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The Nature and Control of Hostile Crowds*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

W. A. Westley
W. A. Westley*
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Extract

This paper is an appraisal of the theory of crowds from the perspective of a study of how metropolitan police see and control them. Students of the behaviour of crowds have commented on the almost complete absence of empirical studies and of the consequent highly speculative nature of the major theories. To a great extent this state of affairs is a result of the difficulty of studying crowds, which are unpredictable in appearance, and formidable to study when identified. Furthermore, owing to the highly dramatic nature of the phenomenon, the usual secondary sources, both journalistic and historical, are quite unreliable.

A study of how the police see and control crowds obviates some of these difficulties. Individual policemen have recurrent experiences with most types of crowds. To control them they must make some appraisal of their origin, nature, and organization. The success or failure of the tactics they adopt functions as a test of their appraisal. The researcher, interviewing these policemen, is able to apply the test of consistency, and to check the most frequently recurrent statements against those of policemen with a great reputation for being able to control crowds. All the points presented in this paper have been validated in this way.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 1957 , pp. 33 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1957

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Montreal, June 7, 1956. It reports part of a larger study of the methods of controlling crowds, made under contract with the Defence Research Board, for the Civil Defence Co-ordinator, in the summer of 1955. See W. A. Westley, The Formation, Nature and Control of Crowds (Ottawa: Defence Research Board, Directorate of Atomic Research, 1956), Project no. D47-94-70-03 D.R.B. Contract HQ/Dev 36.

References

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