Question

compare the similarities of fogelson's work onn urban riots to anti-police sentiments displayed around the country in the past few years

Answer 1

Riots are caused by genuine anger, not solely opportunists looking to loot

Much of human action, whether collective or in a more institutionalized setting, can be seen as goal-directed and purposive, involving a response to the exigencies of social life affirmation of that response by the assignment of positive values to it, and a definition of the situation in which it occurs. Ideas and beliefs about the world play an important role here. Furthermore, collective outbursts show something of the patterning and structure of ordinary social life. The threatening and sometimes exotic nature of collective behavior led earlier conservative theorists to ignore its similarities to more conventional behavior.

Within this general definition, riots may be seen to vary from one another along numerous dimensions. The number of attributes to be used in characterizing riots is large, and we lack a generally-agreed-upon set of concepts or measures for classifying them. Most earlier theorists, while classifying types of crowd, did not single out riots or deal with types of riot. Crowds were characterized in terms of whether or not an objective was present, the type of objective present, the psychological states of the participants, the nature of their interaction, and criteria of group membership.

Many scholars have differentiated riots from revolutions, rebellions, and the like, depending on whether an intent to overthrow the government is present; but there have been relatively few efforts to deal systematically with types of riot. Racial violence in different time periods has been contrasted by considering the group dominating the rioting and the primary objective of attack (people or property). The few qualitative studies that have been done on riot occurrences (as against studies of riot participants) generally fail to deal much with variation. This failure may partly explain why they usually come up with fairly weak correlations in relating background variables to the occurrence of a riot.

Historians and experts argue that these types of riots aren't solely random acts of violence or people taking advantage of dire circumstances to steal and destroy property. They are, instead, a serious attempt at forcing change after years of neglect by politicians, media, and the general public.

Most riots have are fueled by years of issues, even if they were seemingly catalyzed by a single event.

Public hostility toward the police can affect the careers of officers, administrators, and even politicians.

Another reason why perceptions of the police are important is that public distrust of the police may reduce the ability of the police to control crime. As noted by Decker (1985), citizens who are dissatisfied with the police are less likely to contact them or provide officers with information about criminal activity. This is important, because some studies for example Percy, 1986; Reisig and Giacomazzi, 1998 indicate that fear of crime lowers evaluations of the police . Thus, it is conceivable that negative perceptions of the police contribute to a cycle of reduced police effectiveness, increased crime, and further distrust of the police. Finally, the police need to be concerned about how they are viewed by the public, because they are public servant