ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an analysis of crowds and interpretation of their behaviour based on observational studies in Turkey, England and Wales. An examination of the nature of policing at different times and different countries will reveal a number of variations. Styles will vary according to political, economic, social and cultural conditions. Contemporary issues partly stem from the influence of conventional crowd theories like those formulated by Gustave Le Bon on public order policing practices. The research aims to make an analysis of crowds and the respective public order policing practices in the two countries to demonstrate the extent of the validity of the following hypotheses. The book concludes that crowd handling by the police is very much influenced and determined by the police perception of crowd events, which is in turn influenced by the political and ideological understanding of a particular regime.
