Contagion of violence

Reblogged from Public Health--Research & Library News:

The National Academies Press has published a book, Contagion of Violence:  A Workshop Summary, based on a 2012 workshop.

The past 25 years have seen a major paradigm shift in the field of violence prevention, from the assumption that violence is inevitable to the recognition that violence is preventable. Part of this shift has occurred in thinking about why violence occurs, and where intervention points might lie.

Read more… 286 more words

The Roots of Newtown, Part II: Purposeless boys

Reblogged from The Fly:

Come back Mom and Dad

You’re growing apart; you know that I’m growing up sad

I need some attention

I shoot into the light.

- Peter Gabriel, "Family Snapshot"

Purposeless boys are dangerous.

Michael Gurian, in his book The Purpose of Boys (2010), lists some of the effects of the growing population of boys without purpose.

• For every 100 girls in public schools, 335 boys are expelled.

Read more… 647 more words

 

Related articles

• The 'Boy Crisis': Is It Fictional? (ideas.time.com)

[Reblog] Finding the Truth About Guns

[Reblog] Finding the Truth About Guns.  Posted by Bryan HayesJanuary 15, 2013

Not sure what to believe in the debate on public safety and guns?

On one side, you have the NRA, many Republicans, and conservative pundits / newscasters.  Their central claim is that more guns in the hands of responsible, hard-working citizens is a deterrent to criminals and as a result there is less violent crime and less overall crime.  They argue that an individual has the right to defend themself and their family from violent criminals.  This view is anchored by the perception of natural rights as well their interpretation of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.

Wayne LaPierre, a prominent NRA official, said that a reason there has been mass shootings in schools, for instance, is that the government created and designated them as gun-free zones which make them easy targets for those that wish to create the most destruction with the least risk.  He went as far as say that we are “advertising them as killing zones” recently in response the tragedy in Newton.

It is often stated that though gun violence and gun homicides are less in the UK, where guns are not legal,but that their violent crime rate is considerably higher than ours in the US.  In fact, it has been recently reported that the UK is the violent crime capital of Europe.

“The worst violent crime and murder rates in America occur in places with the strictest gun control already in places(like) Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Washington D.C. Strict gun control clearly does not work…The FBI reports 386 violent crimes per 100,000 in the USA. The UK Home Office reports 1,361 violent crimes per 100,000 in England. Gun control may be a failure, but the UK experience proves that outright gun bans are an unmitigated disaster.” Wayne Allyn Root (W.A.R) is a former Presidential candidate, the 2008 Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee, and a Tea Party favorite. Link

President Obama, most Democrats, university professors / researchers, and their pundits / newscasters as well as many mayors and police chiefs share the view that more guns equals more violent crime.  They say the statistics of gun homicides and violent crimes is extremely higher in the US compared with the UK and other similar countries and states with strict gun enforcement.

The difference on violent crime data comes from what is considered a violent crime.  Burglary, domestic violence, even bicycle theft are classified as a violent crimes in  the UK.  The US classifies violent crime using four categories  Murder, rape, robbery(by force, threat of force, or violence), and aggravated assault.

Here is the comparison:

U.S. 2009 robbery rate: 133 per 100,000.

U.K. 2009 robbery rate: 164 per 100,000.

U.S. 2009 burglary rate: 716.3 per 100,000

U.K. 2009 burglary rate: 523 per 100,000.

And in the U.S., you were nearly four times as likely to be murdered:

U.S. 2009 murder rate: 5 per 100,000.

U.K. 2009 murder rate: 1.49 per 100,000

The truth is that violent crime is much higher in the US than in the UK.  There are more murders and rapes in the US compared with the UK. Bottom line is that you, your family, your neighbors, and your friends are considerably more likely to be murdered or raped in the US than in any other comparable country, including the UK.

Does having a gun for protection make you safer?

According to the American Journal of Public Health, Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and Gun Assault, “individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05) more likely to be shot. Read More.  You are nearly five times more likely to be shot if you have a gun during an assault than if you do not.

What about the claim that the worst violent crime and murders occur in cities and States with the strictest gun control laws?

Harvard Injury Control Research Center

• Across states, more guns = more homicide

From Harvard School of Public Health: “Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten-year period (1988-1997).  After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide…Children in states with many guns have elevated rates of unintentional gun deaths, suicide and homicide.  The state rates of non-firearm suicide and non-firearm homicide among children are not related to firearm availability”

• Where there are more guns there is more homicide  
• Guns are not used millions of times each year in self-defense  ”false positive”  

“We find that the claim of many millions of annual self-defense gun uses by American citizens is invalid.”

•  Gun ownership creates external psychic costs.  

By a margin of more than 3 to 1, Americans would feel less safe, not safer, as others in their community acquire guns

What about arming teachers and custodians with guns?

Columbine High School and Virginia Tech were protected by armed guards prior to two of the deadliest attacks at education institutions in U.S. history.

Family members of the victims in recent shootings are taking a stand against the NRA and are urging law makers to take meaningful action to reduce and limit the amount and type of guns that are currently legally available.

‘“It’s different now because children are being butchered in schools,’ said Dave Hoover, a police officer in Lakewood, Colo., whose nephew A.J. Boik was one of the 12 people killed in Aurora. ‘Because kids were killed at a movie. Because families went to church and were gunned down.”’

He added: “I don’t understand why we are even arguing about this.”

I could not find any studies that show there is a positive correlation to the amount of guns and the safety of the residents.  Not saying they don’t excises but where are they? This letter from 100 public health researchers may offer a clue:  The Letter https://crimelab.uchicago.edu/sites/crimelab.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/Biden%20Commission%20letter_20130110_final.pdf

What are your views?  Please share.

 

[Booklet] Helping Children and Adolescents Cope with Violence and Disasters: What Parents Can Do

Practical ways parents and others can help children in the days, weeks, and months after traumatic events.
From the US National Institute on Mental Health.
Tips are practical and some are arranged by age groups.
An excerpt from the booklet 

How Parents Can Help:

After violence or a disaster parents and family should:

• Identify and address their own feelings — this will allow them to help others
• Explain to children what happened
• Let children know:
  • You love them
  • The event was not their fault
  • You will take care of them, but only if you can; be honest
  • It’s okay for them to feel upset
• DO:
  • Allow children to cry
  • Allow sadness
  • Let children talk about feelings
  • Let them write about feelings
  • Let them draw pictures
• DON’T:
  • Expect children to be brave or tough
  • Make children discuss the event before they are ready
  • Get angry if children show strong emotions
  • Get upset if they begin:
    • Bed-wetting
    • Acting out
    • Thumb-sucking
• If children have trouble sleeping:
  • Give them extra attention
  • Let them sleep with a light on
  • Let them sleep in your room (for a short time)
• Try to keep normal routines (such routines may not be normal for some children):
  • Bed-time stories
  • Eating dinner together
  • Watching TV together
  • Reading books, exercising, playing games
• If you can’t keep normal routines, make new ones together
• Help children feel in control:
  • Let them choose meals, if possible
  • Let them pick out clothes, if possible
  • Let them make some decisions for themselves, when possible.

 

Related articles

• How to talk with children about the Connecticut shooting, other tragedies (q13fox.com)
• SAMHSA Coping with Violence and Traumatic Events (samhsa.gov)
• How to Cope With Fear After School Shootings (livescience.com)
• NAEYC Tips for Talking to Young Children (drcindysimpson.com)
• Save the Children Offers 10 Tips to Help All Children Cope (5minutesformom.com)

 

One in Three Victims of Teen Dating Violence Has Had More Than One Abuser

After reading this article a few questions come to mind.
Has this kind of violence always occurred, and is only now being studied more closely in the past?
Are more people becoming increasingly desensitized to violence through depiction in the media? and being violent (including verbally) without realizing the consequences?
Should dating be discouraged in people under 16 ? Should they be encouraged to socialize with others in the younger teen years rather than date in order to learn how to communicate, respect one another, and develop as individuals?
Do people (especially girls, young women) have too high expectations of dating? Do they expect a boy or young man to fill needs best met by families/parents?

On a related note, about a year ago I was on our courthouse grounds for a few hours. I was participating in a local peace group’s display of the cost of the Iraq war. A couple walked by, and the young man (late teens/early 20′s) was pushing the young woman he was walking with and calling her names.  Although both were smiling, it seemed like it was escalating. I stepped in, not boldly, and tried to get him to stop through words. Forgot what I said. He didn’t really stop, but at least it did not get any worse.
On reflection, the relationship seemed to be based more on ownership than mutual love. So sad.

 

Excerpts From the 18 September 2012 article at Science Daily

Overall, nearly two-thirds of both men and women reported some type of abuse during their teenage years, which falls in line with other studies.

But it was surprising how many teen victims had two or more abusive partners, said Amy Bonomi, lead author of the study and associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University.

“For about one in three teens who were abused, it wasn’t just one bad boyfriend or girlfriend. It may have been at least the start of a trend,” Bonomi said.

The same patterns were not seen in similar population-based studies of adults, who tend to report abuse by a single partner, she said….

One argument that violence researchers often hear is that behaviors like name-calling and insults aren’t serious enough to be called abuse. But that’s not true, Bonomi said.

“Studies in adults have shown that psychological abuse alone can be damaging to health,” she said. She is currently studying whether the same is true for adolescents….

Some types of dating violence tended to occur at earlier ages than others, the study found. For females reporting dating violence, controlling behavior tended to occur early, with 44 percent reporting it between the ages of 13 and 15. For males, 13 to 15 was the most common age range for the first occurrence of put-downs and name-calling (60 percent).

Pressure to have sex was more likely to start at later ages, from 16 to 17 for women.

Bonomi said it was significant that college students were reporting this level of abuse as teens.

“There’s a common belief in our society that dating violence only affects low-income and disadvantaged teens. But these results show that even relatively privileged kids, who are on their way to college, can be victims.”

The results also call for better education in our elementary schools.

“Many of these kids are getting in relationships early, by the age of 13,” Bonomi said. “We need to help them learn about healthy relationships and how to set sexual boundaries. It shouldn’t just be one class session — it needs to be a routine discussion in school.”

Related articles

• Teen Dating Violence (politicalsocialworker.wordpress.com)
• What’s Behind All The Violence In America Today? (fromthetrenchesworldreport.com)
  “The reality untaught in American schools and textbooks is that war — whether on a large or small scale — and domestic violence have been pervasive in American life and culture from this country’s earliest days almost 400 years ago. Violence, in varying forms,according to the leading historian of the subject, Richard Maxwell Brown, “has accompanied virtually every stage and aspect of our national experience,” and is “part of our unacknowledged (underground) value structure.” Indeed, “repeated episodes of violence going far back into our colonial past, have imprinted upon our citizens a propensity to violence.”Thus, America demonstrated a national predilection for war and domestic violence long before the 9/11 attacks, but its leaders and intellectuals through most of the last century cultivated the national self-image, a myth, of America as a moral, “peace-loving” nation which the American population seems unquestioningly to have embraced. But the Reality tells different story.”

“

Take dating violence, for example. Emily Rothman, associate professor at Boston University School of Public Health recently, published a study on dating violence among teenagers in December of 2010 in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. She surveyed around 1,500 students from the Boston area. Rothman found that:

… Nearly 19% of students reported physically abusing a romantic partner in the past month, including pushing, shoving, hitting, punching, kicking or choking. Nearly 43% reported verbally abusing their partner, cursing at them or calling them fat, ugly, stupid or some other insult.”

• Domestic Violence — Break the Cycle (womensphilanthropy.typepad.com)
• Campaign against teen dating violence is launched (mysanantonio.com)
• Teen dating violence: no school protocol for reporting/counseling (californiaschildren.typepad.com)
• U.S. High Schools Lax in Preventing Dating Abuse (nlm.nih.gov)
• Wear Your R-E-S-P-E-C-T (fabsugar.com)
• Most U.S. Schools Do Not Train Staff in Preventing Dating Violence Among Teens (healthychildren.org)
• Boston advises teens on how to break up _ safely (sacbee.com)
• Teenage victims of domestic violence targeted as definition is extended (guardian.co.uk)

Black Women Face More Violence Under ‘Prison Nation’, Book Says

 

I’ve believed for years that our country’s undue emphasis on “law and order” and punishment  over addressing the root causes of crime has damaged communities and individual lives. Findings in this book reinforces my strong reservations of reacting to problems out of fear rather than building people up.

From the 4 September 2012 article at Science Daily

Black women in poor neighborhoods have faced increasing violence because public policy has focused on unconditional punishment, not prevention, according to a new book by a public policy expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Beth Richie, author of “Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation” (New York University Press, 2012) directs UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy.

Harsh sentencing since 2000, especially for drug trafficking, combines with gender dynamics in black neighborhoods to propel some women into violent relationships and crime, Richie says.

“I define the ‘male violence matrix’ as violence against women that has its roots in patriarchal arrangements, as well as by communities, institutions, and agencies organized around patriarchal power and male supremacy,” said Richie, who is professor of African American studies and gender and women’s studies at UIC.

Most political responses to the culture of punishment address its effect on men, Richie said.

“While the impact on men is clear, there are also significant ways that women experience the negative effects of the prison nation, especially those women who also experience gender violence.”……

Related articles

• “Losing the Movement:” Black Women, Violence, And Prison Nation (racialicious.com)
• Understanding the ‘Violence Matrix’ (theroot.com)

 

Nursing Trauma: How One Church is Going After Chicago’s Violence Epidemic

Gunshot wound victim makes it to the trauma center at Valley Care Hospital (Photo credit: ffsetla)

This is one response to how to lower the high murder rate rate in Chicago (5,056 since 2001). The author believes that many victims of violence react with shock in much the same manner as soldiers with PTSD. These victims will most likely grow up angry with greater potential to use violence to solve problems unless they are worked with, much like returning soldiers from a war zone.

The blog post Nursing Trauma: How One Church is Going After Chicago’s Violence Epidemic may be found here.

Excerpts

The Real Problem: Trauma

I spent a summer in the ER of a Level 1 trauma center in Chicago. Gunshot victims would come in, and they couldn’t believe what had happened to them. It was traumatic in the truest sense – their bodies were broken and put into shock. But their mind and spirit were as well: it was a jarring experience all around for them. But not only for them. Mothers and aunties and cousins and baby mommas were going crazy too. A light bulb turned on: This situation is traumatic for them too! They need care as well.

And so the idea of “care” was expanding from physical to psycho-spiritual, and from patient to family. Everybody involved was a victim of trauma here.

I began to look into this idea of “trauma” and found that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the result of unfettered moments of shock that continue to reside in the body: the brain and body never return to “normal,” and will erupt in erratic behavior. Think of a geyser here. Hot springs are the result of spontaneous combustion of something that happened in a river far away and a long time ago. What if this is true with humans?

We already know it is. One study on inner-city kids in Chicago showed that children who were exposed to violence or witness a violent act were much more likely to demonstrate aggressive behavior within one year of exposure. PTSD also carries symptoms of depression, which contribute to feelings of meaninglessness in self and the world (thus devaluing another human life enough to take it). This is all very scientific and I want to get to the point:

Our children are being put into shock every single day.

They are experiencing violence as perpetrator, victim, and witness, and they are no less exposed to the trauma. The trauma of being poor….

One Real Solution

Chicago has been called a “warzone” – let’s play with that a moment. Maybe the best thing a small church can do to stop the violence is work with our children like we work with our returning soldiers. (We need to do this better as well). Vets need safe space to talk. They need to give voice to experiences and be able to create new ways of understanding themselves—it’s called moving from “soldier” to “human” again.

Our children need to understand themselves not as black or poor orat-risk but as HUMAN first. They need to develop meaning to confront the meaninglessness that surrounds them. This angry and dark world is traumatic for children, and they will grow up angry and dark unless we help them process what they have seen. Finding one’s own voice is critical to meaning-making. Some of them are not soldiers, but they are all in the war.

Related articles

• Embattled Childhood: The Real Trauma in PTSD (psychologicalscience.org)
• The Psychology of Resilience (psychologicalscience.org)
• Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga: An Interview with David Emerson. (elephantjournal.com)
• The legacy of childhood trauma (beyondmeds.com)
• The Road to Recovery – Promoting Resiliency in First Responders, and Others Who Witness Trauma on a Regular Basis (downwindwalk.wordpress.com)
• June is National Post Traumatic Stress Month (jeanettebartha.wordpress.com)

New book busts myths about sex, race and violence

From the 9 May 2012 Eureka News Alert

here are three pervasive myths about human nature centered on sex, aggression and race. They are:

1. Men and women are truly different in behavior, desires and wiring.
2. Humans are divided into biological races (white, black, Asian, etc.).
3. Humans, especially males, are aggressive by nature.

 

A new book by University of Notre Dame Anthropology Professor Agustín Fuentes titled “Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature” (University of California Press, 2012) counters these pernicious myths and tackles misconceptions about what race, aggression and sex really mean for humans.

Presenting scientific evidence from diverse fields, including anthropology, biology and psychology, Fuentes incorporates an accessible understanding of culture, genetics and evolution, requiring us to dispose of notions of “nature or nurture.”

Fuentes devises a myth-busting toolkit to dismantle persistent fallacies about the validity of biological races, the innateness of aggression and violence, and the nature of monogamy and differences between the sexes. He includes a list of the most common misperceptions about human nature on race, sex and violence, and counters those myths with a myth buster….

Related articles

• Gender gap a scientific myth, says psychology expert (guardian.co.uk)

The Interrupters – Online Two Hour Video via PBS About Chicago “Violence Interrupters”

The link to the video and additional material may be found here.
The video may be viewed in its original format (with graphic language) or the broadcast version.

From the press release

On Feb. 14, FRONTLINE presents the television premiere of the award-winning documentaryThe Interrupters, the moving story of three dedicated “violence interrupters”—Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra—who, with bravado, humility and even humor, work to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they themselves once employed. Their work and their insights are informed by their own journeys, which, as each of them points out, defy easy characterization.

From acclaimed producer-director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) and best-selling author-turned-producer Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here), The Interrupters is an unusually intimate journey into the stubborn persistence of violence in our cities. The New York Timessays the film “has put a face to a raging epidemic and an unforgivable American tragedy.”

The interrupters work for an innovative organization, CeaseFire, which is the brainchild of epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, who for 10 years battled the spread of cholera and AIDS in Africa. Slutkin believes that the spread of violence mimics that of infectious diseases, and so the treatment should be similar: Go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source.

Shot over the course of a year out of Kartemquin Films in Chicago, The Interrupters follows Ameena, Eddie and Cobe as they attempt to intervene in situations before those situations turn violent: two brothers threatening to shoot each other; an angry teenage girl just home from prison; a young man heading down a warpath of revenge. The film captures not only the interrupters’ work, but reveals their own inspired journeys from crime to hope and, ultimately, redemption. As they venture into their communities, they confront the importance of family, the noxious nature of poverty and the place of race. And they do it with incredible candor and directness.

Related articles

• Frontline, tonight: The Interrupters (chicagoreader.com)
• ‘The Interrupters’: Documentary On Youth Crime Spotlights Ex-Gang Members Who Try To Prevent Violence (huffingtonpost.com)
• Must See: ‘The Interrupters,’ a film about Stoping the Violence in Chicago (clutchmagonline.com)
• ‘The Interrupters’ on Frontline on 14 February (Mixed Media) (popmatters.com)
• Ameena Matthews Of The Interrupters Appeared On The Colbert Report (chicagoist.com)
• Crisis interruptus (theage.com.au)
• The Best Indie / International Films of 2011 (Feature) (popmatters.com)
• The Interrupters (noframeof.wordpress.com)

Brain’s Failure to Appreciate Others May Permit Human Atrocities

From the 15 December 2011 Medical News Today article

A father in Louisiana bludgeoned and beheaded his disabled 7-year-old son last August because he no longer wanted to care for the boy. For most people, such a heinous act is unconscionable.

But it may be that a person can become callous enough to commit human atrocities because of a failure in the part of the brain that’s critical for social interaction. A new study by researchers at Duke University and Princeton University suggests this function may disengage when people encounter others they consider disgusting, thus “dehumanizing” their victims by failing to acknowledge they have thoughts and feelings.

This shortcoming also may help explain how propaganda depicting Tutsi in Rwanda as cockroaches and Hitler’s classification of Jews in Nazi Germany as vermin contributed to torture and genocide, the study said.

“When we encounter a person, we usually infer something about their minds. Sometimes, we fail to do this, opening up the possibility that we do not perceive the person as fully human,” said lead author Lasana Harris, an assistant professor in Duke University’s Department of Psychology & Neuroscience and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. Harris co-authored the study with Susan Fiske, a professor of psychology at Princeton University.

Social neuroscience has shown through MRI studies that people normally activate a network in the brain related to social cognition — thoughts, feelings, empathy, for example — when viewing pictures of others or thinking about their thoughts. But when participants in this study were asked to consider images of people they considered drug addicts, homeless people, and others they deemed low on the social ladder, parts of this network failed to engage.

What’s especially striking, the researchers said, is that people will easily ascribe social cognition — a belief in an internal life such as emotions — to animals and cars, but will avoid making eye contact with the homeless panhandler in the subway.

“We need to think about other people’s experience,” Fiske said. “It’s what makes them fully human to us.”…

Read the entire article

 

 

 

Related articles

• A brain’s failure to appreciate others may permit human atrocities (esciencenews.com)
• A brain’s failure to appreciate others may permit human atrocities (eurekalert.org)
• Why Leaders Should Care About Cognitive Neuroscience (forbes.com)
• Scientists’ Idea Helps Explain ‘What and Where’ People See (prnewswire.com)
• Wisdom through Mindfulness: Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation (adultadhdhelp.net)