read the riot act to

She sang with Muppets, talked with the aliens and read the riot act to Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Health Minister Eluned Morgan has said she read the "riot act" to executives but didn't have the power to sack them.

“And I would have, if it had not been that the presidential commission and certain members of Congress found out about it and really read the riot act to the management of my company. That saved my job, frankly.”

My husband read the Riot Act to his family, but they blame me for the estrangement.

Shortly before the man took his life, the friend had read the “riot act” to him after learning of the hit-and-run and the assertion by police that a woman had been critically injured, according to the report.