Riot Psychology in Layman's Terms

Dr. Vaughan Bell of MindHacks.com posted today some interesting commentary on the psychology behind riots and crowd control in light of the current turmoil in London. You can read the article here; below are a few highlights:

• "In terms of policing, one of the clearest effects to emerge from studies of riots and crowd control is that an indiscriminate kicking from riot police can massively increase the number of people in the crowd who become violent."
• "Suddenly, it’s ‘them’ against ‘us’ and a small policing problem just got much much bigger – like attacking a beehive because you just got stung."
• "And herein lies the problem. The psychology of crowd control is largely based on the policing of demonstrations and sports events where the majority of people will give the police the benefit of the doubt and assume their status as a legitimate force. . . . But the fact that thousands of young people across the country don’t have faith in police is a much deeper social problem that can’t be solved through street tactics." 

The Atlantic also has some great coverage of the riots. Check out these photographs and the time lapse video below.