Midterm Flashcards
Violence
Research consistently shows that violence is “connected by a web of actions, behaviours, ideas, perceptions and justifications.”
- Violence – despite how it is manifested – often committed for same kinds of reasons
- Perpetrator often sees violence as justified
- Violent behaviour often replicated in different spheres of one’s life (e.g. predictor of violence is history of violent behaviour)
- Violence overlaps in variety of situations (e.g. macro/micro linkages)
Culture and Violence - Engaging in Violence in Multiple Spheres
Examples of people engaging in violence in multiple spheres would include:
- Athletes in violent/contact sports who commit violent crimes (e.g. sexual assault, domestic violence)
- Military and/or law enforcement officials and problem of domestic violence among its members
Culture and Violence - Violence Overlap in Different Context
Examples how violence overlaps in different contexts
- More society engages in ‘legitimate violence’ the more ‘illegitimate violence’ there will be
- Brutalization hypothesis: Argues states with death penalty have higher rates of homicide than those that don’t; essentially argument says death penalty desensitizes society to killing and devalues human life which increases tolerance toward lethal behaviour
- War also found to increase rates of illegitimate violence, not just among returning soldiers in domestic realm, but within larger soceity as well.
Types of Violence
1) Instrumental
2) Expressive
Types of Violence - Instrumental Violence
Violence is means to an end.
Designed to improve the financial or social position of the criminal.
- E.g., inheritance
Types of Violence
1) Instrumental: Violence is means to an end.
2) Expressive: Violence that vents, rage, anger or frustration.
3 Interconnected Types of Violence
Iadicola & Shupe
1) Interpersonal
2) Institutional
3) Structural
Violence is any action or structural arrangement that results in physical or non-physical harm to one or more persons.
1) Interpersonal
Person-to-person.
- E.g., murder, rape
2) Institutional
Violence perpetuated in organizational settings.
- E.g., family violence, corporate and workplace violence
3) Structural Violence
Discriminatory social arrangements in light of negative effects on life changes on particular groups.
Definition of Violence - Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary
“exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse…intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force.”
Definition of Violence - National Panel on the Understanding & Control of Violent Behaviour
“behaviors by individuals that intentionally threaten, attempt, or inflict physical harm to others.”
Definition of Violence - Newman (1998)
“a series of events, the course of which or the outcomes of which, cause injury or damage to persons or property.”
Definition of Violence - Iadicola & Shupe (2003)
“Violence is any action or structural arrangement that results in physical or non-physical harm to one or more persons”
Strengths of Mainstream Violence Definitions
All definitions agree that violence and aggression are harmful.
- Differ in conceptualizing what kinds of harm count
Limitations of Mainstream Violence Definitions
Violence is about injuring, damaging, destroying, or killing.
- Can be for constructive reasons, but always destructive
- Important to differentiate between intent and purpose of act and act itself
Mary Jackman
- Author argues that research on violence has been limited because of legal discourse and focus on forms of violence deemed socially deviant and motivated by willful malice
- Attempts to present “generic definition of violence that focuses unequivocally on the injuriousness of actions, detached from their social, moral, or legal standing”
Range of Injurious Outcomes
Issues that distort understanding of violence:
1) Physical
2) Psychological
3) Material
4) Social
All are highly consequential, sometimes devastating for human beings
- Most profound effects of physical violence often nonphysical
Range of Injurious Outcomes - Physical
Physical outcomes don’t adequately represent range of injuries that human beings find consequential.
Range of Injurious Outcomes - Psychological
- Fear
- Anxiety
- Shame
- Low Self-Esteem
Range of Injurious Outcomes - Material
- Destruction
- Confiscation
- Defacement of Property
- Loss of Earnings
- Loss of Material Goods
Range of Injurious Outcomes - Social
- Public Humiliation
- Stigmatization
- Exclusion
- Imprisonment
- Banishment
Injurious Behaviours - Physical
Verbal & written actions may also cause physical injuries
- Either directly or indirectly
- Legalistic concept of agency holds individual physically responsible for act; ignores others who are equally complicit but further removed
Injurious Behaviours - Verbal & Written
Verbal & written actions can accomplish variety of non-physical injuries as well
- Actions that denigrate, defame, or humiliate individual/group inflicts significant psychological, social, or material injuries
- To some degree, law provides remedies for individual, not group
Mary Jackman - Definition of Violence
Actions that inflict, threaten, or cause injury.
Actions may be corporal, written, or verbal.
Injuries may be corporal, psychological, material or social.
Mary Jackman - Concept Strengths
- Includes all actions that directly inflict injury as well as those that either threaten or result in violence
- Specifies injurious actions and outcomes may take many forms.
- Language permits injurious outcomes to be immediate or delayed, certain or probabilistic.
- Sets no constraints on motivations of either victim or agent
- Highlights problems inherent in concept of ‘non-violence’
Measuring Violence
Important for 2 significant reasons:
1) Assuming that we, as a society, have mutually agreed on and accepted common definition of violence, any subsequent social or public response to violence requires knowledge of its scope, magnitude, and location in society.
2) Measures themselves are grounded in actions, decisions, & interpretations of individuals who measure it; thus, very act of measurement itself is aspect of reality construction
Uniform Crime Reporting System
- Police statistics.
- Launched, 1961.
- Applies standard definitions to all offences
- Under this system, information is collected from more than 400 municipal police departments across Canada on 91 detailed categories of crime
- Annually, the government publishes data on types of offences and characteristics of offenders
- Collects information about each crime, greater detail.
- Information on victims, accused, and circumstances of the incident type - Most police forces participate, reporting about 60% of crimes.
- But better analyses of crime trends
Uniform Crime Report 2 (UCR2)
- 1984: Revised UCR2 collects information about each crime
- 148 police forces participate (90% of all crime)
- More details of each crime (accused and victim characteristics)
- Used incident-based data allows for a more specific sense of how and why offences occur.
Incident-based data: Compared with aggregate (UCR) crime data, incident-based data provides data on specific factors, such as the location of the offence and the relationship.
Crime Severity Index
- The CSI measures both the volume and severity of police-reported crime in Canada
- Created to reflect different rates in volume and seriousness of different crimes
- Assigns weight to different crimes so that large changes in less serious crimes do not unduly affect the crime rate
Victimization Survey
Victimization surveys are used to measure the number of crimes not reported to the police.
- United States since 1966; Canada since 1988
- Mainly through telephone interviews
- Surveys often include questions about fear of crime.
General Social Survey (GSS)
- Most violent and property crimes are not reported to the police.
People report only crimes which involve major loss or injury.
Structuring Criminality - Decision to commit crime depends on:
1) The Location - The ability to avoid detection
2) The Target - No one home, cash in till
3) The Available Means and Techniques - Skills and tools needed for the job
General Deterrence
Fear of punishment which inhibits crime results from:
1) Certainty of punishment
2) Severity of punishment
3) Celerity (speed) of punishment
and the interactions among these variables.
Rates of Violent Victimization in Canada
- Includes homicide, attempted murder, sexual assault, assault, robbery and abduction.
- Rates declined during 1990s.
- Stable during early 2000s.
Characteristics of Violent Victimization
- Women were at higher risk than men of being victims of violent crime.
- Age was the key risk factor in violent victimization
- Drug use, binge drinking and the frequency of evening activities were associated with risk of victimization
- Mental health was identified as a risk factor
- People who suffered child maltreatment were more likely to be victims of violent crime
- People with history of homelessness more likely to report being victimized
- Risk of violent victimization higher among people residing in neighbourhood with low social cohesion
- Members of the LGBT community recorded high victimization rates
- Aboriginal people, in particular women, were more likely to be victims
- 1.4 of violent incidents took place at victim’s place of work
- The majority of offenders were male and, on average, in their early thirties
- Most victims knew their attacker
- Most violent incidents did not involve weapons and did not result in physical injury
Self-Report Survey
- Asking people about crimes they may have committed.
- Crimes not necessarily reported to the police.
- Questions about subjects’ attitudes, values, personal characteristics, and behaviours.
- Information used for various purposes (e.g. to measure attitudes towards criminal offences; examine the relationship between crime and certain social variables).
- Also used to measure prevalence of offending.
- Most focus on youths, drug offences, and specific criminological subjects.
What is Theory?
A theory is a statement of how and why specific facts are related.
The goal of a sociological theory is to explain social behaviour in the real world.
Theories are based on theoretical approaches, basic images of society that guide thinking and research.
- Sociologists ask two basic questions: “What issues should we study?” and “How should we connect the facts?”
Sociological Criminology
- Patterns of crime within the social structure
- The dynamics of interaction between individuals and social institutions
- The effects of social stratification
Biological Theories of Violence
Sociobiology and criminology
- Biology, environment and learnings are mutually interdependent
- Personal traits separate deviant from non-deviant
- Personal traits account for different responses to similar conditions
Development of Biological Theory - Cesare Lombroso
Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909).
- Italian prison doctor.
- Known as “father of criminology”.
- Concept of ‘phrenology’
- Used poor research method.
- Ideas abandoned in early 20th century.
Contemporary Trait Theory
- Criminality can be explained by individual differences:
- Both biological and psychological
- May be genetic, neurological or chemical - Focus on basic human drives, not legal definitions:
- Agression, impulsivity - Traits work in combination with environmental and social factors
- Focuses on chronic offenders, criminal careers
Hormones
Used to explain gender differences in behaviour.
- Associated with impulsivity, emotional volatility and antisocial emotions.
Androgens
- Testosterone has been linked to violence.
PMS (Premenstrual syndrome)
- Belief that antisocial behaviour increases shortly before menstruation.
- Research evidence is mixed.
- PMS defense only used a few times
Arousal Theory
- High-risk activity causes arousal (stimulation).
- Too much arousal causes anxiety, too little results in boredom.
Evolutionary Views of Crime
- Aggression facilitates dominance over scarce resources.
- Provides advantage in survival and reproduction. - Gender differences in reproduction encourages aggression in males.
- More sexual partners, more offspring.
- Aggressive males have greater impact on gene pool.
- Accounts for jealousy, war, spousal abuse.
Social Learning Theory
Basic premise of behaviourism
- Behaviour is supported by rewards, extinguished by punishments.
- Crime is a learned response to life situations.
Social Learning Theory - Albert Bandura
Aggression is learned, not innate.
Requires personal observation of aggression or rewards for aggression.
- Involves behaviour modelling of family members, community members, and mass media.
Social Learning of Violence: Violence and Aggression are Produced by?
Violence and aggression are produced by:
- An arousal event (provocation).
- Learned aggressive skills.
- Expected success and rewards.
- Pro-violence values.
Structuring Criminality - Decision to commit crime depends on?
Decision to commit crime depends on:
1) The Location - The ability to avoid detection
2) The Target - No one home, cash in till
3) The Available Means and Techniques - Skills and tools needed for the job