riot, in criminal law, a violent offense against public order involving three or more people. Like an unlawful assembly, a riot involves a gathering of persons for an illegal purpose. In contrast to an unlawful assembly, however, a riot involves violence. The concept is obviously broad and embraces a wide range of group conduct, from a bloody clash between picketers and strikebreakers to the behaviour of a street-corner gang.
In Anglo-American legal systems, the offense of riot lies mainly in a breach of the peace. Under continental European codes, the offense requires interference with or resistance to public authority. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, riot is usually a misdemeanour punishable by light sentences. However, laws in the United Kingdom provide for harsher penalties when rioters refuse to disperse after they have been ordered to do so by a magistrate. In the United States, Canada, and India, the penalty is increased for a riot against public authority, though it is not as harsh as that of the United Kingdom, and the violation of public authority through riot does not require the formal presence of a magistrate.
In Germany riot is limited to an offense against public authority, and lesser acts of group violence are termed breaches of the public peace. For a disturbance to constitute a riot, an official engaged in the exercise of his duties must be resisted, assaulted, or threatened. The penalty for both riot and breach of the peace is greater under German law if the accused person performed one of the overt acts or was a ringleader, a distinction also observed in Japan. French law does not define riot separately but treats it as a special case of resistance to public authority under the general heading of rebellion. Breach of the peace, which is central to the Anglo-American concept of riot, is not treated as an offense in French law.