Analysis of the Nature of Public Demonstration and Human Disaster - Coursework Example

Running Head: ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION AND HUMAN DISASTER Analysis of the Nature of Public Demonstration and Human Disaster Insert Name Institution Date Analysis of the Nature of Public Demonstration and Human Disaster Introduction Public demonstration expresses comparatively overt reaction to proceedings or situations: occasionally in favor, though more frequently opposed. Public demonstrators may organize a demonstration as a way of publicly and cogently making their views heard in a try to manipulate public view or government policy, or may carry out direct action to try to directly enact preferred changes themselves. Perspicuity can, in supposition, in practice or in manifestation, be constrained by governmental policy, fiscal circumstances, religious orthodoxy, social structures, or media monopoly. When such limitations take place, opposition may spread out into other areas such as culture, the avenues or emigration. A public demonstration can itself sometimes be the subject matter of a counter-demonstration. In such a case, counter-protesters make obvious their support for the individual, policy, action, and many others (Paton & Johnston, 2001). When citizens differ with their government, one of the most commanding ways to express that dissent is to demonstrate publicly with other citizens. A human demonstration could at times result into disastrous results especially if it turns out chaotic. That is the reason as to why police are necessary and in most cases if the demonstration is illegal. Obviously, some of the public demonstrators defy the police instructions and go ahead and try to fight back the police in operation. This is what has led many public demonstrations turning chaotic. Thus if the police are tackling a public demonstration, they need to thoroughly prepare and plan. For example in Chicago around 1968, government termed public demonstrations as threat to public safety and the ones that were happening were suppressed through usage of the police and military forces. The police in operation should differentiate between the rights of citizens to assemble and the responsibility of government to maintain (Congressional Research Service, 1992). Certainly, each society needs order to operate and function. People require and anticipate the fundamental right to live and work devoid of instantaneous fear of assaults on themselves, their property, or their principles. The people responsible of availing these protections are the Police. Hence it is the police who are in a position of controlling the public demonstrations, more so if they are illegal and show the signs of turning violent. Exclusive of these powers, the “free expression” of the public demonstrations can rapidly turn out to be the rule of the mob. By their career and calling, the enforcers of the laws—the police and the military are inclined to support the current order of society. Consequently, they over and over again go up against demonstrators whose message defies the status quo and whose actions may end up in disorder or even a violation of the law (Paton & Johnston, 2001). A human disaster is the catastrophe of a natural or human-made danger whereby this danger is viewed as a situation that poses a intensity of threat to life, health, property, or environment that unconstructively affects society or environment. In present-day academia, disasters are seen as the end result of improperly managed risk. These risks are the result of hazards and vulnerability. Dangers that strike in areas with low susceptibility are not considered a disaster, like in the areas that are not habited. Thus a disaster is any disastrous event with great loss stemming from events like tremors, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires, or explosions. Obviously, those affected by the human disaster, those displaced by such disasters included are still residents and in most cases the citizens of the affected country and therefore they are entitled to protection just like any other citizen. The affected ones do not lose the rights as the others as a result of being displaced or affected by the adversity. All together, they do require special protection and specific assistance measures since they have particular needs in addition to the common needs (Paton & Johnston, 2001). In many instances, those affected by the disaster require police guard during the nights incase they are in an open place like a night or IDP camp. Still, during the occurrence of the disaster, there are cases which require police attention. The police are required to go to the place of the disaster and report about it and even investigate more about it. If any perceived danger, the police are supposed to device all the ways of preventing any further damage and help protect the live of the already affected ones (Emerson, 1970). The challenges in human disaster include that the disaster is unexpected and just happens without any warning. Thus to manage such a disaster, the police incident commander is required to perform a risk assessment within a period of very short time and this may lead to faulty risk assessment. Every time a decision about operational coordination has to be made, each time an arrangement has to be prepared and an order given, it is first essential to think over all matters liable to have an effect on the course of action. The risk assessment process is undertaken mentally, entailing only a very short time of thinking. Apparently, with no sufficient assessment of the risk, the acting police will not have the direction, are likely to be reactive to the events as they open up, the police still will not have an effective control and finally they will not assume the form of crisis management (Emerson, 1970). Another challenge that faces the police incident commander is rehabilitating both the public demonstrations and human disasters. This is about returning the incident scene to its original state just before the disaster or the demonstration occurred or finally handing the matter to the relevant authority. Thus especially for the human disaster, it requires the police to rehabilitate the place once the situation has been contained and safely concluded. The police incident commander is also faced with the challenge of ensuring the people evacuated from the place of the disaster or instructed to stay in their premises are advised soonest possible of the safe time to go back to their area. In several cases, people evacuated from the places where the disaster occurred are often fearful of the events and thus they can be reluctant to go back to the area. When this happens, the police incident commander has the responsibility of ensuring that such people are provided with police security and the reassurance. In cases where the public demonstrators have affected the flow of traffic, police are required to stay at the spot until the normal flow is back. This is somehow a major draw back to the police. More so, in cases where employees victims or the witnesses are suffering from either physical or psychological injury or trauma, because of either the damages arising from the public demonstration or the disaster, the police incident commander the one responsible of looking and arranging for the services of a qualified practitioners to assist such people (Sullivan, 2006). A further challenge that a police incident commander is presented with is time constrain. This is because the police may be informed of the incident when there is a very short time to manage it. For example in public demonstrations, the police incident commander might have gotten the information maybe too late. By the time he manages to send the police to the location of the demonstration, the demonstrators might have done a lot of damage and thus containing the situation would be very difficult for the police. Still, for the human disaster, the police could have gotten the information regarding the disaster when it too late and hence a lot fatal damage could have occurred before the police arrive at the scene of the disaster. This is because it is always advantageous for the police incident commander to issue and develop an operation order when there is still sufficient time to give his or her group commanders enough time to also develop and issue their own orders. Their orders have to be issued in time to permit members of operational groups to arrange for and carry out the action required of them; containing the public demonstration or managing or controlling the human disaster (Sullivan, 2003). The police incident commander might not be aware of the problems his or her police officers will encounter once they arrive at the scene for their operations. With this, he may not be in apposition to arrange or take the necessary precautions and thus on reaching at the incident scene the police may end up landing into problems. Hence the police incident commander is again presented with the challenge of identifying all the problems that are likely to be encountered. Again, the police incident commander is faced with the challenge of ensuring that there are contacts of the public utilities coordinator. He or she must come up with an operation order having details of the coordinator including the deputy coordinator selected that are wholly responsible for management of all public utilities. Moreover, the police incident commander has the challenge of ensuring that any helpful organization like Red Cross is contacted and informed of the incidents since there could be cases of injured people who may require their help (Sullivan, 2003). Another challenge is for the police incident commander gathering all the necessary information regarding the happenings. He or she could be lacking the necessary information to tackle the incidents. This means that he or she has to do all what it takes to get the information in order for the police under him to be in a position to execute their orders. Finally, the police incident commander is also faced with the challenge of ensuring that he or she sends adequate personnel to tackle the incidents. Like there for the public demonstrations, the operation police should be enough to be in a position to tackle and contain all the demonstrators however large in number they may be. They should be capable of dealing with the violent demonstrators thus they ought to be sufficient. In the case of human disaster, the operations officers ought to be adequate to make sure they safe the situation quickly enough to avoid more damage occurring while at the time trying to prevent more deaths (Sullivan, 2006). The police incident commander could deal with the challenge of having sufficient information by getting the information from the people who have had direct information regarding the incident. This includes those who have witnessed either the public demonstration or the occurrence of the disaster. Such people are obviously going to offer some important that will help the police incident commander plan for the incidents. Still, he or she could make use of previous operations to tackle the public demonstration. This is where the information regarding prior preparations of the demonstration could be useful. This would assist the police in estimating the number of the demonstrators, the reason of the demonstration and some useful information that would assist them in dealing with the demonstrators. this information would still help them in knowing whether the demonstration is likely to be violent thus the police incident commander would know the number of operation police to send and the required materials of tackling the issue. For the human disaster, the usage and development of deductions from previous collection and analysis of information about similar, events; the disaster could provide useful information. Such information would be helpful to the police incident commander in planning on how to tackle the disaster. The triumph of an operation depends greatly on fully informing all people taking part, regarding all applicable features of the operation. Goals ought to be identified and a framework of flexible plans with the capacity of achieving the mission should be provided through planning. The police incident commander could also perform the general sequence of a risk assessment. This would help in making sure that a reasonable thought process is followed to reach the best solution in dealing with both the public demonstration and the human disaster. Each stage of the process requires analyzing, checking and testing to ensure that nothing is omitted and that all aspects are considered in a proper sequence. Logical development of the process is useful, regardless of the complexity of the problem and therefore would help the police incident commander in planning (Emerson, 1970). The police should have a precise policy for crowd control and thus the policy could help the police in controlling the demonstrators. The knowledge of where and how police lines are maintained would go a long way in assisting with the operation. More so, the police incident commander always being ready to act upon any urgent incident and anticipation of any possible danger is likely to be of help in executing the actions. Furthermore, he or should make sure that the personnel responding to critical unplanned incidents conduct their own risk assessment or hazard identification and assessment and put risk controls in place. For example the police in operation can control the risks through donning ballistic vests when controlling the public demonstration, keeping distance from the place that the disaster occurred, usage of cover and concealment when controlling the demonstrators or adoption of a containment approach. Finally, the police incident commander should develop sound operational plans in order to be in a position to manage any incident. Operational helping influencing the future and thus one will be ready to tackle any incident. Operational planning engrosses generally identifying the things that need to be done and the ways of doing them. Such planning is an incessant process and is assumed through developing an Operation Order for a specific field operation (McEntire, 2002). References Congressional Research Service. (1992). The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation Washington, DC: Library of Congress. Emerson, T. (1970). The System of Freedom of Expression. New York: Vintage Books. McEntire, D. (2002). Coordinating multi-organizational responses to disaster. New York: Oxford University Press. Paton, D. & Johnston, D. (2001). Disasters and communities: vulnerability, resilience and preparedness. Washington, DC: Department of the Interior. Sullivan, M. (2006). Integrated recovery management: Leicester: University of Leicester. Sullivan, M. (2003). Communities and their Experience of Emergencies. The Australian Journal of Emergency Management. 18(1): 19-26. Read More