Crowd Control

Use of force is generally accepted as a nature of police work. Skolnick and Fyfe (1993) provide a scale for ascending actions where police should handle street situations; presence, persuasive verbalization, command verbalization, firm grips, pain compliance, impact technique, and deadly force. Less than lethal weapons can eliminate the last action presented, deadly force, as a crowd control option.
One of the toughest challenges of an officer is crowd control. With the growing amount of protestors, police are forced to conjure up new and effective ways of maintaining order. As a result of riots such as Rodney King riot, New York Draft riot, Watts riots, and many more, officer are forced to invest time and training with less than lethal crowd control weapons. Chemical agents, direct energy weapons, directed acoustic weapons are ideal for controlling large amounts of protestors. Each device having its own array of specialties that can and could have effectively brought an end to past and future crowd control issues.

Student's Death Returns Crowd Control to the Fore

List of Riots


Police Crowd Control Training