Street fighting

Street fighting is a term used to denote spontaneous, hand-to-hand violence between individuals or small groups of people in public places. This violence is usually intended to result in injury and submission but not death (although death may inadvertently occur). It often results from a dispute and can stem from group association, harassment, or bullying. The definition of this term varies; some may include domestic violence (although this is rare).

Street fighting is distinct from sport fighting and duels because the latter are normally conducted according to some pre-arranged format, usually including some sort of rules. The distinction is not simple, since street fighting may be conducted according to an informal code of honor, but in street fighting such a code would be understood rather than explicitly agreed upon.

Street fighting is distinct from terrorism, riots, protests and warfare because the latter are intended to affect the general public or political environment.

Violent incidents involving firearms are not usually called street fights.

Street fighting is very often discussed in martial arts classes as a real-world application of the techniques taught in the class. Most such discussions do not discuss the psychological factors involved in a street fight, nor do they significantly discuss avoidance of fighting.

Situations leading to street fights

Street fighting can arise in many ways, and different cultures are subject to different forms of street fighting. The causes of a street fight are almost always mixed, but certain factors often lead to problems.

Drunkenness

The most common factor in street fights is inebriation. With alcohol or other drugs impairing their judgement, people, ususally male, are more likely to get into a heated argument which leads to violence. Most nightclubs have staff called bouncers whose job is to remove people who are causing this sort of problem. Of course, when drunk people spill out of nightclubs, the bouncers do not follow.

Prejudice

It is unfortunately very common for humans to hate what they see as different, and this can lead to violence. The most common differences are

• race,
• sexual orientation (often gay bashing),
• religion, and
• gender (for women and transgendered people),

Other differences, such as preferred sports team (for example, the Byzantine chariot races and the Canadian hockey teams) have lead to conflict as well. Under some legal systems, violence caused by some of these motivations gets special legal treatment as hate crimes.

All these causes can also lead to much larger-scale conflict, such as race riots, ethnic cleansing, pogroms, and the Holocaust.

Money

For centuries, thieves have been accosting travellers and demanding their money. This is now usually called mugging. Normally, if the victim hands over their money, no violence occurs. However, if the victim resists or frightens the thief or thieves, a fight may occur. Generally things go poorly for the victim, as thieves select only victims they are fairly confident they can defeat if necessary, either because the theives are larger, stronger, more heavily armed, or more numerous than the victim.

Sexual assault

While rare, it does occur that one or more attackers will attempt sexual assault on a victim in a public place (most sexual assaults are by acquaintances of the victim; see date rape, a much more serious problem). If the victim attempts to fight (rather than submit or flee) a street fight may break out; as above, attackers will usually not attack unless confident of success.

Organized crime

Individuals involved in organized crime are more likely to be embroiled in street fights, as these organizations often resort to violence to control their own members and to keep each other in check. This includes members of gangs, drug dealers, prostitutes, gamblers, and other people in illegal or quasi-legal occupations.

See also

• self-defense
• domestic violence
• riot
• terrorism