Understanding and Preventing Violence Volume 1 (1993) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 101-181
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From page 101... ...
PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 101 3 Perspectives on Violence In this chapter, we look behind patterns and trends to ask what explains them and how they might be altered. One starting point emphasizes that human behavior is shaped in part by long-term developmental processes through which children learn what events to anticipate, how to respond, and what the outcome will be.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 102 or punish violence quite differently depending on its purpose, on the victim's ethnic status or sexual preference, and on his or her preexisting relationship(s) to the perpetrator(s)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 103 Recognizing how little is known about the relevant interactions between psychosocial, biomedical, and social influences on violence, we conclude this chapter by recommending a major longitudinal study to explore them. As a nearterm means of simultaneously increasing understanding and improving violence control capacity, we recommend a series of violence problem-solving initiatives -- programs that exploit both the scientific and the policy potential of rigorous evaluations -- in Chapters 7 and 8.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 104 cruelty to animals, and verbal abuse of other children, for example (see Brain, Volume 2)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 105 following a sample of individuals over time. In either case, data are collected on factors that are hypothesized to be relevant and on sample members' behavior, as measured by their self-reports, by officially recorded events such as arrests, or by the reports of third parties such as family members, peers, or teachers.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 106 behavior. However, because the behavioral outcomes that are studied -- aggression, delinquency, or crime, for example -- are so broad, we cannot say with any precision how they are related to violent behavior.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 107 Violent offenders as measured by self-reports and official records of crimes are more likely than other adults to have experienced poor parental childrearing methods, poor supervision, physical abuse, neglect, and separations from their parents when they were children (Farrington, 1991)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 108 viewing habits (Huesmann et al., 1983; Eron and Huesmann, 1984; Singer and Singer, 1981)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 109 compare their effectiveness in different populations, particularly with children of different ethnic statuses, socioeconomic statuses, and ages. Follow-up periods must be long enough to ascertain whether interventions in childhood prevent violent behavior as adults.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 110 is phallometric measurement of arousal to violent sexual stimuli. However, sexual preference is not equivalent to sexual acting out.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 111 Russell, 1975; Weis and Borges, 1977) , as well as beliefs that certain specific circumstances justify violent behavior against women (Burt, 1980; Check and Malamuth, 1983; and Kikuchi, 1988)
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From page 112... ...
PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 112 Researchers have explored the possibility that the use of pornography with violent sexual or nonsexual content may interact with other individual characteristics to elevate the risk of engaging in sexual violence (Donnerstein et al., 1987; Prentky, 1990)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 113 identified as characteristic. Although the term psychopath has sometimes been used as a label for those who commit sexual homicides, the term has been applied to a variety of different conditions over the years, and there is no scientific basis for considering psychopathy a specific adjunct of sexual homicide or of general sexual violence.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 114 researchers are becoming increasingly aware that sex offenders are resistant to change. A primary factor in treatment plans now is to motivate the sex offender to change.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 115 include systematic desensitization; stress inoculation training, combining education, relaxation training, and teaching of other coping skills; helping clients to identify cognitive distortions and maladaptive thought patterns and replace them with adaptive responses; and reducing the sexual anxieties and problems that the victim often experiences after a rape. Although much of the research on these treatment strategies reports improvement in the victims, it is flawed by unclear criteria for inclusion, lack of control/comparison groups, and weak conceptualizations of treatment strategies with respect to the symptoms they target.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 116 (7) brain dysfunctions that interfere with language processing or cognition; and (8)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 117 role of genetic mechanisms in criminal and violent behavior has been examined in three studies of twins and adoptees, using data from Scandinavian countries (Bohman et al., 1982; Cloninger and Gottesman, 1987; Mednick et al., 1984)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 118 Over the past 40 years, occasional case studies of sexually deviant individuals and families have raised the possibility that some simple XXY or XYY chromosomal syndrome may transmit a potential for sexually violent behavior (Baker and Stoller, 1968; Baker et al., 1970; Bartlett, 1968; Pasqualini et al., 1957; see also reviews by Kessler and Moos, 1970; and by Owen, 1972)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 119 exposed to antiandrogenic steroids show decreased aggressiveness. It is not clear, however, whether the correlations in humans reflect direct hormonal influences on behavior or some psychosocial interaction involving peers' reactions to abnormal genital development caused by the abnormal hormone exposure.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 120 Among other neurological functions, dopamine activates neural processes for pleasure and reward; cocaine, amphetamine, and other psychoactive drugs stimulate these processes (see Chapter 4 for further discussion of drug effects on dopamine receptors)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 121 Since the late 1970s, several researchers using human subjects have reported inverse correlations between serotonin concentrations in blood or spinal fluid and various measures of aggressive, impulsive, or suicidal behavior. Recent studies of Finnish males by Virkkunen, Linnoila, and associates (Virkkunen et al., 1989; Linnoila et al., 1989)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 122 which involve different circuits of neural activity. The limbic system and perhaps secondarily the cerebral cortex appear to modulate both types of behavior (see Mirsky and Siegel, Volume 2)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 123 show temporal lobe anomalies more often than do other offenders. These correlations cannot be said to show either that temporal lobe abnormalities cause violent sexual behavior or that epilepsy is a risk factor for violent or nonviolent sex offending.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 124 well be a result rather than a cause of aggressive behavior: they may originate in head injuries inflicted by others in retaliation. However, research reviewed by Mirsky and Siegel (Volume 2, Table 13)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 125 artificial colors or preservatives) are associated with hyperactivity or other precursors of violent behavior (see, e.g., Feingold, 1975)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 126 enrichment and through kindergarten tutoring by specially trained high school students. These strategies are complementary rather than mutually exclusive: each can be expected to prevent some children from developing potentials for violent behavior, but none will be universally effective.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 127 progress on these issues, but they present special problems in the context of sexual violence. Classification systems should be refined and improved to facilitate both better developmental understanding and more effective treatment.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 128 into the bloodstream, and sometimes trigger claustrophobic episodes in some people. Decisions to undertake specific research projects should balance the burden on subjects against the value of the information that may be obtained and the likelihood of success in obtaining that information.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 129 often as a means of building an empirical basis for subsequent research that places acceptable but nonnegligible burdens on human subjects. Each study of animal or human subjects needs to be designed to inflict the least possible stress and harm on the subjects without invalidating the information to be obtained.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 130 was the homicide victimization rate and the independent variables were measures of the racial or ethnic composition and of the economic status of the census tract. The studies covered three cities in Ohio (Muscat, 1988)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 131 Figure 3-2 Intraracial domestic homicide rates, Atlanta, 1971-1972. SOURCES: Population data -- 1970 U.S.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 132 delinquency (Gordon, 1967) , but few studies focused specifically on violent crime.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 133 Another source of difficulty is that observed relationships between particular communities and violence, by race, necessarily reflect differences between communities that are not -- and probably cannot -- be accurately measured, statistically controlled, or otherwise fully taken into account. Compared with whites, the "ecological niches" in which poor blacks live are disadvantaged in ways that defy easy measurement, such as job quality, access to high-status social networks, and exposure to conventional role models (Wilson, 1987:58-60)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 134 and nonwhite populations -- all commonly found correlates of violence. The interactions among these factors make it difficult to estimate their independent effects using data on a cross section of neighborhoods at a single point in time.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 135 the increased concentration, Wilson argues, has been the social isolation of inner cities from mainstream institutions. As the black middle class grew during the 1980s, many middle- and working-class black families found it possible to move out of the ghetto into areas with more desirable housing and other neighborhood amenities.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 136 was only 9 percent of the civilian rate for the same age category; the difference between military and nonmilitary whites was somewhat smaller (Rothberg et al., 1990)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 137 Drugs exacerbate the problems. "The drug economy is in many ways a parallel, or a parody, of the service economy (with an element of glamour thrown in)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 138 have to work for." But secretly, some even admire him. He's "getting over," making it, though not in the right way, the way they were taught.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 139 to produce behavioral outcomes, among individuals and communities. The complexity of these relationships and their theoretical linkages defy simple characterization.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 140 of violent acts, to the extent that these acts develop out of gang interaction or are related to gang membership, the behavior of such groups may be regarded as gang-related, even though they may involve few members of a gang. Defining gangs and gang-related in this way avoids the circularity of including in the definition the behavior that is to be explained.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 141 between members of gangs and others. However, violent behavior is more prevalent among gang members than others of the same age and gender, and it often differs in other ways.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 142 among young males, is more characteristic of individuals and groups with lower socioeconomic status than among higher-status youth. Where gangs are most common, socialization into violence begins early in life.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 143 Community Influences on Gang Violence Social forces that influence young people range from their families and communities to the global economy. Local neighborhoods and communities are especially important as the social settings that are most immediately experienced (Schwartz, 1987; Reiss and Tonry, 1986)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 144 factor in community acceptance of youth gangs. And in many Chicano communities of East Los Angeles, street gangs have become "quasiinstitutionalized" since the 1930s and 1940s (Moore et al., 1978; Moore, 1987, 1991; Vigil, 1987)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 145 weak, hang around with younger gang members. The result, Moore reports, is that the gang is perpetuated as an agent of "street socialization" rather than becoming more integrated into conventional community life (Moore, 1991; see also Short, 1991)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 146 Individual- and aggregate-level violence risk measures have different implications for violence reduction strategies. Once a place with high individual risk (i.e., many violent victimizations per person at risk or, ideally, per personhour at risk)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 147 victimization correlated specifically with spending more nights per week out alone, greater frequency of drinking in pubs, and use of public transportation. We have no way of knowing whether these are also risk factors in the United States, which differs significantly in terms of the use of private transportation, access to neighborhood bars and other sources of alcohol and drugs, and racial composition.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 148 density, and near public housing projects and high schools are also associated with high risks of violence (Beasley and Antunes, 1974; Mladenka and Hill, 1976; Roncek, 1981; Roncek and Faggiani, 1986; Sampson, 1983; Schuerman and Kobrin, 1986; Smith and Jarjoura, 1988)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 149 citizens' participation in neighborhood patrols and maintenance of the symbolic entrances fell off after an initial reduction in the fear of crime. To intruders bent on crime, this deterioration may well have signaled a decline in local guardianship and concern and therefore in the risk of detection by responsible monitors.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 150 TABLE 3-1 Public Health Injury Control Framework PRIMARY PREVENTION 1. Prevent creation of the hazard.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 151 aimed at reducing the lethality of accessible weapons through such means as requiring the use of plastic rather than glass beverage containers in crowds; reducing access to firearms; providing bullet-resistant clothing to police and private security officers in vulnerable circumstances; and reducing available firepower through restrictions on muzzle velocity and hollow-point ammunition. Tertiary prevention tactics include enhanced emergency telephone service (which automatically displays to the dispatcher the address of the calling telephone)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 152 Violence in Special Places Violence at a given level or severity is not equally problematic in all places. Social concern is greater in places where it impairs social functions that are especially important, or in places where the victims are legally required to be.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 153 A vital policy question is whether these processes have aggravated or inhibited prison violence. In both cases, existing research provides no clear answers, and the ongoing nature of the legal processes both demands and facilitates studies of how they are affecting prison violence.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 154 surveillance with "living units" of approximately 50 cells clustered around a day room, with 24-hour management by officers located inside the unit. Direct supervision has usually been introduced as a means of personnel cost reduction rather than as a court-ordered reform; Nelson reports several examples of reduced inmate violence.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 155 the definition used, and the reference period. This work suggests no particular risk factors.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 156 school rules, and a weak principal. It is not clear whether the ineffective control gives a kind of permission that encourages violent behavior, or whether high violence levels create fear among authorities that undermines their will to impose discipline.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 157 As discussed earlier, there is a need to resolve conflicting findings about the interactions between bullying, peer relations, aggression, and violence. Because developmental studies rarely examine community influences or compare sequences across communities or ethnic categories, we do not know the extents to which the well-documented continuity in aggression reflects continuity in individuals versus the environment.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 158 measures, particularly those relating to biomedical measures, may be viewed as particularly intrusive and raise questions about the conditions for informed consent. Similarly, there are issues of whose consent is required.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 159 individuals over time represents an essential scientific strategy for discovering such relationships. Once discovered, the relationships may suggest ways, within strict ethical guidelines, to enhance the effectiveness of humane, beneficial, and minimally intrusive violence prevention strategies.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 160 high-risk and normative subsamples. The specific criteria for defining the subsamples of cohort subjects should be developed as part of study design but should include behavioral indicators of temperament and cognition, and biomedical indicators.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 161 or some other intervention might be especially effective in reducing chances of violent behavior. Similar cases can be made for measuring evoked brain potentials, heart rate and heart rate variability, and galvanic skin responses because noninvasive procedures exist.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 162 The annual measures should also attempt to capture family interaction patterns, such as family degree of organization, stability, bonding between children and parents, stimulation by caregivers, parental discipline and conflict management, and measures of physical, social, religious, and moral functioning in the family. They should also record important life events; characteristics of the community, neighborhood, day-care facilities; and, after school entrance, behavioral observations of teachers and peers.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 163 Analysis should focus on separating community- from individual-level effects. Analyses of data from all cohorts would permit much more precise documentation than is currently available of how temperament affects developmental processes, and of how developmental processes and life events interact to determine the risk of aggressive behavior at all ages to adult status.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 164 to the intervention: reading and arithmetic ability, short-term memory, retention in school, educational achievement, television viewing habits, and substance abuse and sexual activity during adolescence. NOTES 1 In a survey of 1,700 Rhode Island boys and girls in the seventh to ninth grades (Kikuchi, 1988)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 165 References American Psychiatric Association 1987 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-III-R (Third Edition, Revised)
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 166 Bensing, R.C., and O Schroeder 1960 Homicide in an Urban Community.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 167 Christiansen, K.O. 1977 A review of studies of criminality among twins.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 168 Dietz, P.E. 1986 Mass, serial, and sensational homicides.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 169 eds., The Development and Treatment of Childhood Aggression. Hillsdale, N.J.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 170 Freedman, J.L. 1986 Television violence and aggression: A rejoinder.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 172 Appendix D to Wayland Clifton, Jr., Convenience store robberies in Gainesville, Florida: An intervention strategy by Gainesville police department. Paper presented at the 1987 meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Montreal, November.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 173 Land, Kenneth, P
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 174 Magnusson, D., and L Bergman 1988 Individual and variable-based approaches for longitudinal research on early risk factors.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 175 1980 Gangs, groups, and serious youth crime.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 176 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 1992 Homicide in U.S. workplaces: A strategy for prevention and research.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 177 Pepler, D.J., G
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 178 Roncek, D., and D Faggiani 1986 High schools and crime: A replication.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 179 Short, James F 1990 Gangs, neighborhoods, and youth crime.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 180 Taylor and Gottfredson 1986 Environmental design, crime, and prevention: An examination of community dynamics.
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PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE 181 among violent offenders and impulsive fire setters. Archives of General Psychiatry 46:604-606.
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