Legal Commentary

All the news about the rioting in Greece has got me thinking about riots.  Back in the day, American statutes provided for communal responsibility for riot harm.  These statutes were variations on the English Riot Act of 1714, which imposed liability on local government for riot damage.  The Riot Act, in turn, stemmed from the Second Statute of Winchester, which codified ?hue and cry? responsibility ? the duty of denizens to raise a ?hue and cry? to pursue perpetrators of felonious activity in their respective localities.  But the Riot Act went beyond the strictures imposed by the Second Statute of Winchester.  Hue and cry responsibility required a locality either to catch the bad guys or compensate the injured party.  In sharp contract, riot responsibility was absolute.  Even if the perps were brought to justice, localities were still on the hook for damages.

Why the extra special responsibility for riot harm? The reason appears to be that riots are different from other forms of unlawful recreation.  Riots endanger social stability; they present a distinct threat to sovereign power.  Large urban uprisings, in particular, can leave riot-sized rents in the social fabric.  Accordingly, state legislatures, in enacting these statutes, sought to deter local folks from participating in riots and to incentivize civilians and law enforcement alike to prevent and suppress unrest.  These statutes also spread riot costs throughout a locality, instead of saddling unlucky riot victims with the often devastating costs of mob violence.

Although American riot statutes have, by and large, gone the way of the dodo bird, governmental interest in suppressing unrest has not.  Riots still present distinct hazards to society.  Moreover, as I?ve written elsewhere, in comparison to other sources of loss, which occur more uniformly across socio-economic lines, riot loss has a disproportionate impact on the urban poor.  That insurance companies have taken measures, especially in our inner cities, to exclude riot damage from policy coverage further exacerbates this impact.

So, what do you think ... should we bring back the riot statutes?