Civil Order Control
Civil order control has become a necessary aspect of modern day law enforcement. Inherent in civil order control, however, are a number of problems that have to be addressed in order for it to be effectively implemented, such as societal attitudes, law enforcement norms, and so on. As Roberson and Das (2015) point, in civil order control “there is often a strong political component to the activities being controlled” (p. 72). The reason for this is that whenever a situation occurs that is a threat to civil order, it is basically a threat to the government of the society as well. That is why throughout history, any type of civil order control has been met with controversy—whether it was a workers’ strike or protest being put down by military force or a holdout of a religious sect like the Branch Davidians in Waco being smoked out by the ATF. This paper will discuss how the U.S. deals with these problems and compare and contrast these approaches to other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Japan, England, and China. It will also discuss the factors that contribute to these similarities.

Civil order control in the U.S., like that in England, China, Japan or China, is based on the need for the government to prevent a situation from escalating and to restore order. A number of agencies may take part in this type of enforcement. In England in the 1980 Liverpool and London riots, tear gas was deployed to dispense with and deter crowds from gathering and swarming. This was the first time the police had ever used this method of dealing with crowds (Kennedy, 2011). The U.S. like England uses the civil police model, which consists of decentralized police organizations, which have special units available for handling civil order control. However, for larger issues, like the protest at Kent State in the 1970s, the National Guard can be called in to restore order—though that move ended up costing four people their lives on that occasion (Means, 2016). The difference between the U.S. and the UK when it comes to civil order control is the extent to which law enforcement agents are armed: the U.S. tends to be more heavily armed and focuses on crime control while UK officers tend to focus on maintaining the peace (Roberson & Das, 2015). But otherwise, they are similar, which is appropriate since the U.S. system is based on English law. The U.S. can call in the military and even declare martial law if needed, in which case the military is used under the direction of state. The U.S. Northern Command is the military agency through which...…experienced by the U.S., the KSA or China—so they are still willing to use coercive means to instill order when necessary as they all find violence to be effective still.

At the same time, Japan’s response is decentralized—the most decentralized of all the countries. The U.S. is next, as it allows local and state agencies to handle civil order control unless the governor feels military aid is required and then it is available. The UK is centralized in its approach to civil order control, like in China and the KSA, and this stems from all three nations’ having a strong reason to want to project a highly controlling influence and aura from the seat of power. The U.S. on the other hand has a strong vested interest in giving states their liberty to some degree to handle local matters on their own and to oversee matters in so far as they determine themselves able to do so. The U.S. has a much stronger tradition of independence within its internal system of politics and government so that is where the main factor for its approach to civil order control comes from. China is a nation of totalitarian control, like the KSA, and so its methods reflect that cultural and political factor. The UK is somewhat more authoritarian as well, which is how it differs…