>Unless you have a very
>high cop/crowd ratio, riot line "corralling" is impossible. Therefore I
>conclude, from the evidence, that it is a bad technique.
It does seem like a waste of time and money. The modern way of controlling demonstrators is to simply co-operate with them. Especially when there are large numbers.
Early this year there was a large demo here, which is a rare thing. Several thousand people (usually it is 50 - 100 people) turned up to the anti-war rally, which had a permit to rally but not to march through town. The permit had been refused by police, perhaps because there was a large open air food festival on at the same time nearby.
However the people at the rally were incited by several speakers to march through the city despite the refusal of a permit. Which we proceeded to do. The police response was to simply do what they do with a legal march, control traffic at intersections to allow the march to proceed peacefully. They didn't even bother to try to prevent people from marching, just got on with their job of keeping order.
In the end what is the point of making a big fuss? The only reason the cops would want to do that is if they were directed to do so by their political masters. There is no law and order imperative in converting a relatively peaceful political demonstration into an unruly riot, the only conceivable purpose of that is political. To try to cause deeper social division.
Some governments adopt this strategy, usually because they consciously or unconsciously recognise that they represent a minority political opinion themselves. By manufacturing a fake crisis of law and order they believe they can force the majority of the population to support their minority political tendency, when the majority would otherwise not have a bar of them. Its a standard strategy.
Mind you, we should also be wary of people on the left who adopt the same strategy. Their game plan is to cause confrontation between police and demonstrators, in order to induce the majority of protestors to side with their fringe political tendency.
This is the strategy of the anarchist Black Bloc. They seek to recruit from the pool of existing dissidents who attend these rallies, their tactic is to provoke the authorities into repressive action which will further radicalise many of the people at the demonstration.
It is probably a very effective strategy to recruit members. Though you'll never hear them admit this is the strategy. The trouble is, it also undermines the main purpose of the demonstrations, by distracting attention from the message it was organised to make. Which is why the authorities are often quite happy to go along with the plan and allow themselves to be provoked.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas