Violence in the City: Understanding and Supporting Community Responses to Urban Violence

 

 

From the summary at the World Bank

Violence in the City: Understanding and Supporting Community Responses to Urban Violence” is the first global study of urban violence conducted by the World Bank, and incorporates case studies from urban communities in Brazil (Fortaleza), Haiti (Port-au-Prince), Kenya (Nairobi), South Africa (Johannesburg) and Timor-Leste (Dili).

For millions of people around the world, violence, or the fear of violence, is a daily reality. Much of this violence concentrates in urban centers in the developing world. Cities are now home to half the world’s population and expected to absorb almost all new population growth over the next 25 years. In many cases, the scale of urban violence can eclipse those of open warfare; some of the world’s highest homicide rates occur in countries that have not undergone a war, but that have serious epidemics of violence in urban areas. This study emerged out of a growing recognition that urban communities themselves are an integral part of understanding the causes and impacts of urban violence and of generating sustainable violence prevention initiatives.

Click here for the full report

Related articles

• LA story? (bbc.co.uk)
• Urban riots: tough love | Editorial (guardian.co.uk)

Veteran Psychologist Explains Our ‘Lust For Blood’

From the Medical News Today article, 20 April 2011

We are fascinated with the lurid details of sensational murder trials. Horror fiction and slasher movies thrill us – the gorier the better. When we drive by the scene of an accident, we’re compelled to slow down. And it’s no secret that brutal video games are solid moneymakers. Why do we thirst for the frighteningly grotesque? In The “LUST FOR BLOOD: WHY WE ARE FASCINATED BY DEATH, MURDER, HORROR, AND VIOLENCE” (Prometheus Books, $25) veteran psychologist Jeffrey A. Kottler explains our dark desire for guts, gore, and the gruesome. …

…[Kottler] ably explores our paradoxical lust and revulsion as a cathartic means of restraint, with specific attention to its psychological impact: seeing violence within a media frame makes us feel alive, recharging us to face our private anxieties about life-and-death issues. This book offers something for everyone, from media psychologists to fans of splatter-films,” said Ramsland.

Kottler considers ideas from a variety of theories and research to explain our responses to violence, raises questions about the shifting line between normal and abnormal, evaluates the confusion and ambivalence that many people feel when witnessing others’ suffering, and suggests future trends in society’s attitudes toward violence.

About the Author:
Jeffrey A. Kottler, PhD, is a practicing psychologist, professor of counseling at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of more than seventy-five books, including the New York Times best seller “The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer.” He is also head of Empower Nepali Girls, which provides educational scholarships for at-risk, lower-caste girls.

Reducing Gun Violence: Results from an Intervention in East Los Angeles [pdf]

Reducing Gun Violence

Results from an Intervention in East Los Angeles

From the Rand Corporation Web page

How does one solve violent crime in big cities? It’s a vexing problem, and one that attracted the attention of a group of scholars at the RAND Corporation. This 82-page eBook released in 2010 takes a close look at how the Boston Gun Project might work if applied in East Los Angeles. In Boston, a coalition of researchers, community leaders, clergy, and others, worked together and designed, implemented, and monitored a project to reduce youth violence by reducing gang and gun violence. The program was quite successful, so this led the National Institute of Justice to work with RAND to see if this might work in Los Angeles. Specifically, the intervention included increased police presences, more stringent enforcement of housing codes for properties used by gang members, more stringent enforcement of parole and probation conditions, and referral of gun violations to federal prosecutors. While the program was somewhat successful when applied to this section of Los Angeles, the report recommends, “city leaders should establish processes to support agencies in such collaborations.” Both a summary of the report and the eBook in its entirety are available for free download. [KMG]