ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the various crimes which may be committed by those engaged in violent conduct or who threaten to cause disorder in the public domain. The great problem for the law is to define what force is lawful or at least not contrary to law and what violence constitutes a criminal offence. Motives may on occasions however be relevant at the sentencing stage. In short the law denies all knowledge of species of violence or disorder, once conduct is characterised as violence or disorder the law focuses on this alone. Laws on public order are not self-activating: they rely on a view being formed by human actors both as to what constitutes order and disorder and also as to how a particular act should be characterised. The law on public order is entirely bound up with the exercise of discretion by those whose duty it is to enforce the law; that is the police, the prosecutors and the courts.
