Organized and Unorganized Groups

Types of crowd. A casual crowd, gathered by accident, such as onlookers at a fire. A conventional crowd, gathered for a purpose and behaving by established norms, such as an audience. An expressive crowd, gathered for emotional release, such as a festival procession. An acting or aggressive crowd, directed at a target, which is a mob.

How a crowd becomes a mob. Through a focus of attention, a shared definition of the situation, an emotion that builds by contagion, and a suggestion that supplies a target. The Thomas theorem in [Symbolic Interactionism] explains the middle step: what the crowd believes is happening becomes what it acts on, and it need not be true.

The competing explanations. The older view, associated with Gustave Le Bon, held that a crowd has a collective mind that submerges individual judgment. The modern view is more sober: crowd members do not lose their reason, but anonymity lowers the cost of acting, emergent norms replace ordinary ones for the duration, and people who came for different reasons converge on a common line of action. The modern view fits the evidence better, and saying so lifts an answer.

Why a lawyer needs this. Offences relating to unlawful assembly and rioting, the dispersal of assemblies, the doctrine of common object, and vicarious liability for the acts of an assembly all rest on propositions about how crowds behave. So does the question of individual responsibility: the law's difficulty in attributing an act to a person in a mob is the legal reflection of the sociological fact of anonymity.

The comparison

A worked example

A rumour spreads in a suburb that a cooperative bank is about to fail.

At nine in the morning the depositors outside the branch are a queue: an aggregate, no structure, no leadership, no common aim beyond each person's own.

By eleven they have become a crowd. They are talking, a shared definition of the situation has formed, emotion is rising, and someone has begun to speak for the rest.

By one, after an announcement is misheard, a section becomes an acting crowd, which is a mob: a target, a suggestion, and the anonymity of numbers.

Three weeks later the same depositors have formed a depositors' association, with a president, a subscription, a set of rules and an advocate. It is now an organized group, and for the first time it can do the things law recognises: hold property, appear in proceedings, bind its members and be answerable for what it does.

That progression is the whole chapter, and it shows why the distinction is not academic. Organisation is what converts a number of people into an entity the legal system can deal with, and the entire law of associations, societies, unions and companies exists to manage that conversion.

What this does NOT mean

Unorganized does not mean disorderly. A queue is unorganized in this sense and is highly orderly. A conventional crowd at a concert follows norms closely. The absence of formal structure is not the absence of regularity.

Organized does not mean effective. A body may have offices, rules and a constitution and still be incapable of acting.

It is not the same as the primary and secondary distinction. A family is a primary group and unorganized in this sense; an army unit is a secondary group and highly organized. But a small chamber may be primary and organized, and a large crowd is secondary in scale and unorganized. The two classifications cut across each other, and confusing them is a common error.

Quick revision

1. Organized: definite structure, rules, offices, division of functions, continuity beyond members, and the capacity to act as a unit.
2. Unorganized: interaction without structure, emergent leadership, indeterminate membership, duration limited to the occasion.
3. Organisation is a matter of degree.
4. Crowd characteristics: proximity, anonymity, suggestibility, heightened emotion, sense of invincibility, contagion.
5. Types of crowd: casual, conventional, expressive, acting or aggressive (the mob).
6. Le Bon's collective mind is the old explanation; the modern account uses anonymity, emergent norms and convergence.
7. Organisation is what lets a group be registered, represented, bound and made liable.
8. It is a different classification from primary and secondary, and the two cut across each other.

Test yourself

1. Distinguish organized from unorganized groups. An organized group has a definite structure of offices and statuses, settled rules and procedures, a division of functions and recognised authority; it acts as a unit and continues although its members change. An unorganized group has interaction and perhaps a common feeling but no stable structure, no defined offices and no settled rules; leadership is emergent, membership shifts, and it ends with the occasion.

2. Give the characteristics of a crowd and its four types. Physical proximity of many people, anonymity which dilutes individual responsibility, suggestibility, heightened emotion, a sense of invincibility from numbers, and the contagious spread of feeling. The types are casual, gathered by accident; conventional, gathered for a purpose and following established norms; expressive, gathered for emotional release; and acting or aggressive, directed at a target, which is a mob.

3. How does a crowd become a mob? Through a common focus of attention, a shared definition of the situation which need not be accurate, emotion that builds by contagion between people who are physically close, and a suggestion that supplies a target for action. Anonymity lowers the perceived cost of acting, and emergent norms displace the ordinary ones for the duration.

4. Why does the distinction matter legally? Because organisation is what allows a body of people to be treated as an entity: registered, represented, capable of holding property, of binding its members and of being made answerable. An unorganized group cannot be dealt with in that way, which is why the law reaches the crowd through the individual and through doctrines such as unlawful assembly and common object.

5. Is the distinction the same as primary and secondary? No, and the two classifications cut across each other. A family is primary and unorganized; an army unit is secondary and highly organized; a small set of chambers may be primary and organized; a large crowd is secondary in scale and wholly unorganized. Primary and secondary classify the quality of the relationship, organized and unorganized the presence of formal structure.