Mass arrest

A mass arrest occurs when the police apprehend large numbers of suspects at once. This sometimes occurs at illegal protests. Some mass arrests are also used in an effort combat gang activity.^[1] This is sometimes controversial, and lawsuits sometimes result.^[2] In police science, it is deemed to be good practice to plan for the identification of those arrested during mass arrests, since it is unlikely that the officers will remember everyone they arrested.^[3]

In December 1964, the University of California, Berkeley was disrupted by a mass student sit-in in the administration building and by mass arrests of 700 students.^[4]

Beginning on May 3, 1971, three days into the 1971 May Day Protests - a series of large-scale civil disobedience actions in Washington, D.C. - massive arrest sweeps begin. In a few days over 12,000 are arrested - the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.^[5][6]

A famous mass arrest occurred on September 27, 2002, in Washington, DC in which several hundred anti-World Bank/International Monetary Fund protestors, journalists and bystanders were systematically arrested by police^[7][8] and charged with failure to obey a police order.^[9] A class action lawsuit against the government ensued.^[10] Pre-emptive mass arrests have also sometimes been criticized.^[11]

The 2010 G-20 Toronto summit was witness to the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.^{[citation needed]}

The Japan Farmers' Union and other Japanese labor-farmer groups were hit by mass arrests in the 1920s. On April 16, 1929, several thousand members of the farmers' movement were arrested.^[12] Following World War II, mass arrests (over 120,000) of actual and suspected Quislings occurred in the Netherlands.^[13] Totalitarian regimes have sometimes conducted mass arrests as a prelude to a purge of perceived political enemies, sometimes through executions.

Former American President Jimmy Carter said in regards to the racial conflicts of the time, "I would be opposed to mass arrest, and I would be opposed to preventive detention. But I think that the abuses in the past have in many cases exasperated the disharmonies that brought about demonstrations, and I think that arrest or large numbers of people without warrants ... is a contrary to our best systems of justice."^[14]

Mass arrest as a war crime

Indiscriminate mass arrests were designated a war crime in 1944 by a Commission on war crimes created by the London International Assembly. This was one of two items added by that Commission to the list of war crimes that had been drawn up by the Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties in 1919. Specifically, "indiscriminate mass arrests for the purpose of terrorizing the population" were designated as war crimes by the Commission.^[15]

At the Netherlands temporary court martial in 1947, several members of the tokkeitai in the Netherlands East Indies were accused of the war crime of indiscriminate mass arrests. The applicable legislation, used by the court, was the NEI Statute Book Decree #44 of 1946, whose definition of war crimes paralleled the Commission's list. Specifically, item #34 of the enumerated list of war crimes under the NEI legislation was "indiscriminate mass arrests for the purpose of terrorising the population, whether described as taking hostages or not". The court understood the definition of such unlawful mass arrests to be as "arrests of groups of persons firstly on the ground of wild rumours and suppositions, and secondly without definite facts and indications being present with regard to each person which would justify his arrest". To this it added commentary on indiscriminate mass arrests that are for the purpose of terrorizing the populace, stating that they "contained the elements of systematic terrorism for nobody, even the most innocent, was any longer certain of his liberty, and a person once arrested, even if absolutely innocent, could no longer be sure of health and life".^[16]

References

1. ^ Lee, Trymaine (June 24, 2007), Mass Arrest of Brooklyn Youths Spotlights Tactics, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/nyregion/24arrests.html 
2. ^ Fenton, Justin (June 23, 2010), City poised to approve 'mass arrest' settlement with NAACP, ACLU, The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-ci-naacp-lawsuit-20100622,0,1815500.story 
3. ^ Richard L. Holcomb (Dec., 1964), The Police Role in Racial Conflicts by Juby E. Towler, 55, The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, pp. 540, JSTOR 1140912 
4. ^ Nathan Glazer (Mar. 25, 1967), 2, Economic and Political Weekly, pp. 601–605, JSTOR 4357739 
5. ^ Page 5 "Vietnam Demonstrations: 1971 Year in Review, United Press International Accessed 2009-04-13.
6. ^ 1971 Year in Review Archived United Press International 2009-05-05.
7. ^ Rachel Coen (November/December 2002), Another Day, Another Mass Arrest, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3965 
8. ^ Activists Decry Police Intimidation in Anti-Globalization Protests, Agence France Presse, October 1, 2002, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1001-01.htm 
9. ^ Final Report Relative to Complaints of Alleged Misconduct Made at the October 24, 2002, Hearing of the Committee on the Judiciary of the Council of the District of Columbia Concerning the IMF/World Bank Protest, http://www.dcwatch.com/police/030125.htm 
10. ^ http://www.pershingparksettlement.com/
11. ^ Leading article: Mass arrests have no place in a democratic country, The Independent, 14 April 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-mass-arrests-have-no-place-in-a-democratic-country-1668276.html 
12. ^ Seiyei Wakukawa (Feb. 13, 1946), Japanese Tenant Movements, 15, Far Eastern Survey, pp. 40–44, JSTOR 3022364 
13. ^ Amry Vandenbosch (Nov., 1952), The Purge of Dutch Quislings; Emergency Justice in the Netherlands. by Henry L. Mason, 14, The Journal of Politics, pp. 751–752, JSTOR 2126459 
14. ^ Jet magazine, Mar 24, 1977
15. ^ Lyal S. Sunga (1992). Individual responsibility in international law for serious human rights violations. International studies in human rights. 21. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 25–26. ISBN 9780792314530. 
16. ^ United Nations War Crimes Commission (1997). "Trial of Shigeki Motomura and 15 others". Law reports of trials of war criminals. 1–5. Wm S. Hein Publishing. pp. 138–145. ISBN 9781575884035.