Street Violence: Assaults, Robbery & Homicide Flashcards
Assault Defined
Section 265(1) of theCriminal Codestates that a person commits an assault when:
(a) without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that other person, either directly or indirectly,
(b) he attempts or threatens, by an act or a gesture, to apply force to another person, if he has, or causes that other person to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; or
(c) while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation thereof, he accosts or impedes another person or begs.
This means that an actual injury does not have to occur. in fact, even just a threat of an assault can result in an assault charge.
Types of Assault in Canada
Canada’s Criminal Code criminalizes various types of assault:
• Level One: assault (s. 266)
• Level Two:assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm (s. 267)
• Level Three: aggravated assault (s. 268), assaulting a peace officer (s. 270)
How Common are Assault Victimizations?
Physical assault continued to be the most prevalent form of police-reported violent crime in Canada in 2019
55% of Violent Offences
How Common are Assault Victimizations? National Rate of Major Assault
The national rate of major assault (level 2 and 3) increased in 2019 for the fifth consecutive year due to higher rates of assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm (level 2) (+8%).
Symbolic Interactionism
Human behavior, including assaults and homicides occurs in social situations, and that the meaning people attach to their behavior is an important element in understanding what takes place in a given circumstance.
Violent Interactions - Terance Miethe & Wendy Regoeczi
According to Terance Miethe and Wendy Regoeczi: As social events, crimes are said to be intricately linked to the routine activities of subsequent victims and offenders, the places in which these activities occur, the behavior of witnesses and bystanders, and the particular circumstances of the situation.
Instrumental Murders
Instrumental murders are those conducted for explicit future goals, such as acquiring money or property. Robbery murders are usually classified as instrumental.
Expressive Murders
Expressive murders are often unplanned acts of anger, rage, or frustration, typically precipitated by a conflict situation, such as an argument or fight. These are not absolute separate categories.
For example, a robber may approach a victim intending to rob them, but when the victim fights back, the robber may get angry and injure or kill the victim. In other words, any act of violence may contain both instrumental and expressive motives at the same time.
Violent Interactions -Developmental Stages
According to David Luckenbill: Distinguished six different developmental stages that characterize the most typical homicide transaction
Victim Precipitation
The depiction of homicides involving the victim as an active participant as well as the offender was first introduced by Marvin Wolfgang in 1958.
He coined the term victim precipitation, which simply means that victims sometimes start the conflicts that end in their own deaths.
Confrontational Homicides - Kenneth Polk
Kenneth Polk labels these types of events as confrontational homicides, because they are characterized by altercations that typically evolve from verbal exchanges of insults into physical contests. All these terms convey is that homicide is often an event in which the victim is not always an innocent bystander but is often an active participant as well.
Alcohol - Perceived as Problem of Certain Populations (Robert Nash Parker)
All through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and into the early twentieth century, alcohol consumption was linked to the violence of groups perceived as economic threats to the established groups that had preceded the newer groups to, or were less powerful in, the new world: Native Americans, African-American slaves (and even former slaves after the Civil War), and the more recent immigrant groups like the Irish and the Italians.
Alcohol - Contemporary Research
Contemporary research suggests that the link between alcohol and murder still exists and not just for homicide.
Alcohol - Taylor Paradigm
Measures Aggression
Researchers would need to conduct experiments in which individuals are randomly assigned to two groups: an experimental group to drink alcoholic beverages and a control group that would drink nonalcoholic beverages. After consumption, individuals from both groups would be observed to measure the magnitude of violent behavior.
Most studies of this type have used what is called the Taylor paradigm to measure aggression.
Alcohol - Affects Individuals Differently
Affects individuals differently, but can dramatically affect central nervous system: Both a depressant and a stimulant.
Alcohol - Can Affect Central Nervous System
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Alcohol - Can Tranquilize an Individual
Can tranquilize an individual: But in small amounts it can also act as a stimulant by triggering the release of a neurotransmitter called dopamine.
Alcohol - Liquid Courage and Testosterone by the Glass
Liquor makes you get bigger than what you are. You feel like you can whip the world. Other writers have termed this “liquid courage” and “testosterone by the glass”.
Alcohol - Physiological Effects
Robert Nash Parker found: At an aggregate level (e.g., cities), Robert Nash Parker found that the relationship between alcohol availability and homicide varied by the social context of the cities.
For example, cities that had a combination of both high rates of alcohol availability (measured by the rate of liquor stores per 1,000 population) and an above average rate of poverty had significantly higher homicide rates than places that had only one or neither of these conditions.
Parker also found that alcohol increased negative effects of other variables, such as the effects of low social bonds between residents and their home, school, and work. Importantly, Parker found that, despite these interaction effects, alcohol availability still had a direct relationship with rates of homicide. That is, cities with higher rates of alcohol availability also had higher rates of homicide regardless of these other factors.
Alcohol - Cultural Expectations Play Important Role
Cultural expectations also play an important role in determining the effects of alcohol.
People generally respond to alcohol the way they believe they should or can.
For example, a young man in a bar who believes that responding to an insult with a punch will be tolerated or even expected will be more likely to throw a left hook compared to the same inebriated young man who believes such action would not be unacceptable by his friends.
Alcohol - Craig MacAndrew & Robert Edgerton
Craig MacAndrew and Robert Edgerton documented the cultural responses to drinking by investigating the history of learned responses to the alcohol by several subgroups.
For example, they found that American Indians’ first contact with alcohol did not result in drunken brawls and mayhem but rather in fear and passivity. Only after watching White settlers engage in drunken fights did they learn that alcohol should produce aggression and violence, and their behavior soon began to conform to this expectation
Alcohol - Disinhibiting Effects of Alcohol
Disinhibiting effects of alcohol: When cultural values tolerating violence are combined with the disinhibiting effects of alcohol, the likelihood that violence will result particularly in conflict situations is higher. Importantly, alcohol is not the only drug that helps facilitate violence.
Illicit Drugs - Related to Violence
Three primary ways in which illicit drugs may be related to violence:
- Violence may result from the psychoactive effects of drugs.
- Violence may result from trying to support a drug addiction (e.g., robbery).
- Violence may result from the illegal sale of drugs.
Illicit Drugs - Psychoactive Effect
The psychoactive effect of illicit drugs on violence has not been adequately documented by research and the findings that do exist are inconsistent. What we do know about the connection between illicit drugs and violence is often distorted by the media.
For example, there was a media frenzy around marijuana in the 1930s, which is one of the first examples of the media attempting to affect attitudes toward a particular drug. Media reports linked marijuana with extreme violence and insanity, which resulted in marijuana being dubbed the “killer weed.” With the increasing legalization of both medical and recreational marijuana, those old stereotypes are fast falling by the wayside. Crack cocaine has received much the same kind of attention. Crack cocaine, a version of its powder derivative, began hitting the streets during the 1980s. It was cheaper than powder cocaine and produced a more intense high, although one that was shorter lived.
Illicit Drugs - Phencyclidine
Another substance that has been linked to violent behavior is phencyclidine: Otherwise known as PCP, angel dust, ozone, whack, or rocket fuel.
This drug can be ingested in many forms and can result in feelings of invulnerability, paranoia, and extreme unease all of which can lead to aggression.
Some contend that because the drug releases stress hormones, it can also increase an individual’s strength. Except for a few case studies, however, there is no empirical evidence supporting the link between PCP and violence.
Illicit Drugs - Social Context
Similar to alcohol’s relationship to violence, much depends on the social context in which drugs are consumed.
For example, Henry Brownstein interviewed murderers who were under the influence of substances during their crimes and found the violence was more likely attributable to such things as saving face and maintaining an image than to the ingestion of drugs. In short, there does not appear to be much evidence that supports the idea of drugs having a significant psychoactive role in producing violent behavior. This brings to the next major pathway, which is violence that stems from attempts to maintain an addiction.
Illicit Drugs - Addiction
Turns desire or craving for something into urgent need.
Illicit Drugs - Dennis Donovan Definition
A progressive behavior pattern having biological, psychological, sociological, and behavioral components. What sets this behavior apart from others is the individual’s overwhelmingly pathological involvement in or attachment to it, subjective compulsion to continue it, and reduced ability to exert personal control over it.
Illicit Drugs - Desire or Craving for Something into an Urgent Need
Addiction turns a desire or craving for something into an urgent need: When individuals are addicted to a drug, they must continue taking it in order to prevent their bodies from going into withdrawal.
