Policing the Coronavirus Outbreak: Processes and Prospects for Collective Disorder - Oxford Academic Journals
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569
Commentary
Policing the Coronavirus Outbreak:
Processes and Prospects for Collective
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Disorder
Stephen Reicher* and Clifford Stott **
Abstract This briefing is divided into three parts. First, we outline the factors which lead to incidents of collective
disorder (or riots). Secondly, we consider how the overall response to the coronavirus outbreak and the role of the
police within this response will impact the probability of such disorder. Thirdly, we apply these understandings to
three specific scenarios of potential disorder.
How riots start of grievance (e.g. government, army, and po-
lice). Rioting requires a ‘them’ to target.
Contrary to common opinion, riots rarely start
simply because people are frustrated or because It is important to stress that these conditions do
they do not get what they want or need. Rather, not necessarily pre-exist riots. They can develop
contemporary research suggests (Thompson, 1971; during collective events, especially where the inter-
Reicher and Stott, 2011) that three factors are ne- vention of authority is seen as indiscriminate and
cessary to create the potential for major rioting: excessive, particularly if it involves the use of force
First, it is necessary for people to develop a by police (HMIC, 2009).
It is equally important to recognize that, even
sense of illegitimacy and grievance: that is,
when these three conditions are in place, it is not that
something they experience as being done or
any confrontational incident will generate widespread
denied to them by another group unjustifiably.
conflict (as implied by the familiar metaphor of ‘tin-
Secondly, this grievance relates to an ‘ingroup’
der’ and ‘spark’). Rather the incident is precipitating
which people belong to psychologically (e.g. because it encapsulates a more generalized sense of
neighbourhood, community, class, and ethnic ‘our’ grievances against ‘them’ (Stott et al., 2017).
grouping). Rioting stems from what is happen- It follows from this, that avoiding the possibility
ing to ‘us’. of riots during the coronavirus outbreak requires
Thirdly, it is necessary to be able to identify an an understanding of both (a) the general way in
agent—or outgroup—who is seen as the source which people represent and understand what
*Wardlaw Professor of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, St Andrews, UK. Email: sdr@st-andrews.ac.uk
**Professor of Psychology, University of Keele, Keele, UK. Email: c.stott@keele.a.cuk
Advance Access publication: 19 April 2020
Policing, Volume 14, Number 3, pp. 569–573
doi:10.1093/police/paaa014
C The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
V
For permissions please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com570 Policing Commentary S. Reicher and C. Stott
groups are involved and the relations between with policies oriented to securing the overall
these groups and (b) the ways in which specific sit- good of the community and with prioritization
uations involving these groups are handled by the of resources towards the most socially vulnerable
authorities. (e.g. those less able to secure access to health
care, those less able to self-isolate, those most at
risk from infection).
When seen in such terms, both evidence and
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‘Us’ and ‘them’ in the coronavirus
theory suggest that people will be more willing to
outbreak accept the actions of the authorities as ‘procedur-
A core risk factor governing the emergence of so- ally fair’, even if the outcome of these actions
cial tension/conflict during the outbreak of Covid- means that some will experience negative out-
19 will be the extent to which there is a widespread comes and personal sacrifices (Radburn et al.,
sense that some sections of the community are 2018; Radburn and Stott, 2019). As a result, people
being treated unfairly as a consequence of policy and communities will be more likely to self-
measures. This may be because different measures regulate (for instance, complying with the instruc-
taken by the authorities apply to different groups tions of authority figures, spontaneously challeng-
or because the same measure impacts differently ing those who act against the communal interest)
on different groups. For instance, if quarantining and to be more positive towards external regula-
measures (e.g. self-isolation) are seen as dispro- tion by the police and other agencies. From this
portionately penalizing poorer groups in society perspective, the public are potentially the most
(who are less able to afford time off work), then powerful resource that the authorities have to deal
there is a real potential for social division between with emergencies. The role of the police and other
the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. The risk may be authorities, then, is to work with citizens to scaf-
amplified when agencies who then enforce such fold, rather than substitute for (or, at worst, sup-
measures (i.e. police, army, etc.) are then seen as press) community ‘self-regulation’. Moreover,
agents of privileged groups rather than neutral insofar as they are able to act in this way, the po-
guardians of law and order. In such circumstances, lice come to be seen as ‘of us’ and ‘for us’ (Reicher
there is a danger of these enforcement agencies et al., 2004; Reicher et al., 2007; Stott et al., 2008).
becoming seen as the illegitimate agent of the The science and theory underpinning these rec-
‘other’ and for a loss of trust and conflict to ommendations are already incorporated into na-
emerge. In such contexts, minor confrontations in tional police guidance in the UK for policing
one location can then be seen by others in different public order. This depends upon applying the four
locations as indicative of wider illegitimacies in principles of facilitative policing1:
their relationship to authority and disorder can
The police (and also other agencies such as
begin to escalate and spread (Stott et al., 2018; Ball
the army) need to educate themselves con-
et al., 2019; Drury et al., 2019).
cerning the nature, beliefs, values, and norms
In order to mitigate against these possibilities
of the different communities they are dealing
and risks, two general approaches are critical.
with.
The first concerns the overall framing of the out-
break by Government and media. The virus The police/army need to focus on facilitating
affects the whole community, and therefore the legitimate goals and priorities of these differ-
outbreak needs to be seen in collective terms, ent communities.
1
https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/public-order/?s¼ (accessed 26 March 2020).Policing the coronavirus outbreak Commentary Policing 571
The police/army need to communicate clearly coronavirus patients: if there is already a clear
and consistently with those communities understanding that healthcare rationing is a
explaining how their actions are designed to matter of protecting the most vulnerable in
facilitate community goals and negotiating the community, when those who are less vul-
with community representatives how they can nerable act against the communal interest by
be achieved. demanding resources, then any anger from
individuals and their families who are turned
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Where some people act in unlawful or disrup-
tive ways, police interventions must be pro- away is unlikely to generalize. Moreover, other
portional, targeted, and must thereby members of the community are more likely to
differentiate between such individuals and the support police action. In operational terms,
rest of the community. such a scenario means that the police should
set up local command structures that involve
Using these principles, the police and army input from community members and that
should prioritize gaining the consent and support they should work with community mediators
of the local population surrounding them; it is es- to try to prevent people presenting at hospital
sential that they are seen to be helping the commu- unnecessarily. In particular, communication
nity to reach their own goals rather than imposing about the need to ration resources comes best
their own goals on the community. What is more, from within the community itself and may in-
the ability to enact these principles depends, in crease the potential for community self-
turn, on the extent to which they understand the regulation decreasing the likelihood of people
diverse array of community perspectives. presenting unnecessarily.
(b) Anger arises at those who refuse to self-isolate
and are seen to act in ways that spread disease:
Specific scenarios this is the potential ‘dark side’ of creating
strong norms of acting for the communal
The need for the police to work with and for the
good and of collective self-regulation that tar-
community is why, during a crisis such as the pre-
gets norm violators. This can easily spill over
sent one, the maintenance and indeed the exten-
into vigilantism unless care is taken to com-
sion of community dialogue and neighbourhood
municate clearly how disapproval should be
policing become more urgent than ever (Gorringe
expressed in strictly limited ways, how it is im-
et al., 2012). In this regard, it is important to con-
portant to report serious norm violations, and
sider what police resources will be available (e.g.
that violence against violators will itself re-
Police Support Units (PSUs) via Mutual Aid) and
quire policing resources that could better be
how they will be mobilized from one place to an-
used elsewhere and, hence, undermines col-
other in ways that support local neighbourhood
lective interests. Such vigilantism becomes
policing operations, community relations, and
particularly serious under conditions where
goals. Following the guidelines given to
individuals are treated as proxies for groups
Behavioural Science group, we use three examples
and hostility extends to all members of the
to translate the general principles outlined above
group—the notion, for instance, that ethnic
into specific scenarios. The potential for violence
minority members have behaved in ways that
in such cases will be directly related to the issues
endanger the health of the majority has been
addressed in the previous section:
at the root of pogroms throughout history.
(a) Family members are turned away from hos- Hence, it is particularly important to monitor
pital due to demand from high-risk the activities of ‘hate groups’ and the572 Policing Commentary S. Reicher and C. Stott
incidence of hate crime and to make a chal- led policing, it will be possible to maintain a sense
lenge to racist rumours and reacting to inci- of common endeavour and, hence, to draw on the
dents a key priority of neighbourhood and community as a key resource in dealing with the
response policing efforts. Once again, the suc- crisis. The two keys are to build a sense of ‘us-
cess of these interventions depends upon the ness’—of shared identity and shared fate—at every
active involvement of a diverse array of com- decision point and to be especially sensitive to any
munity representatives with the police at a fault lines in the community which could lead par-
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local level both in the framing and the delivery ticular groups (including the authorities) to be
of policy. seen as ‘them’ rather than ‘us’.
(c) Most religious groups suspend their gather-
ings, but others do not. This would be a par-
ticularly egregious example of the previous References
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