How's that?! A riot is a riot.
A police riot is a term for the disproportionate and unlawful use of force by a group of police against a group of civilians. This term is commonly used to describe a police attack on peaceful civilians, or provoking peaceful civilians into violence.[citation needed]
A prison riot is a large-scale, temporary act of concerted defiance or disorder by a group of prisoners against prison administrators, prison officers, or other groups of prisoners. It is often done to express a grievance, force change or attempt escape.[citation needed]
In a race riot, race or ethnicity is the key factor. The term had entered the English language in the United States by the 1890s. Early use of the term referred to riots that were often a mob action by members of a majority racial group against people of other perceived races.[citation needed]
In a religious riot, the key factor is religion. The rioting mob targets people and properties of a specific religion, or those believed to belong to that religion.[4]
Student riots are riots precipitated by students, often in higher education, such as a college or university. Student riots in the US and Western Europe in the 1960s and the 1970s were often political in nature. Student riots may also occur as a result of oppression of peaceful demonstration or after sporting events. Students may constitute an active political force in a given country. Such riots may occur in the context of wider political or social grievances.[citation needed]
Urban riots are riots in the context of urban decay, provoked by conditions such as discrimination, poverty, high unemployment, poor schools, poor healthcare, housing inadequacy and police brutality and bias. Urban riots are closely associated with race riots and police riots.[citation needed]
Sports riots such as the Nika riots can be sparked by the losing or winning of a specific team. Fans of the two teams may also fight. Sports riots may happen as a result of teams contending for a championship, a long series of matches, or scores that are close. Sports are the most common cause of riots in the United States, accompanying more than half of all championship games or series.[citation needed] Almost all sports riots occur in the winning team’s city.[5]
Food and bread riots are caused by harvest failures, incompetent food storage, hoarding, poisoning of food, or attacks by pests like locusts. When the public becomes desperate from such conditions, groups may attack shops, farms, homes, or government buildings to obtain bread or other staple foods like grain or salt, as in the 1977 Egyptian Bread Riots
There are four main categories of riot, though these distinctions are not mutually exclusive.
A communal riot is characterized by collective violence directed at persons of an opposing group, and may involve racial, ethnic, or religious groupings. Although police or agents of social control may engage in violence to keep the groups apart, the vast majority of collective violence occurs between groups.
A commodity riot is characterized by collective violence directed primarily at property, but may involve people of different groups.
A protest riot involves spontaneous collective violence directed against a specific policy. In contrast to the communal riot, during a protest riot most of the collective violence occurs between the police or other agents of social control and the rioters.
The final, and perhaps most frequent, form of rioting is the revelry or celebration riot. As with a commodity riot, collective violence is directed primarily at property, but may involve persons. However, in contrast to all other riots, a celebration riot does not necessitate grievance and often occurs after a victory over a traditional rival or the winning of a championship.
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