Temporal factors in violence related injuries--An 11 year trend analysis of violence-related injuries from a Swiss Emergency Department

Injury from interpersonal violence is a major social and medical problem in the industrialized world. Little is known about the trends in prevalence and injury pattern or about the demographic characteristics of the patients involved.

Racism, Youth Violence and the New Right: A Comparative Study of the Political Transformation of Extremism in Hungary and Romania

This research focused on the re-emerging of national and minority identities and the concomitant hostilities emerging from them in Hungary and in Romania. In particular the findings indicate that extremist incidents against members of minority groups on the local level seem to follow patterns in publicised media events. Violent attacks by skinheads against Gypsies in Hungary are often isolated incidents but are also inadvertently supported by biased media coverage, hostile majority attitudes and stereotyped behaviour reproduced in the media. The research also indicates that extremism both in Hungary against Gypsies and in Romania against Hungarians is of three kinds: organised within the framework of extremist groups, state-supported violence (both real and symbolic), and isolated, local instances with a few perpetrators committing atrocities. However, and this is a positive development, with rising interethnic tensions and extremist attacks prevalent in Hungary and Romania, there is also a parallel emergence of a more sophisticated human and minority rights campaign to combat them.

Suicide Bombers in Israel: Their Motivations, Characteristics, and Prior Activity in Terrorist Organizations

This paper examines the characteristics of suicide bombers as reflected in the Israeli press during the Second Intifada in Israel. The analysis aims to determine whether there were significant differences in the characteristics of suicide bombers with religious motives versus those with nationalist motives. The findings reveal that gender, education level, and organizational affiliation correlated significantly with motives for carrying out suicide attacks. Most of the suicide bombers with religious motives were men with elementary education. In addition, the results show that most of the suicide bombers who were affiliated with the Hamas organization acted out of religious motives. No significant differences were found between suicide bombers with religious and those with nationalist motives with regard to age, marital status, and prior activity in terrorist organizations.

Modernity Strikes Back? A Historical Perspective on the Latest Increase in Interpersonal Violence (1960-1990)

There is a plethora of criminological explanations why criminal violence increased during the three decades between the early 1960s and the early 1990s. This paper argues that most available interpretations are lacking in three respects: they lack a historical perspective that anchors the three critical decades in a wider understanding of long-term trends; they take the nation-state as their unit of analysis and disregard important commonalities across the Western world; and they pay insufficient attention to different trends in broad categories of physical violence.This paper therefore takes a macro-level and long-term perspective on violent crime, focussing on European homicide during the past 160 years. It demonstrates that the period of increase was preceded by a long-term decline and convergence of homicide rates from the 1840s to the 1950s. Also, it shows that both the decline and the increase primarily resulted from temporal variation in the likelihood of physical aggression between men in public space. It argues that explanations of these common trends need to take into account broad long-term cultural change common to Western societies. In particular, the paper suggests that shifts in culturally transmitted and institutionally embedded ideals of the conduct of life may provide an explanation for long-term change in levels of interpersonal violence.

Assessing the Relevance of Anomie Theory for Explaining Spatial Variation in Lethal Criminal Violence: An Aggregate-Level Analysis of Homicide within the United States

One of the most influential statements in the anomie theory tradition has been Merton’s argument that the volume of instrumental property crime should be higher where there is a greater imbalance between the degree of commitment to monetary success goals and the degree of commitment to legitimate means of pursing such goals. Contemporary anomie theories stimulated by Merton’s perspective, most notably Messner and Rosenfeld’s institutional anomie theory, have expanded the scope conditions by emphasizing lethal criminal violence as an outcome to which anomie theory is highly relevant, and virtually all contemporary empirical studies have focused on applying the perspective to explaining spatial variation in homicide rates. In the present paper, we argue that current explications of Merton’s theory and IAT have not adequately conveyed the relevance of the core features of the anomie perspective to lethal violence. We propose an expanded anomie model in which an unbalanced pecuniary value system – the core causal variable in Merton’s theory and IAT – translates into higher levels of homicide primarily in indirect ways by increasing levels of firearm prevalence, drug market activity, and property crime, and by enhancing the degree to which these factors stimulate lethal outcomes. Using aggregate-level data collected during the mid-to-late 1970s for a sample of relatively large social aggregates within the U.S., we find a significant effect on homicide rates of an interaction term reflecting high levels of commitment to monetary success goals and low levels of commitment to legitimate means. Virtually all of this effect is accounted for by higher levels of property crime and drug market activity that occur in areas with an unbalanced pecuniary value system. Our analysis also reveals that property crime is more apt to lead to homicide under conditions of high levels of structural disadvantage. These and other findings underscore the potential value of elaborating the anomie perspective to explicitly account for lethal violence.

Understanding the Other’s “Understanding” of Violence: Legitimacy, Recognition, and the Challenge of Dealing with the Past in Divided Societies

Post-conflict societies which have achieved a cessation of violence and embarked on a political conflict transformation process cannot in the long-term avoid a process of dealing with the past. Case studies of South Africa and Northern Ireland confirm this normative claim, showing that within the post-war society as a whole a social consensus on how to “understand” and “recognize” the use of violence that occurred during the conflict is necessary: understanding the other’s “understanding” of violence. A mutual understanding must be reached that both sides fought a campaign that was just and legitimate from their own perspective. The morality of the “other’s violence” has to be recognized.

Pastoralists at War: Violence and Security in the Kenya-Sudan-Uganda Border Region

The majority of those living in the border region of Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda are pastoralists, whose livelihoods are dictated by the upkeep and size of their herds. Harsh environmental conditions force pastoralists to migrate in search of water and pasturelands during the dry season. With limited access to water and competing rights to land, inter-tribal conflict arises when pastoralists from one tribe enter the territory of another. The increased availability of small arms in the region from past wars increasingly makes ordinary clashes fatal. Governments in the region have responded with heavy-handed coercive disarmament operations. These have led to distrust and subsequent violent clashes between communities and security providers. This report reviews the scale, consequences of, and responses to the many pastoral conflicts, utilizing methodological tools such as key informant interviews, retrospective analy¬sis, and a thorough review of available literature.

Domestic Violence

Since the 1960s, there has been growing awareness regarding the issue of domestic violence as a form of violence against women, which has been largely influenced by the work of feminist activist and scholars in North America and Europe (Dobash and Dobash 1992). Other terms have been used to describe the same phenomenon, including domestic abuse, spousal abuse, wife battering, marital violence, intimate partner violence. Though there is no doubt that this problem has existed for much more than five decades, the tendency to label it as ‘private matters’ or ‘marital disagreements’ has obscured the reality of women living with abuse in their home. At a general level, domestic violence can be defined as the means used by a man in order to assert his control and domination over his intimate partner, whether they are married or not (Mullender 1996). It can involve incidents of physical and sexual violence, as well as verbal, psychological and financial abuse. Though some of its manifestations may be associated with particular cultural or religious groups – e.g. forced marriage and honour killing in South-Asian communities – domestic violence affects women from all classes and backgrounds.

The Role of Cortisol in the Cycle of Violence

Child abuse and neglect are universal risk factors for delinquency, violence and aggression; this phenomenon is known as the cycle of violence. Despite a wide body of research demonstrating this phenomenon, the processes which mediate this relationship remain largely unknown. One potentially relevant result of abuse and neglect may be disruptions in the development of the body’s stress response, specifically the function of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis. The HPA-axis, and its end-product, cortisol, may play a role in regulating aggressive behavior, but this function may be disrupted following abuse and neglect. Another risk factor for aggression, psychopathy, may mediate the cycle of violence or independently contribute to aggressive behavior. This study examined the relationship between child abuse and neglect, HPA-axis function, psychopathy and aggression. History of abuse was measured using a self-report questionnaire, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Using a within-subject, placebo-controlled, counter-balanced dosing design, 67 adults were given an acute dose of 20mg cortisol as a challenge to the HPA-axis. Following dosing, measures of cortisol response were obtained through saliva samples, and state-aggressive behavior was measured by a laboratory task, the Point-Subtraction Aggression Paradigm (PSAP). Basal measures of cortisol were obtained prior to dosing. Psychopathy and a trait-measure of aggression were assessed through self-report questionnaires. PSAP data and trait-aggression scores were normalized and summed for an overall aggression score. Linear regression analyses indicated that a history of abuse and neglect robustly predicted aggression, supporting the cycle of violence hypothesis. Further, abuse and neglect predicted a diminished HPA-axis response to the cortisol challenge. Although a diminished HPA-axis response significantly predicted increased aggression, mediation analysis revealed that HPA-axis reactivity did not mediate a significant portion of the effect of abuse and neglect on aggression. However, HPA-axis reactivity did mediate part of the effect, indicating that HPA-axis function may be a factor in the cycle of violence. Psychopathy robustly predicted increased aggression. Although the results indicate that cortisol, psychopathy and HPA-axis function are involved in the cycle of violence, further research is required to better understand the complex interaction of these factors.

Skills training and social influences for violence prevention in middle schools: A curriculum evaluation

This pilot study evaluated the effect of skills training and of social influences on self-reported aggressive behavior in a sample of 239 sixth-grade students. The effect of two intervention groups and one control group were compared. In the first intervention group, a 15-session, violence-prevention curriculum was taught by the teacher. In the second intervention group, the same curriculum was taught by the teacher with the assistance of peer leaders trained to modify social norms about violence. The control group was evaluated but did not receive any training. The design included four schools. In two schools, three classes were assigned to one of the two interventions or to the control group. In the other two schools, two classes were assigned to either intervention (teacher only) or control. Students were evaluated before and after the implementation of the curriculum using a standardized questionnaire.^ The primary outcome was the effect of the curriculum and peer leaders on self-reported aggressive behaviors. The secondary outcome was their impact on intervening variables: knowledge about violence, conflict-resolution skills, self-efficacy, and attitudes.^ The intervention had a moderate effect on reducing self-reported aggressive behaviors among boys in two of the six classes that received the curriculum. Both classes with peer leaders reduced their aggressive behavior, but this reduction was significant in only one. A peer leader selection problem could probably explain this lack of effect.^ In three of the four schools, both interventions had an overall significant effect on increasing knowledge about violence and skills to reduce violence. Students also developed a more negative attitude toward violence after the intervention. As hypothesized, attitude change was stronger among students from the teacher plus peer leader group. No intervention effect was observed on self-efficacy nor on attitudes toward skills to reduce violence. Limitations of the study and implications for violence prevention in schools are discussed. ^