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Reader question: Please explain “reading the Riot Act” in this: “Is it legal for the police to remove protesters without reading the Riot Act?” My comments: The person who asks this question wants to know whether the police did the lawful thing to remove protestors from the streets without telling them what laws they broke, if they did. Telling them what laws they had broken by reading them the Riot Act. Reading them the Riot Act? That is a metaphor. Don’t take it literally. Nobody’s reading the Riot Act any more. One time in history, though, the police did read the Riot Act. And the Riot Act refers to the British Riot Act of 1715. This, from Phrase.org.uk, as to its origin: In English law the control of unruly citizens has usually been the responsibility of local magistrates. Any group of twelve or more that the authorities didn’t like the look of could be deemed a ‘riotous and tumultuous assembly’ and arrested if they didn’t disperse within an hour of the Riot Act being read to them by a magistrate. This seems a little harsh, but in 18th century England the government was fearful of Jacobite mobs who threatened to rise up and overthrow the Hanoverian George I. The fear was well-founded, as supporters of the deposed Stuarts did actually invade in 1715 and again in 1745. The ‘Riot Act’ was passed by the British government in 1714 and came into force in 1715. The Riot Act, which was more formally called ‘An act for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters’ actually contained this warning: | 
