An analysis of protesting activity and trauma through mathematical and statistical models

Abstract

The effect that different police protest management methods have on protesters’ physical and mental trauma is still not well understood and is a matter of debate. In this paper, we take a two-pronged approach to gain insight into this issue. First, we perform statistical analysis on time series data of protests provided by ACLED and spanning the period of time from January 1, 2020, until March 13, 2021. After observing the data, it becomes apparent that employing kinetic impact projectiles is correlated with an increase in protests in the following days. Moreover, it serves as a more accurate indicator of the subsequent death toll compared to the mere number of protests. This leads to the conclusion that the utilization of less-lethal weapons appears to provoke rather than quell protests, exhibiting an inflammatory effect. Next, we provide a mathematical framework to model modern, but well-established social psychology research on compliance theory and crowd dynamics. Our results show that understanding the heterogeneity of the crowd is key for protests that lead to a reduction of social tension and minimization of physical and mental trauma in protesters.