In it they state the Metropolitan Police are prepared to use rubber bullets (or baton rounds) in 'cases of "extreme" disorder' at tomorrow's demo, and then they interview a Green party member of the Greater London Assembly who is appalled and denounces such a plan. This seems to me a bit of a non-story. The Metropolitan Police (and other regional forces) have had officers who are trained in the use of baton rounds for at least the last 30 years, and it would seem likely that they always have such officers on stand by to use in emergencies if ever needed. It doesn't mean that they will be deployed specifically on tomorrow's demo, or that they are likely to be used.

Baton rounds have not so far being used on the Mainland UK in public order situations (they are used quite frequently in Northern Ireland though). As far as I am aware, the closest that the Police in England have come to using such weapons was during the 1985 Broadwater farm riot in Tottenham, London, when officers with baton rounds were deployed with orders to fire if necesary, because a Police officer (PC Keith Blakelock) had been killed during the disturbances. However, thankfully they did not end up opening fire, as the officers deployed did not consider it necessary.

Therefore, while I personally think that the chances of the Police using baton rounds tomorrow against unarmed student protestors are minimal to non-existent ( I sincerely hope I am not proved wrong!), I don't think stories like this are particularly helpful, as such rhetoric merely raises the stakes, decreases trust between the two sides, and makes collective disorder more, not less likely.

Beware of pop psychology!

A recent TV programme on the UK's Channel 4 by Derren Brown claimed to be doing an experiment that helps show why people become 'de-individuated' in riots and do bad things. Needless to say it's a load of pop psychology rubbish based on out-dated theories that are completely rejected by current crowd psychologists. I had hoped that Derren might know better, as he has previously cited work that we have done on crowd behaviour, but why let current scientific evidence get in the way of TV ratings!

Some colleagues have done an excellent response to this awful programme, which is available at;

http://crowdpsych.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/derren-brown%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98crowd-experiment%E2%80%99-a-response-from-two-social-psychologists/#comments

Or
http://nirmukta.com/2011/11/07/derren-brown%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98crowd-experiment%E2%80%99-a-response-from-two-social-psychologists/

we don't need no education!

I saw in the news recently that Charlie Gilmour (Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd's adopted son) lost his appeal against his 16 month jail sentence for violent disorder during the tuition fee protests last year-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15490830

In it Lord Justice Hughes who rejected the appeal said: "It is an unavoidable feature of mass disorder that each individual act, whatever might be its character taken on its own, inflames and encourages others to behave similarly, and that the harm done to the public stems from the combined effect of what is done en masse"

On what scientifc basis is this statement founded?!

It seems to me that it might be useful if the legal system paid a bit more attention to current evidence on crowd behaviour, as  m'learned friend is quite simply wrong in his above claim that individual acts will inevitably incite others during mass disorder. If that was the case, why don't people listen to someone standing up and telling everyone to stop rioting and go home?! In the specific case of Charlie Gilmour, I've come accross evidence that while he was doing some pretty dumb things on the day (I understand he claimed in mitigation that he was off his head on mind-altering substances), far from inciting the crowd to act the same way, it seems that others did not join in (there's no footage of anyone else swinging off the cenotaph!), and some people even intervened and told him to stop being an idiot. The whole idea of crowds as a gullible mass that are easily incited into doing crazy things is a load of rubbish & it winds me up that people are allowed to peddle this myth without being challenged. Over 30 years' worth of research by crowd psychologists in the UK has found that by far the best way to incite crowds into mass disorder, is for the Police to use indiscriminate public order tactics (kettling, baton charges etc), and in the fall-out from the riots in August, the Police are now openly discussing using water cannon in mainland UK.

I am no apologist for the actions of Charlie Gilmour, but to say that he deserves 16 months in prison based on a fundamentally flawed assumption of how crowds behave seems a little disproportionate to say the least!
 

Al Jazeera interview about England riots

Just found an on-line link to an interview I did in August while the England riots were in full swing. Bit of an odd experience, as I was sitting alone in the Al Jazeera studio in Hyde Park Corner talking to someone in Doha that I couldn't see. This may explain why my gaze looks a bit shifty as I didn't know where to look. I think it went OK apart from me going on about 'spending cats', and moving a bit too much in my chair- maybe that's why they never paid me the $150 appearance fee they'd promised! 
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=16424

scientists' research misused

Just seen an excellent article in the Guardian written by scientists from Cardiff University complaining about how some research they did into impulsivity got mis-reported by the tabloid press as explaining why people got involved in the recent riots (something they never claimed). It's vital that the Press accurately report scientific findings, as otherwise public confidence in research could be fatally undermined if they are pilloried for things that they do not say 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/22/riot-control-newspapers-distorting-science

Web cam of seminar

I attended a  seminar this summer organised by The Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute at London Metropolitan University on 'Policing and protest in an age of austerity', with Sir Hugh Orde (head of ACPO), human rights lawyers, and activists on the panel. It was recently put on YouTube, and a link to it follows below.  I manage to get my tuppence worth in about 1 hr 23.45 into it, if you can't bear to watch the whole thing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOywWpsaOdQ

Riots not incited by Twitter shock!

Some rather interesting & welcome news from the Guardian today in a study of over 2.5million tweets put out during the recent riots. While there is some anecdotal evidence of people encouraging others to meet up and misbehave via Twitter, Blackberry & Facebook etc, the vast majority of social media traffic seems to have come from people trying to follow events as they were worried about what was going on, or trying to discourage others from rioting. Riots happened before we had mobile phones and so we should be careful not to overstate their significance in simplistic attempts to explain complex social processes!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/24/riots-database-twitter-interaction