Attitudes towards the Use of Violence against Police among Occupy Wall Street Protesters

Abstract

Although many social movement participants claim to embrace non-violent civil disobedience strategies, protesters tend to have heterogeneous views on the morality and utility of engaging in violence. In particular, protesters sometimes view violence against the police as warranted, especially if they perceive that police have treated them or their peers in a procedurally unjust or excessively forceful manner. This article examines the nature and correlates of attitudes towards the use of violence against police officers among Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters in New York City. Data were drawn from in-person surveys of 302 OWS participants on the 6-month anniversary of the movement in March 2012. Our findings reveal that in this context, respondents who perceive that police use unjust force against protesters are significantly more likely to endorse the use of violence against police.

“Macron demission!”: Loss of significance generates violent extremism for the Yellow Vests through feelings of anomia

“…Unjustified custody (leaving aside the issues of disproportionate police violence use), as indicated by the unprecedented number of arrests without further prosecution, and public outrage following the humiliating arrest of 151 junior high school students fastened and forced to kneel down 8 might have fuelled perceived LoS among the French. In line with SQT, perceived abusive treatment from the police increases violence in protesting (Maguire, Barak, Wells & Katz, 2018) and creates a strong anti-police identity (Stott, Ball, Drury, Neville, Reicher, Boardman, & Choudhury, 2018). And as the violence on protesters' behalf grows, so does police arrests (and potentially abusive ones, see Mooijman, Hoover, Lin, Ji & Dehghani, 2018) which might further increase feelings of LoS and violent extremism among the YV.…”

“Return of the repressed”: Exposure to police violence increases protest and self-sacrifice intentions for the Yellow Vests

“…Relatedly, findings from social psychology have established that perceived unfair and violent treatment from law enforcement agents is linked with increased levels of violence in protests (Jetten et al, 2020). For instance, in the context of Occupy Wall Street protests, protesters who perceived police use of force as unjust were significantly more likely to legitimize use of violence against law enforcement (Maguire et al, 2018). In fact, among the sample investigated by Maguire et al (2018), perception of unfair treatment by police was the strongest positive predictor of endorsement of violence against law enforcement.…”

“…For instance, in the context of Occupy Wall Street protests, protesters who perceived police use of force as unjust were significantly more likely to legitimize use of violence against law enforcement (Maguire et al, 2018). In fact, among the sample investigated by Maguire et al (2018), perception of unfair treatment by police was the strongest positive predictor of endorsement of violence against law enforcement.…”

How riots spread between cities: Introducing the ‘police pathway’

“…Through uniting the crowd around a new norm of conflict against the police, the police intervention thereby creates the hostile crowd and public disorder that they feared (Stott & Drury, 2000). ESIM dynamics are not restricted to U.K. contexts, with evidence now from four different continents in addition to the United Kingdom: North America (Maguire, Barak, et al, 2020), mainland Europe (Brechbuhl et al, 2020;Jetten et al, 2020), Asia (Stott et al, 2020), and Australia (Baker, 2020).…”