Current Features and Prevention Handling Measures for Mass Incidents in Shenyang City

The quantity has rapidly increased and scale has grown. In 1998, 1,023 batch instances of mass petition incidents occurred throughout the city, involving 90,000 person-instances, which are multiples of 2 and 2.3, respectively, over the previous year. Of these, 163 had more than 100 people, which is a multiple of 2.5 over the previous year. Increasingly complex, diverse participants. Participants include employed personnel, sole proprietors, peasants, and retired people, and they also include a considerable number of party members and cadres. In 1998, retired people and employed personnel accounted for over 60% of people in mass incidents, an increase over the previous year of 7.6 percentage points. Retired people and employed personnel have become the main body of mass incidents. Petitioning groups are becoming organized. Cross-regional, cross-industry petition groups with close organization and relatively fixed cores have emerged, such as the petitioning mass organizations that have appeared in Shenyang City that include the “Old Cadres Petition Group,” “Old Veterans Assembly,” “Old Workers Petition Group,” disabled persons “Self Management Association,” and “Debt Collection Association” formed by investors in the Pantech Group, and the oldest of these are already four or five years old. Initially these special petition groups came together because of similar interests and demands. To bring these issues to the attention of relevant departments, they recommended that some influential and famous old comrades, old cadres, or even military heroes serve as their leaders and cores, giving them strong appeal. Most of these groups met regularly, planned their petitions, made very careful arrangements, and had great social influence. Group emotions are difficult to control and behaviors and methods are excessive. Petitioning groups often have unbalanced mental states and irrational behavior due to their normal, reasonable demands not being met, legitimate rights and interests not being assured, and in particular governing departments not taking heed of their petitions. This is manifested as being quick to block road traffic and stopping vehicles, besieging the entrances to party and government organs,