Sophisticated weaponry will not solve the social problems of America. To the young man in the ghetto, the "non-lethal" weapon is not seen as a humane response to his condition; to him it is still a weapon-aimed at him—and is viewed with hostility. 4. Evidence shows that it is incorrect to interpret riots merely as pathological behavior engaged in by riff-raff. Neither are they "carnivals." More accurately, they are spontaneous political acts expressing enormous frustration and genuine grievance. Forceful control techniques may channel grievances into organized revolutionary and guerrilla patterns, promising a cycle of increased military force and covert surveillance. 5. In measuring the consequences of domestic military escalation, we must add the political and social dangers of depending on espionage as an instrument of social control, including its potential for eroding constitutional guarantees of political freedom. If American society concentrates on the development of sophisticated control techniques, it will move itself into the destructive and self-defeating position of meeting a political problem with armed force, which will eventually threaten domestic freedom. The combination of long-range reform and shortrange order sounds plausible, but we fear that the strategy of force will continue to prevail. In the long run this nation cannot have it both ways: either it will carry through a firm commitment to massive and widespread political and social reform, or it will become a society of garrison cities where order is enforced with less and less concern for due process of law and the consent of the governed. Chapter I PROTESTS AND POLITICS PROBLEMS OF DEFINITION We began the work of this Task Force by considering the relation between protest and group violence. Discussion and consultation with a variety of scholars made clear to us that the posing of the question biased the answer. As posed, the question seemed to imply that protest itself is the critical social problem demanding investigation and action. Furthermore, as our factual material grew, we began to recognize three critical points about protest and violence in America, all of which will become more apparent in the chapters that follow: (1) One of our consultants examined every incident of protest reported in the New York Times and the Washington Post from September 16 to October 15, 1968. Of 216 incidents, thirty-five percent reportedly involved violence. Since protests resulting in violence are more likely to be reported, the actual proportion of violent incidents is doubtless much lower.1 (2) It is often difficult to determine who was "responsible" for the violence. The reports of our study teams, however, clearly suggest that authorities bear a major responsibility.2 The Kerner Commission findings reveal a similar pattern.3 Of the violent incidents reported above, in only half did the violence seem to have been initiated by the demonstrators, i.e., in only seventeen and one-half percent of the total number of demonstrations.4 (3) Mass protest, whether or not violence occurs, must be analyzed in relation to crises in American institutions. On all of these counts it may be suggested that a serious analysis of the connections between protest and violence cannot focus solely on the character or culture of those who protest the current state of the American political and social order. Nor does it appreciably advance our understanding to suggest, as has one commentator, that “the decisive seat of evil in this world is not in social and political institutions, and not even, as a rule, in the will or iniquities of statesmen, but simply in the weakness of the human soul itself..."5 Rather, the results of our research suggest that mass protest is an outgrowth of social, economic and political conditions; that such violence as occurs is usually not planned, but arises out of an interaction between protesters and the reaction of authorities; and that recommendations concerning the prevention of violence which do not address the issue of fundamental social, economic and political change are fated to be largely irrelevant and frequently self-defeating. We have found the political character of these phenomena to be evident for at least five reasons. First, "violence" is an ambiguous term whose meaning is established through political processes. The kinds of acts which become classified as "violent," and, equally important, those which do not become so classified, vary according to who provides the definition and who has superior resources for disseminating and enforcing his definitions. The most obvious example of this is the way, in a war, each side typically labels the other side as the aggressor and calls many of its violent acts atrocities. The definition of the winner usually prevails. Within a given society, political regimes often exaggerate the violence of those challenging established institutions. The term "violence" is frequently employed to discredit forms of behavior considered improper, reprehensible, or threatening by specific groups which, in turn, may mask their own violent response with the rhetoric of order or progress. In the eyes of those accustomed to immediate deference, back-talk, profanity, insult, or disobedience may appear violent. In the South, for example, at least until recently, the lynching of an "uppity" black man was often considered less shocking than the violation of caste etiquette which provoked it. In line with the tendency to see violence as a quality of those individuals and groups who challenge existing arrangements, rather than of those who uphold them, some groups today see all instances of contemporary demonstration and protest as "violent." Such an equation obscures the very significant fact that protest takes various forms: verbal criticism; written criticism; petitions; picketing; marches; nonviolent confrontation, e.g., obstruction; nonviolent lawbreaking, e.g., "sitting-in"; obscene language; rock-throwing; milling; wild running; looting; burning; guerrilla warfare. Some of these forms are violent, others are not, others are hard to classify. Some protests begin peacefully and, depending on the response, may end violently. Most protest, we have found, is nonviolent. Second, the concept of violence always refers to a disruption of some condition of order, but order, like violence, is politically defined. From the perspective of a given state of "order," violence appears as the worst of all possible social conditions and presumably the most costly in terms of human values. We have found this to be a questionable assumption. Less dramatic but equally destructive processes may occur well within the routine operation of "orderly" social life. Foreign military ventures come quickly to mind. Domestically, many more people are killed or injured annually through failure to build safe highways, automobiles, or appliances than through riots or demonstrations. And as the late Senator Robert Kennedy pointed out, the indifference, inaction, and slow decay that routinely afflict the poor are far more destructive than the bomb in the night.6 High infant mortality rates or rates of preventable disease, perpetuated through discrimination, take a far greater toll than civil disorders. It would not be implausible to call these outcomes "institutional violence," the overall effect of which far outweighs those of the more immediately observable kinds of social violence. For the sake of some precision, however, we have come to employ a less comprehensive definition of violence: violence is the intentional use of force to injure, to kill, or to destroy property. Protest may be quite forceful without being violent, as the occupation of dozens of French factories in the summer of 1968 or the occupation of many campus facilities in America during the last few years testifies. This observation is not intended to applaud or condone the use of force; merely to recognize that it differs from violence-the point, after all, of an important |