This, then, is the unpleasant implication: human beings change our behavior as we are being observed, and the males among us more so than the females.
...
What would be curious, indeed, then, is if property crimes did not increase during large public protests during which the police turn out in force, and stand around providing a target at which protestors can express their ire. The more apparent it becomes that the police are concentrated in some areas, and unable to respond to property crimes they normally respond to, the more likely and widespread we should expect looting and theft to become. And while we would not expect only males to rob and steal, we should expect that more males than females will do so.
Finally, a rarely appreciated irony of the “riot patrol” response of most governments to large groups of public protest is that it actually increases the likelihood of looting. When we stop to think through what we know about human beings, social order and government, this is really not very hard to see. That, in my view, is the most interesting aspect of all of this: politicians and police have a strong tendency to make themselves worse off, and very few of them realize it. I will elaborate in a future post, but before getting to that one, I have some other questions to answer. Stay tuned.
