The state and collective disorders: The Los Angeles riot/protest of April, 1992

This article develops a theory of state response to collective disorders on two levels. First, it examines how government agencies must seek both to be accountable and to maintain administrative capacity, but increasing accountability may reduce capacity. Second, it explores a riot situation, where a public safety agency must solve three problems related to capacity: strategy (force versus diplomacy), command (level, location, and unity), and preparation. Failure to solve these problems will render the state unable to limit the size and scope of collective disorders. In examining the response by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to the April, 1992 riots, we discover that many of the more serious problems encountered by the LAPD, such as chaos in afield command post, occurred before the riot expanded to a broad geographic scope.