Riot Interrupted

Last August, a documentary called The Interrupters premiered in London; it follows a trio of workers from an organization called CeaseFire as they go around Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods attempting to stop people from beating the shit out of one another. Coincidentally, a week after the premiere, rioting broke out all over the UK. The government’s response was more “Throw the bums in jail” than anything like CeaseFire’s model.

We talked to Dr. Gary Slutkin, the man who invented the practice of violence interruption, which is based on his work with the World Health Organization on epidemic control. Here’s what he said about whether “interrupting” could be used to stop the crowd-based violence that continues to erupt across the world.

Trailer for The Interrupters

VICE: How can violence interrupters help control rioting?
Gary Slutkin: In the film you see more interpersonal violence, fighting over money, girls, or gangs, but there have been episodes where we have interrupted what could have been riots. There was an incident on the west side of Chicago about three years ago where the police shot somebody. His friends saw what happened and ran back into their houses to get guns, aiming to start a riot and shoot at officers. The interrupters cooled them down, but it wasn’t easy to do; it took hours. A lot of the rioters in the UK follow the reasoning that their behavior is OK because bankers and politicians are immoral.
The inequity is infuriating. The human mind does assessments of fairness in day-to-day life. The unequal ways in which the law is being applied are very upsetting to people. How does this all relate to disease control?
Inequity is like the dirty water in diarrheal disease epidemics. Sometimes you can’t clean it up fast enough. If you can’t reverse the inequity quickly, then you have to find a strategy to control violence in the meantime. So interrupters are literally like medicine. It’s a real innovation to apply that process to behavior instead of diseases.
Don’t forget that decades or centuries ago we were punishing people who had illnesses and diseases. We used to put people with leprosy in dungeons; we misunderstood the problem. Do you have any suggestions on how police can peacefully curb these types of behaviors?
Police interacting positively with the community has a dampening effect on crime and violence. Highly aggressive policing has been shown to aggravate the situation, and if they’re showing aggression the population shows aggression back. I think we’ve expected too much from law enforcement.

Want more? Check out our interview with The Interrupters director Steve James.