RIOT

in criminal law, offense against public order involving three or more people and the use of violence, however slight. Like an unlawful assembly, a riot involves a gathering of persons for an illegal purpose. Unlike an unlawful assembly, however, a riot includes violence. The concept is obviously a broad one, embracing a wide range of group conduct from a bloody clash between picketers and strikebreakers to the behaviour of a street-corner gang. In Anglo-American legal systems, the offense lies mainly in the breach of peace occasioned by it. Under the continental European codes, the offense requires interference with or resistance to public authority. In the United States, England, and India, riot is usually a misdemeanour punishable by light sentences. England, however, provides for a harsher penalty when rioters refuse to disperse after they are ordered to do so by a magistrate. In the United States, Canada, and India, the penalty is increased for a riot against public authority, but it is not as harsh as that of England, and the formal presence of a magistrate is not required for the riot to constitute a violation of public authority. In Germany, on the other hand, riot is limited to an offense against public authority, and lesser acts of group violence are termed breaches of the public peace. For a disturbance to constitute a riot, an official engaged in the exercise of his duties must be resisted, assaulted, or threatened. The penalty for both riot and breach of the peace is greater under German law if the accused person performed one of the overt acts or was a ringleader. This distinction in penalties is also observed in Japan. French law does not separately define riot but treats it as a special case of resistance to public authority under the general heading of rebellion. Breach of peace, which is central to the Anglo-American concept of riot, is not treated as an offense in French law.