Majority of the crowds often demonstrates violence behavior in their activities. The analysis of crowd violence is, therefore, an area of interest for the study to many scholars in the different field. As suggested by various studies, crowd violence correlates to the psychological, biological and sociological perspectives ( Bellomo et al., 2016) . The paper provides an analysis of crowd violence based on the theories developed by the various scholars. Furthermore, it analyses and evaluates the sources, events, and system of crowd behavior based on the perspective of counterterrorism and discusses the main driving force behind the violent crowd.
The Sociological Perspectives of Crowd Violence
The sociologists explain the violent behavior of crowd based on three perspectives that include situational factors, innate factors, and socialization factors. The innate factors are argued to be inherent in the makeup of an individual. These factors can be biological, psychological and ethological. The psychodynamic theories say that all people by their nature are prone to the violence or aggressive behaviors and thus are likely to engage in violent activities. Sigmund Freud presented the theory by arguing that humans are prone to the aggressive behavior from birth. The argument further indicates that without an appropriate outlet of aggression, an individual can lash out and explode. In fact, the name psychodynamic is derived from the hydraulic model due to its similarities with the build-up of pressure in a container that can explode if not properly handled. Another type of inmate violence theory is derived from ethology. Ethology refers to the study of the behavior of animals with regards to their natural habitat and compares to the behavior of humans. It is argued that the aggressive behavior is evident in both humans and animals ( Kok et al., 2016 ).
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A Socialization factor also explains the occurrence of violence. The socialization factors often provide the context for the social learning and argue that understanding of aggression and criminal behavior require an individual to assess thoughts, competencies, expectancies, and values. The experience of each person is unique and contributes to the morality, personality, and perception of an individual.
The last factor that contributes to violent action is the situational factors. The situational factors refer to those that are attributed to the environment where an individual lives. It argues that the environment in which individual lives can stimulate certain behaviors. Crowds such as the one experienced in football matches can often lead to violence when one team oppose the result of the other. In such cases, the situation or environment controls the member of the crowd and thus leads to aggression or violence.
Psychological Perspectives on Crowd Violence
The occurrence of crowd violence can also be explained based the psychological perspectives theories. Many psychological perspectives theories have been used by various scholars to describe the occurrence of crowd violence and aggression. Majority of the theorists believe that crowd violence is caused due to the influence of the majority members of the group.
The Lebon theory holds that crowds exist in three stages that include the submergence, contagion, and suggestion ( Kok et al., 2016 ). In the submergence stage, a person in a given crowd loses his or her personal responsibility and individual self. The stage is often influenced by the power of the crowd to act as a single entity. The contagion is where an individual in the group follow the predominant behaviors of the entire crowd without questioning. The stage is where all people within the crowd share the same emotions and act similarly. The last stage is suggestion where the feelings and ideas developed in the crowd are drawn for the shared and racial unconscious. It is argued that this behavior is uncivilized as it originated from the archaic and shared unconscious and thus it is regarded as uncivilized acts. At this stage, the crowd became very violent and characterized with a powerful force that can eventually lead to violence or destruction. In essence, the members of the crowd will disregard the notion of legal action since it can be difficult to prosecute all the members of the group or even individual member.
The Freudian theory also explains how the violent action is manifested in the crowd. The violent act in crowd can take various dimensions based on this theory. The Freudian theory on crowd behavior relies on the idea that to become a member of a group one has to lose his or her unconscious mind. The unlocking of the unconscious minds occurs because the big crowd of individuals displaces the moral center or superego of the consciousness and replaced by the crowd leader. It this situation the simple emotions is not common while the complex emotions are rare to find (Bellomo et al., 2016) . During the crowd violence, the shared emotions often reverts to become the least common denominator and this leads to the levels of emotional expressions that are primitive in nature. Ideally, it means that the crowds neglects their personalities and start to engage in actions that conform to the actions of some of the charismatic leaders of the group. Such actions are often evident in many riots where the crowd can storm in the premises of other people and start certain destruction.
Deindividuation Theory is another theory that psychologists used to explain the behaviour of crowds in given circumstances. The theory argues that in many typical conditions, the factors that include group unity, anonymity, and arousal can lead to the weakening of the individual's self control ( Kok et al., 2016 ). The individual self-control that includes shame, guilt and self-evaluating behavior can disappear when a person is in a crowd with shared emotions. In essence, these factors imminent in such crowds make people distance themselves from their personal identities by reducing their concern for self evaluation. Evidently, the lack of restraint has the potential to increase the sensitivity of individuals to the environment as well as reduces the rational forethought, and this can eventually lead to forethought. The end result for the individuals in such groups is the antisocial behaviour. It makes people to fail to recognize their self-awareness due to the prevailing situation. Furthermore, it can make it easy for a person to lack the sense of normal social behaviours due to lack of attention.
The convergence theory also attempts to explain the psychological perspectives of crowd violence theory. According to this theory, the behavior of the crowd is not often the product of the group, but the crowd is as a result of the like-minded people joining each other. It is argued that a person in a crowd will often behave the same way he or she can behave when alone. Besides, the convergence theory suggests that crowd are made of people with the same disposition and whose actions are reinforced and intensified by the crowd. Furthermore, it argues that the behavior of crowd is not irrational, but the persons in the crowd are the one who expresses existing values and beliefs so that the action of the mob is the rational product of the popular feeling that spreads widely within the group ( Bellomo et al., 2016) . The theory is however questioned by the research conducted on the people who were involved in 1970's riots. The findings of the research indicated that the people who engaged in the riot were less likely to have the previous conviction history rather than the law-abiding citizens.
The emergent theory is another psychological theory that explains the origin, nature and cause of the violence. The theory was developed by two psychologists namely Lewis Killian and Ralph Turner and stipulate that norms often emerge from the crowd. The emergent norms theory suggest that the crowd or group have little or no unity at the beginning but as the momentum increases, the key members or leaders will suggest the appropriate actions that should be undertaken by the individuals within the crowd. The followers of the leaders of the group will often agree with the suggestion of the leaders and fall in line and this forms the basis for the norm in the crowd. The key members are often identified as through certain distinctive behaviours and personalities. This attracts the attention as well as lack negative responses elicited from the collective members who then join hands to pursue a common objective as part of legitimacy and tacit agreement. In such cases, the followers are the ones who make the majority of the crowd since individuals tend to become the creatures of conformity that are significantly influenced by the actions and opinions of others. The theory is also demonstrated in the studies of conformity where majority tend to conform with the orders of the leaders leading to mass actions, riots or strike. Also, the members of the crowd are often convinced by the universal phenomenon. For example, in the case where crowd pursues a common objective, there will universally agree to take action as directed by the leaders to achieve the desired goals and objectives. This means that each member will develop a notion that it is not wrong to act in a given direction if all the other members pursue the same course of actions. It is noted that the emergence theory enables both the negative and positive aspects of mob since the characteristics and behaviors of the distinctive leaders can either be positive or negative ( Bellomo et al., 2016) . For example, the antisocial leader in a mob can incite the followers to take violent actions while the influential opinion of the no-violent leader can make the crowd appear calm. The theory is also without criticism from a section of scholars. The main criticism levied against this theory is that establishment and adherence to the new norms suggest a new self-awareness level that is not evident in the crowd. The other criticism is that the idea of the emergent norm can fail to take into consideration the presence of the prevailing socio-cultural norms. Also, it fails to give the explanation why certain individuals or suggestions can rise to the normative status while those of the other members cannot.
Social Identity theory is the last psychological theory that explains the cause and origin of the mob crime. The social identity theory argues that the self is regarded as a complex system that is composed of the concept of membership and non-members found in various social groups ( Reicher, 2001) . Ideally, the group exhibits various behavioral and moral norms and values. The individual actions of the people are based on the group members or non-member and are salient at the time of a given action. The influence can be evident by the findings that when there is a change in the outlined values and purpose of the group, the motives, and values of the members also changes. The theory defines crowd as a group of people who belongs to other overlapping groups. However, a given crowd is primarily linked to some of the identifiable groups such as civil rights activists, Christians and staff unions, the values and objectives of such team will dictate the action of the crowd. The crowds that are more ambiguous can allow individuals to assume the new social identity as a crowd member ( Reicher, 2001) . In such cases, the group membership is can be made more saliently in the confrontation with the members of other groups. It is argued that the identity of the group serves to create a set of the rules and standard for the actions and behaviour. In some groups, violent is the everyday choices while in others violent acts are unacceptable. The standard within a group is established from the stated values and from the type of actions undertaken to accomplish the specified objectives. In some cases, it can be formed from the kind and position of a leader. The primary concern of the theory is its failure to explain the approach and mechanism by which the crowds react to create a social change.
Biological Perspectives of Crowd Violence
There are multiple research studies that suggest that biological factors can contribute to violence. The theories indicate that violence and aggression are a matter of the biology of a person. The biology of an individual can include one’s heredity, neurophysiology, human instinct, and hormones. One of the studies on the influence of biological factors on violence asserts that the traits and behaviors of primitive men and subordinate animals have reemerged in some individuals ( Kok et al., 2016 ). These findings are compelling since there have been reported cases of murder and violence where some individuals demonstrate the chromosomal abnormality. However, the frequency of such cases has not been adequate to establish a definitive correlation. Also, the obvious flaws of the theory are that there have been significant numbers of people who have perpetrated violent offense and show no sign of the abnormalities described in theory.
The biological perspective can relate crowd violence to some of the demographic factors such as culture, gender, and race. For instance, the crowd that is dominated by men is more likely to pursue violence action as opposed to those associated with men. Women tend to take less violent actions when in a crowd as opposed to men. This can be explained by their biological nature such as feminity and masculinity. Men are considered to be strong as opposed to women due to the difference in their biological genes.
The other aspect explains the biological perspective of crowd violence is culture. The culture that dominant a group is very fundamental towards explaining the crowd violence. Some cultures are perceived to take non-violent behavior while others pursue violent behaviors. As an example, the crowd that is dominated by the Christian can conduct peaceful protest as opposed to that dominated by other groups such as football fans or politicians.
Conclusion
Many theories have been developed to explain the behavior of a crowd. In past decades, crowd behavior was an interesting area of study in the field of psychology. The early social psychologists attempted to study the origins and cause of crowd violence and ended with different theories to explain their crowd behavior. In essence, many theories have been established by the various sociologist, psychologist and biologist to explain the crowd behavior. The important behavior of crowds that has attracted the attention of many scholars is violence. It is evident that the behavior of individuals in a crowd is dictated by the action of the group. In many cases, people will follow the opinion of the influential leaders in the crowd. However, the violent behavior of people in a crowd can be influenced by other factors such as venue, gender, culture, race, and region among others.
References
Bellomo, N., Clarke, D., Gibelli, L., Townsend, P., & Vreugdenhil, B. J. (2016). Human behaviors in evacuation crowd dynamics: from modeling to "big data" toward crisis management. Physics of life reviews , 18 , 1-21.
Kok, V. J., Lim, M. K., & Chan, C. S. (2016). Crowd behavior analysis: A review where physics meets biology. Neurocomputing , 177 , 342-362.
Reicher, S. D. (2001). The psychology of crowd dynamics (Vol. 44, No. 0, p. 182â). Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Group processes.
