The Psychology Of Mob Injustice

The year was 1930 – a sunny Friday afternoon on January 31 in Ocilla, Georgia. A middle aged man zoomed past his wife into the bedroom, panting, and headed for his double-barrelled gun. He was lost for breath to speak with his wife. He managed to load the gun with some gun powder, opened his front window slightly where he positioned his gun. Within seconds he saw several men running towards his house with guns, knives, and clubs. He had a good view of the first two but could not gather the courage to pull the trigger. The men pushed his wife aside, entered the room and dragged him out to a nearby farmland where the body of Mary Lee Whitley was lying in a pool of blood. The mob accused him of murder. James Irvin, an illiterate but hardworking farmer, was traumatised at the turn of events he could not say much in defence. The mob chained him to a tree, cut off his fingers and toes, joint by joint, and distributed them as souvenirs.

The mob then extracted his teeth with pliers and tried to make him swallow a red-hot metal rod by repeatedly pushing it into his throat. After castration and other mutilations that lasted more than an hour, Irwin was soaked with gasoline and burned alive. Burned past recognition, Irwin’s body was hanged from a gum tree by a public road for several hours. Thousands of men, women, and children rode out to see the spectacle.

It later turned out that while Irvin was returning from a trip, an unknown man who had just raped and killed Ms. Whitley and saw Irvin coming down the road at that particular time jumped onto Irvin’s wagon with his bloody hands and grabbed the horse reins. He quickly ran back into the bush. Irvin, having made sense of the situation, and fearing for his life, abandoned his wagon and ran home knowing he would be framed. A couple who witnessed the event from their farmhouse were afraid to come to the aid of Irvin, considering how sadistic the mob was.

Irvin’s tragedy, while very heart-breaking, is not the worst. A wealth of literature demonstrates that mob action occurs across all cultures and contexts. Several authors have chronicled, in detail, the art and nature of mob action. The Tragedy of Lynching and 100 Years of Lynching, for instance, both recount several horrific mob actions that were instigated by community folks in the early 1930s and beyond.

Globally, at an increasing trend, vigilantes bomb cities, open fire in crowded places, drive into pedestrians, and incite disastrous riots every day. In the Ghanaian context, people join in to lynch others on suspicion of theft and witchcraft. What makes ordinary people succumb to mob mentality – especially when it turns violent?

Social psychologists continue to examine the rationale and motivations that inspires our inclination to riot violently and cause damage to properties and human lives. This write up is an attempt to explain what could motivate ordinary people to participate in violent group or mob actions and to suggest some solutions.

What Could Ever Make You Join in a Mob Action?

Deindividuation: While we do not act rationally at all times, we strive to maintain our sense of individual identity and dignity by becoming more self-restraint when we are alone. This gives us a clearer mind to think through and consider the consequences and benefits of our actions and inactions. However, when in a group, we lose our sense of individual identity, become overwhelmed with excitement (or anger) and socially disinhibited. When people deindividuate, they become swayed by the groups’ dynamics, cognitively. Given that our thoughts influence our feelings which in turn influence our behaviour, deindividuation could lead to the provocation of behaviours that a person would not typically engage in if alone.

Physical anonymity: There is evidence to suggest that people are more likely to participate in mob action when they feel that their behaviour cannot be traced back to them. This sense of anonymity blunts their social inhibition and wakens their animalistic nature to participate in ruthless behaviours, with a sense that they cannot be traced (or identified) to account for their behaviour. This phenomenon underscores the millennial old debate: whether humans are inherently good or evil.

Diffusion of responsibility: When people are part of a large group, they develop a belief that their actions are part of the groups’ and that they cannot be held responsible, as an individual, for the groups’ behaviour. This compelling idea could drive people to become willing to engage in dangerous behaviour.

Frustration: People are more likely to join in mob actions out of frustration about dysfunctional systems – security, law court, local authorities, and personal failures. As Professor Ken Attafuah rightly articulated, people are more likely to engage in mob actions if there is “a lack of public confidence in the criminal justice system and in the administration of justice which are affected by debilitating slowness and significant corruption…” Other circumstances, such as limited resources, aroused emotions, or being surrounded by like-minded people can also promote mob mentality and actions.

Suggested solutions
Mob injustice: Firstly, mob justice is a misnomer. The art and nature of mob action is absolute brutality, barbarous, primitive, and defies the principles of justice. Fundamental to eliminating mob violence is to first identify it as it is – criminal, rather than a social phenomenon. Many thanks to Samson Ayenini (Lawyer and host of Joy FM’s Newsfile) and the few others who elegantly labelled the phenomenon as mob injustice, as it really is, on the grandest scale! Everyone - elected leaders, community leaders, teachers, parents, mass media, police, and every citizen should utilize every opportunity to educate the public about the criminality of mob action and to amass empathy for the unfortunate victims, whilst mobilizing public outrage toward those who participate and/or observe mob actions without making efforts to prevent or report to the security agencies.

Rectify errors of impunity: The criminal justice system in most developing countries is next to dysfunctional. Many a citizenry reports and bemoans the several instances wherein alleged criminals were discharged (for lack of evidence), given unimaginably diminutive sentences, or released soon after their incarceration. When people consistently feel that justice is not well served, they are likely to join others to “serve their own justice”. A brutal police force is also not the solution. Nor is mere arrest. Both law enforcement officers and complainants should be well informed about what is required in the court of law for a successful prosecution. When we make efforts to inform the police about a crime (or assist in arresting criminals), we also need to show up to provide evidence and testify to assist with prosecution.

Security-community engagements: In Ghana, and Africa more generally, law enforcement officers, particularly the police force, rarely engage with the public. This limited interactivity, coupled with occasional police brutality, over time, could influence the public to develop a schema, erroneous perhaps, and perceive the police as working against their interest. In furtherance, given the long list of crimes that went unpunished (committed by public officials and ordinary folks), people become dissatisfied and compelled to mete out their form of instant injustice. Presently, the police force, for the most part, appears ill-equipped, but are making efforts to fight the increasing rate of crime in the country. Additionally, they should take advantage of current technology and social media platforms to educate and provide very important security information to the general public.

Deal with the ruts: There is a plethora of ruts and Dunning-Kruger effects that require some consideration. Law enforcement agencies continue to receive ‘cash and gifts’ from private and foreign organizations whose activities they are supposed to check; too frequently, police officers are cited in criminal acts and corruption; communities put up facilities but struggle to have police officers posted; government allocates insufficient budget to the security sector; older adults who live in destitution (and often in psychological distress) are branded as witches and camped or lynched; individuals who steal from the state are only asked to resign (or at most given time to repay); and the list continues.

The fight against mob injustice, and crime, more generally, will require a multifactorial approach – law makers must institute more effective punitive measures, government must support law enforcers with the requisite logistics, law enforcement agencies must include more psychosocial and human relationships themes in their training curricula and engagement with the general public and clean-up the rots in their system, community leaders and members should live exemplary lives (free from corruption and impunity) and assist law enforcers to identify and prosecute criminals, religious groups should continue to teach and preach peace and love for one another and support with social interventions, teachers should instil discipline and inspire children to become responsible adults, parents should be more responsible, show love to their children and adopt more effective parenting styles.

Conclusion: Mob action is a monstrous crime. We do not have the right to brutalize another person (or destroy properties), either on mere suspicion or in the face of concrete evidence. Very often, as were the cases of our beloved Major Adam Mahama, Irvin and other victims, it later turns out that the victims were either innocent (mistaken identity) or the entire accusations were fabricated. In spite of thorough investigations, there are innumerable records, even in developed countries, where people incriminated and incarcerated were later found to be innocent of the said crimes.

Why join in to beat to death a person alleged to have stolen GHC 1.50, or suspected to be an arm robber or a witch, or committed one crime or the other? What happened to our cultural and religious values? Are we only hospitable to strangers? Were we not adjudged by Gallup International as one of the most religious countries in the world?

Richard Appiah
Clinical Psychologist and PhD Candidate, North-West University (Potchefstroom)

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