A/HRC/17/28* 112. Crowds are more prone to violence when they see police actions as heavy-handed, and consequently illegitimate. The indiscriminate use of force against a crowd as a whole can persuade the more restrained members of the group to also resort to the use of force in order to protect their fellow group members. 113. The negotiated management approach entails accepting some of the spill-over effect of the protest in return for assurances as to the peaceful nature of the event. The emphasis of this approach is therefore on ensuring peace, rather than enforcing law. In this paradigm of “under-enforcement” of the law, force should be used by the police in self-defence, rather than to assert the authority of the law in the abstract. 114. Police practices such as the following are among those encountered in this paradigm: facilitation of protestors’ access to roads, which they would otherwise not have, with the expectation of some measures of self-policing; involvement of women and men in the policing of protest; ensuring that individual members of the police are identifiable (e.g., names displayed on uniforms); and keeping riot police out of sight when they are not needed. 115. A number of countries that follow this approach have formalised the role of the “safety triangle” during demonstrations, that is, the organisers, local or State authorities, and the police, who are required to communicate with each other in order to avert safety risks and diffuse conflict. 41 116. In managing the forces at work during protests, consideration should be given to the question of what typically prompts the police to use coercive measures. This includes the nature of the State structure (is there civilian oversight of the police?); public opinion and norms; threat posed by the demonstration (based on its size and militancy); and the tactics used by the protestors. 117. Police knowledge, 42 that is, the clear understanding by the police of their tasks and challenges, will have a strong influence on possible resort to violence by officers. Although they operate within a legal framework, the police have considerable discretionary powers, especially when decisions need to be taken on the spot, as is often the case in protest policing, and that is when their value systems come to the fore. Appropriate training of the police is therefore essential. 118. While the negotiated management approach has, over the last few decades, prevailed in much of the United States and Europe, it is important to note that it is not universally accepted in this area. In fact, there are indicators that less tolerant approaches, sometimes described as paramilitary policing, may be coming back into vogue, particularly in respect of, but not confined to, transnational anti-globalization protests. Governments may also feel that the floodgates have been opened by the events in Tunisia and other countries, and take a hard line on protest. 41 42 18 Philip B. Heymann, ed., Towards Peaceful Protest in South Africa (Pretoria, HSRC Publishers, 1992), p. 6. See della Porta and Reiter, eds., Policing Protest: The control of mass demonstrations in Western democracies (see para. 106, fn. 40), p. 228.