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Fighting Over Trivial Things: Explaining The Issue Of Contention In Violent Altercations
Abstract
Violent altercations can lead to serious injury and death, and yet some interpersonal disputes that prompt physical violence originate over what are seemingly trivial issues. This study evaluates the theoretical premise that violence stemming from what typically are defined as trivial altercations can be explained by what is at stake in these conflicts; trivial altercations, or fights about “nothing,” actually represent symbolic contests of dominance and deference. These status contests are necessary primarily when the social relationship between opponents is symmetrical—when a dominance hierarchy is not clearly established. Data from interviews with incarcerated women in Ontario, Canada, show that relationship symmetry strongly predicts the issue of contention in their physically violent altercations. These findings suggest that, when violence erupts over trivial issues, both parties to the altercation essentially are locked in a battle for social rank.
... Strains that are highly central to individuals increase their likelihood of delinquent coping (Liu 2012), which is illustrated by the strength of the association between the receipt of interpersonal injustice or disrespect and criminal behavior (e.g. Anderson 1999;Brezina et al. 2004;Griffiths et al. 2011;Van Yperen et al. 2000). Kennedy et al. (2004) found that interpersonal injustice is a stronger predictor of workplace aggression than a comparative amount of distributive injustice. ...
... Yet, these gendered effects are more likely due to status differences (Clay-Warner et al. forthcoming). Regardless of gender, those of lower status, who lack prestige and access to resources may react more strongly to interpersonal slights and be overly concerned with fair treatment (interactional justice), increasing their likelihood of engaging in deviance (Aquino et al. 2004;Clay-Warner et al. forthcoming;Griffiths et al. 2011). ...
... Research on the association between respect and the need to maintain one's masculinity (Kupers 2005;Messerschmidt 1993) suggests that crime would be more likely in response to strains that insult, degrade, or strip individuals of their status (Anderson 1999;Brezina et al. 2004;Griffiths et al. 2011). These strains, moreover, should be perceived as being especially high in magnitude by individuals who are disadvantaged, as they do not have a high degree of status to begin with (Anderson 1999;Brezina et al. 2004). ...
Research in social psychology and criminology reveals a great deal of overlap when explaining the
relationship between injustice and criminal or deviant behavior. The organizational justice literature
examines how the major forms of justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) combine and
interact to influence criminal or deviant behaviors in the workplace. While general strain theory
(GST) recognizes that injustice is an aspect of strain that fosters criminal coping in multiple contexts,
it does not detail the additive and interactive effects that these types of injustice may have on crime.
Nevertheless, GST can provide a useful theoretical lens for understanding how injustice facilitates
criminal behavior. This article provides an overview of major findings regarding the relationship
between injustice and crime according to a GST framework, concluding with a discussion of new
directions for future research.
... Rules that establish interactional justice that have a direct association with crime include respect and propriety. These interpersonal elements of interactional justice have an important role in predicting workplace aggression and retaliation (Folger & Skarlicki, 1998), and the experience of disrespect fosters the occurrence of criminal behavior (e.g., Anderson, 1999;Brezina, Agnew, Cullen, & Wright, 2004;Griffiths, Yule, & Gartner, 2011). Respect involves treating others with sincerity and dignity, while propriety requires that individuals should not ask any inappropriate questions or make prejudicial statements toward others (Bies, 2005;Colquitt et al., 2005). ...
... Interactional injustice is damaging to one's identity and psyche (Bies & Tripp, 1996), which represents characteristics of strains, such as recency and centrality to self that are more likely to produce criminal coping (Agnew, 2001). As studies substantiate the greater impact of interactional injustice (e.g., Stecher & Rosse, 2005;Van Yperen et al., 2000) and that disrespect fosters the occurrence of criminal behavior (Anderson, 1999;Brezina et al., 2004;Griffiths et al., 2011), I expect interactional injustice to have a greater effect on crime than procedural injustice. ...
... Women tend to experience depression and anxiety in addition to anger in response to strain, which hinders the expression of criminal responses (Broidy & Agnew, 1997). Yet, research suggests that women may respond to interactional injustice with violence (Griffiths et al., 2011). Understanding the emotions that result from the experience of unjust strains can therefore assist in identifying the types of criminal acts individuals may engage in upon the experience of injustice and when females may respond to injustice with violence. ...
Purpose
Connect General Strain Theory (GST) and the organizational justice literature by examining how different types and combinations of major forms of injustice (distributive, procedural, and interactional), and resultant anger, may increase the likelihood that individuals respond to strain with crime.
Method
Logit and OLS regressions are used to analyze survey data obtained from a vignette that was randomly assigned to a sample of undergraduates. The vignette presented a distributive injustice and manipulated the additional presence of procedural and interactional injustice. Respondents rated their likelihood of intending to engage in a violent act and a non-violent deviant act.
Results
As expected, multiple types of injustice foster the intention of responding to injustice with crime. In addition to a distributive injustice, the presence of procedural injustice predicts violence, while interactional injustice predicts excessive drinking. Moreover, anger mediates the injustice-crime relationship, although this effect is more substantial for the association between procedural injustice and violence.
Conclusions
The relationship between injustice and crime is complex. Different forms of injustice can affect the propensity for crime through anger. Further research is encouraged to identify the criminogenic potential of certain types of combinations of injustice on the experience of negative emotions and crime.
... Negativity is also a function of social learning. Individuals may learn to view certain events and conditions as very bad and unjust, to experience anger and other negative emotions in response to them, and to believe that an aggressive and rebellious response is appropriate (e.g., Baron, Forde, and Kennedy, 2001;Bernard, 1990;Griffiths, Yule, and Gartner, 2011). To give a few examples: Individuals may be taught beliefs that define what most would consider to be minor slights as serious insults (Anderson, 1999;Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1982). ...
... In addition, negativity is highest during those times when individuals are experiencing strains. For example, negativity is higher when individuals are in the midst of status disputes with "symmetrical" others (Griffiths, Yule, and Gartner, 2011;Hughes and Short, 2014;Short, 1997; also see Baron, Forde, and Kennedy, 2001). Individuals who believe that their status is threatened are especially sensitive to slights and more inclined to respond in an aggressive manner. ...
The "causes of crime" research has up to this point focused on those events and conditions that push or pressure individuals into crime (strains), that pull or attract individuals to crime (social learning for crime), and that restrain individuals from responding to pressures and attractions with crime (controls). Work in several areas, however, has suggested that the response to the pressures for and attractions to crime is not simply a function of controls. It is also a function of the individual's resistance or susceptibility to the events and conditions described by strain and social learning theories. Those high in resistance are less likely to experience these criminogenic events and conditions as pressures for or attractions to crime, whereas those high in susceptibility are more likely. Resistance and susceptibility are a function of factors that influence the perception and interpretation of criminogenic events and conditions, the emotional reaction to them, and the behavioral inclinations prompted by them. These factors include negativity, pleasure and sensation seeking, conventional efficacy and perceived social support, and general sensitivity to the environment. With certain notable exceptions, these factors have been neglected in mainstream crime research, but they have the potential to improve the explanation and prediction of crime substantially.
... As in other animals, it is conflicts between people of "symmetric" social status and power that are most likely to escalate (Dane et al., 2022;Griffiths et al., 2011). In the laboratory, attacks triggering counter-attacks between research subjects have been described as "reflexive" (Vandermeer et al., 2019), but counter-attacking may depend on the costs of escalation in non-linear ways (Benard et al., 2017). ...
Human aggression typologies largely correspond with those for other animals. While there may be no non-human equivalent of angry reactive aggression, we propose that human proactive aggression is similar to offense in other animals' dominance contests for territory or social status. Like predation/hunting, but unlike defense, offense and proactive aggression are positively reinforcing, involving dopamine release in accumbens. The drive these motivational states provide must suffice to overcome fear associated with initiating risky fights. We term the neural activity motivating proactive aggression "non-angry aggressive arousal", but use "angriffsberietschaft" for offense motivation in other animals to acknowledge possible differences. Temporal variation in angriffsberietschaft partitions fights into bouts; engendering reduced anti-predator vigilance, redirected aggression and motivational over-ride. Increased aggressive arousal drives threat-to-attack transitions, as in verbal-to-physical escalation and beyond that, into hyper-aggression. Proactive aggression and offense involve related neural activity states. Cingulate, insular and prefrontal cortices energize/modulate aggression through a subcortical core containing subnuclei for each aggression type. These proposals will deepen understanding of aggression across taxa, guiding prevention/intervention for human violence.
... We see, then, that being "big" or "famous"-meaning a proven, high status criminal-deters victimization (also see Anderson 1999;Brookman et al. 2011;Farisa and Felmlee 2011;cf. Gould 2003;Griffiths, Yule, and Gartner 2011;Jacobs and Wright 2006). Some participants also described crime as a way to continually earn money, support one's family, and thereby gain status as a "man." ...
... Motivations behind partner killings in domestic contexts indicate that women most often kill intimate partners as a response to prolonged abuse and in defense of self and children (e.g., Fox and Zawitz 2001;Peterson 1999). However, some research corroborates that women engage in violence for increased social status (Conley 1995;Griffiths et al. 2011;Kruttschnitt and Carbone-Lopez 2006). ...
Existing parricide research is largely situated within a North American and European context, and foregrounds mental illness or adolescent offender typologies. As such, a gap exists on parricides in other cultural contexts and those perpetrated by women. This paper examines historic domestic parricides committed by women in South Korea (“Korea”). Chosun Ilbo, a major Korean newspaper, was used as the data source to search for parricide cases reported between 1 January 1948 and 31 December 1963. Of the 102 newspaper articles on 92 completed or attempted parricide incidents during this period, 14 involved a female offender. Qualitative content and narrative analysis were employed. Findings indicate that daughters-in-law killed their fathers and mothers-in-law during routine domestic conflicts and in premediated attacks in response to verbal and emotional abuse unique to Korean women’s post-marital residence patterns. The implications of women’s subordinated positions in hierarchically organized family systems and cultural ideologies about women and crime are discussed.
... Homicide is the most serious form of interpersonal violence and generally regarded as an extreme manifestation of various risk factors. Yet lethal violence tends to occur in similar contexts as non-lethal violence: violence often originates from the escalation of trivial disputes (Felson, 2017;Griffiths, Yule, & Gartner, 2011), and on many occasions, the lethality of an incident can depend on chance. Moreover, sometimes the roles of homicide offender or homicide victim are determined only after the end of the violent conflict (Loeber, Lacourse, & Homish, 2005, p. 203;Luckenbill, 1977). ...
Purpose
This study analyzes the pathways leading to violent offending. We examine whether the lethality of a violent crime could be predicted based on individuals' prior history of violent crime and income, and whether the trajectories of lethal offenders are distinguishable from the pathways of non-lethal offenders.
Methods
We use a sample of police-reported violent crimes committed in Finland in 2010–2011 (N = 26,303) and contrast the pathways to homicide with the trajectories leading to petty assault, assault, aggravated assault, and attempted homicide. Group-based trajectory modeling is applied for identifying individuals with similar trajectories, and multilevel modeling is used for estimating the mean trajectories for offenders of differing severity.
Results
Results indicate that homicide offenders display a clear escalation in the frequency of violent offending and a slight decrease in income prior to the offense, but the pathways to homicide largely resemble the pathways to aggravated assault and attempted homicide.
Conclusions
The lethality of violent offending cannot be predicted from the offender's crime and income. The greatest divide in the violence severity continuum is between offenders of assaults and offenders of aggravated assaults, with the latter group largely resembling offenders of completed and attempted homicides.
... Much of interpersonal violence stems from the escalation of bilateral disputes (e.g., Felson, 1993Felson, /2017Griffiths, Yule, & Gartner, 2011;Luckenbill & Doyle, 1989). For example, a grievance in traffic may elicit an angry reaction, with the potential for provoking retaliation. ...
This research revisited the claim that victim precipitation (VP) is especially prevalent in situations where women kill their male intimate partners. Using administrative data from the Finnish Homicide Monitor (N =1,494), we created a typology of homicide incidents to examine variation in VP across three factors: the gender of the offender, the gender of the victim, and the intimacy of the victim–offender relationship. The results from regression models demonstrated strong support for the assumption that killings by women of their male intimate partners are more likely to have been victim precipitated than other types of homicide. This homicide type stood out as having the strongest association with each measure of VP included in the analysis. We did not observe statistically significant differences in VP among other homicide types. For example, we did not observe gender differences in VP in homicides that did not involve intimate partners. This pattern of results contradicts prior evidence suggesting that VP is a general feature of female-perpetrated killings, independent of the gender of the victim and the intimacy of the victim–offender relationship. As such, the present study underscores the importance of replication in studies of interpersonal violence. Theoretically, the results support the gender–partner interaction hypothesis over gender differences hypothesis of VP.
... As fighting (i.e. violence) is a behavior of chief concern among criminologists ( Griffiths et al., 2011;Copes et al., 2013), the relationship between HR and violence has long been a topic of research in our field. ...
Purpose
Research indicates that a link exists between resting heart rate (RHR) and various forms of antisocial, violent and criminal behavior among community and criminal samples. However, the relationship between RHR and engagement in aggressive/violent encounters among law enforcement has not yet been examined. The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between RHR and engagement in violent encounters using prospective longitudinal data on a sample of law enforcement officers in the USA.
Design/methodology/approach
Negative binomial regression, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox hazard regressions are conducted using a sample of 544 police officers to determine if there a relationship between RHR and engagement in violent encounters by law enforcement, even when controlling for demographics, biological and social covariates.
Findings
Results indicate that higher RHR is associated with an increased risk of officers engaging in a violent altercation, as measured by the number of arrests for suspects resisting arrest with violence, even after controlling for all other relevant factors.
Originality/value
This study was the first to examine police officers RHR levels and its associated with violent altercations during arrest using a rigorous statistical methodology.
... 3;Athens 2005;Rosen 2007:chap. 3;Athens 2015), but also among women (Griffiths, Yule, and Gartner 2011), are fought about issues that look very trivial in terms of material implications. In most of these confrontations, the hierarchy among the contestants is unclear at the outset, because they are ranked equally or ambiguously. ...
Recent IR research on status normally treats status as reputation for excellence. In this perspective, an actor’s status ultimately depends on a society’s beliefs as to how that actor ranks in various ratings of valued attributes (e.g., wealth, intelligence, or coercive capabilities). This paper argues that asymmetrical reciprocal roles (leaders vs. followers, patrons vs. clients, teachers vs. students etc.) create even more fundamental stratifications that can provoke far more acrimonious status conflicts. Role-based hierarchies remain stable as long as the subordinate actor treats its superior with deference. Disputes over asymmetrical roles arise when subaltern actors begin to question a dominant actors’ right to lead or when co-equal actors fear that current partners are trying to establish their dominance through a series of faits accomplis. Under such circumstances, defiance is the status strategy of choice, as it directly undercuts displeasing patterns of deference. The paper provides a first sketch of a theory that lays out the causes and forms of defiant behavior in international status disputes.
... Gould's (2003) relational theory of violence is linked to both the work of symbolic interactionists on dominance contests (e.g., Athens, 2005;Felson & Tedeschi, 1993a, 1993b) and Black's (1993) proposition that the status positions of all parties in a dispute are a significant determinant of the outcome. He argues that in symmetrical relationships, where domination of one party over the other needs to be established, violence is most likely to erupt (see, for example, Griffiths, Yule, & Gartner, 2011). How this might predict the occurrence or avoidance of IPV, however, is unclear as Gould (2003) assumes that all intimate partners have an asymmetrical relationship because "gender is an organizing principle of [intimate] relations" (p. ...
This study explores how both situations and persons contribute to the probability that a serious incident of intimate partner violence (IPV) can be avoided. Data, on both completed and avoided acts of serious partner violence, were collected from jailed women in Baltimore. Factors that increase the odds of avoiding a serious incident of IPV are a woman’s age, her partner’s initiation of a threat/attack, and being accompanied by a family member. Factors that decrease the odds of avoided serious violence include an indicator of what the dispute was about, her partner’s substance abuse, prior experiences with avoided acts of violence, and lifetime arrests.
... On the surface, discussions of how respect, retaliation, and reputation order street life appear to have little to offer by way of understanding female crime and violence, particularly since the meanings of reputation and the types of retaliatory actions required to avenge disrespect and reputation challenges are intricately tied to marginalized masculinity. However, recent research documents that disrespect, retaliation, and reputation are driving motivations behind violence among women and girls, particularly so for minorities and those on the margins of society (Griffiths et al., 2011;Jacobs and Wright, 2006;Jones, 2010;Kruttschnitt and Carbone-Lopez, 2006;Miller, 2001;Miller and Mullins, 2005;Mullins et al., 2004;Wilkinson and Carr, 2008). These studies further reveal that cultural meanings of gender shape these motivations and the enactment of violence among females, just as they shape motivations and violence among males. ...
Intersectionalities have become central to theory and research on sex, gender and crime. Viewing crime through an intersectionalities lens allows us to move beyond deterministic views of the relationship between social structures and offending by emphasizing that structures of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality weave together to create a complex tapestry of opportunities and motivations that shape variation in crime and violence across groups and situations. In this essay, we propose a “choice within constraint” framework that focuses on how multiple, interlocking inequalities come together to shape micro-level interactions while also allowing room for agency in how people choose to respond to social and structural opportunities and constraints. More specifically, we cull insights from qualitative studies to build a framework emphasizing how individuals’ active engagement with intersecting cultural meanings of gender (masculinities and femininities) explain variability in decisions to offend across and within hierarchies of sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and age.
... Luckenbill's (1977) analysis of official data shows that homicides often occur in the presence of bystanders, with the witnesses becoming an active part of the transaction between the offender and victim, often encouraging the offender's actions. Similarly, Griffiths, Yule, and Gartner (2011) found that trivial issues were more likely to evolve into violent incidents when a large number of bystanders were present at the incident. As suggested by Copes and Hochstetler's qualitative work (2003), failure to follow the street code's prescription for violence in public can severely damage one's masculine reputation and result in a loss of respect. ...
The influence of neighborhoods on delinquency has been an enduring part of American criminology. Competing perspectives highlight diverse mechanisms operating at the neighborhood level to produce delinquency, including three processes that will be the focus of this chapter: weak institutional control, general strain, and cultural prescription. The chapter reviews the origins of theory supporting these three neighborhood-level mechanisms, describes important contemporary revisions to these original theoretical statements, and takes stock of each theoretical perspective by providing an overview of empirical support from recent literature. The chapter focuses on what we currently know regarding neighborhood's role in delinquency. It focuses and describes several unresolved issues with respect to neighborhood-level influence, thus presenting an agenda for future research on the neighborhood-delinquency relationship. There is a rich history in criminology of looking to neighborhood contexts for understanding the etiology of juvenile delinquency.
... Additionally, there is little research on women's experiences serving sentences in provincial correctional institutions. Exceptions include Buchanan and colleagues' (2011) participatory action research with women incarcerated in a provincial prison in Western Canada for drug and alcohol offenses (for 3 months on average) to understand women's perspectives on their addiction and its relationship to their criminalization.Croteau (2000) andGriffiths, Yule, and Gartner (2011) studied violence among female inmates. Notably,Croteau (2000) found that provincially incarcerated women experienced psychological abuse and institutionalized violence alongside physical assault. ...
This paper presents findings regarding the perception and experience of threat among correctional officers in the Canadian provincial correctional system. Men employed in provincial remand centers or corrections institutions in diverse provinces across Canada, who interact daily with prisoners, voluntarily participated in detailed 60- to 180-minute in-depth interviews. Analysis of interview transcripts reveals that violence is prevalent and men either experience or anticipate experiencing physical or verbal victimization at work. Additionally, officers employ strategies, such as a confident and authoritative self-presentation, building positive relationships with colleagues, and respectful relationships with prisoners, to mitigate this threat. However, we found that threat to safety extended beyond simply those of physical or verbal victimization to include threat to men's sense of self. Specifically, victimization and violence or their threat shape officer's self-concept over time; the ways officers interact within their prison work environment creates a shift in their self that extends beyond the prison walls.
... Trust mediates the situational, relational dynamics (Gould 2003;Wikstrom & Treiber 2009;Griffiths et al 2011) in which conflict can become violent. The relational distance between disputing sides as well as the social distance of third parties impacts the possibility of violence (Black 1983;Phillips & Cooney 2005). ...
When reform occurs in prison systems, prisoner insecurity increases. One reason for this is disorganization. The disruption
to informal governance structures, distributions of power and mechanisms for establishing trust causes conflicts. This paper
argues that a key mechanism linking disorganization to conflict and violence is information flow. Incomplete information in
interpersonal interaction marks prison settings. Informal institutions for producing certainty for both staff and prisoners
emerge to overcome this. Such institutions are handicapped by reform directed at reducing informal prisoner controls. In such
cases, violence becomes an information-generating activity and can substitute for reputation. The paper examines this proposition
as it applies to prisoners and staff through a critical case study of radical prison reform in the South Caucasus country
of post-Soviet Georgia.
... Street-violence provides a telling example. Many violent crimes result from "precursor" events, such as the escalation of relatively minor disputes (Braga, Kennedy, Waring, & Piehl, 2001;Griffiths, Yule, & Gartner, 2011;Jacobs, 2000;Ratcliffe & Rengert, 2008). Kennedy and Van Brunschot (2009), argue that the "active rather than passive use of this technology in managing public areas may afford an important new resource in the reduction of risk" (p. ...
... Wolfgang's (1958) classic work addresses this issue by demonstrating a considerable similarity between lifestyles and demographic characteristics of homicide victims and offenders. In a more systematic study of this overlap, Broidy and her colleagues (2006) (Luckenbill, 1977;Felson & Steadman, 1983;Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003;Griffiths, Yule, & Gartner, 2011). ...
... We see, then, that being ''big'' or ''famous''-meaning a proven, high status criminal-according to the respondents deters victimization (also see Anderson 1999;Brookman et al. 2011;Farisa and Felmlee 2011;cf. Gould 2003;Griffiths et al. 2011;Jacobs and Wright 2006). ...
Laub and Sampson's age-graded theory of social control posits that the greater is a person's agency, the less that person commits crime. But agency has a dark side as well. Some people choose to offend in order to transform their life; when this happens, agency is a cause of crime. In the present article we draw on the life course and rational choice perspectives to explore this idea. Our study is based on qualitative data obtained through interviews with and observations of offenders from socially disadvantaged areas in Cape Town, South Africa. Participants cited their offending as motivated by and effective in obtaining three kinds of status: belonging in a group, respect from peers, and wealth. Further research is needed to develop understanding of this relationship, especially in terms of how it is affected by structural conditions and culture.
... As Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, and Santana (2007) suggest, qualitative interviews may aid in reconstructing events. This data set contains very rich and detailed narratives describing each violent incident (for an example of the use of these narratives in another research context see Griffiths, Gartner, & Yule, 2011). As mentioned above, the purpose of these narratives was to provide a detailed sequence of events in each incident. ...
Research examining the impact of self-protective behaviors on outcomes in nonsexual assaults involving intimates has focused solely on one mainstream sample (National Crime Victimization Survey) in which violence is a relatively rare event. Using the Women's Experience of Violence (WEV) project which collects data from a sample of incarcerated women, we explored the phenomenon of self-protective behaviors to assess whether their use impacts the probability and severity of subsequent injury during a domestic violence incident. In addition to utilizing a unique sample, we considered an alternative operationalization of self-protective behaviors that separates physical and verbal responses to include whether the behavior involved an element of force. Results suggest some similarities between a mainstream sample and our marginalized sample. Namely, the frequency in which they utilize countermeasures and the effect of "fighting back" appear to be consistent with previous research. However, the more nuanced categorization of self-protective behaviors demonstrates the importance of considering whether the strategy was forceful when examining women's responses to violence.
Research Summary
Gun violence was declared a “public health crisis” after shootings increased in many U.S. cities during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The public health approach to gun violence prevention offers many advantages such as an applied research model, the mobilization of a wider range of stakeholders, and a commitment to harm reduction. Too often, however, the public health community seems unaware of criminological research on gun violence and avoids including criminal justice interventions in their comprehensive plans.
Policy Implications
Communities need immediate relief from the persistent trauma of repeated shootings. Criminal justice interventions represent important responses to outbreaks of gun violence that should be included among recommended public health programs intended to address proximate and upstream causes of gun violence. Gun violence prevention policy and practice would be strengthened by more deliberate attempts to foster complementary public health and criminology research and development collaborations. More applied criminologists need to become engaged in gun violence research to meet this call.
The “gender gap” in offending is largest for violent crime types, and many theoretical perspectives have attempted to account for this gap. The current study provides unique insight into these issues by using a sample of men and women in prison to examine and explain intentions to be aggressive in response to a hypothetical scenario. Results show that similar factors (e.g., low self-control, prior aggression) predict aggressive responses to a hypothetical scenario for both men and women, but some evidence also emerged that different factors account for men’s and women’s behavior (e.g., education, family attachment).
This article underscores the litany of problems that arise for significant others when a juvenile is convicted of murder. It focuses on how these individuals confront the precise nature of their child’s criminality while simultaneously defending themselves against a series of attacks from a variety of intra- and extra-familial sources. A major conclusion of the article is that murderers’ relatives disappear into an eternal vortex of guilt, shame and anger with little, if any, formal or informal support as a means to manage or recover from the debilitating stigma and strain.
The study of inequalities undergirds much of criminology. At times, however, we may take the impact of inequalities for granted and miss opportunities to problematize the strong link between inequalities and crime. In this address, I maintain that it is important to step back and recognize that economic, race, ethnic, gender, and other inequalities are at the core of criminology. More explicit consensus about the centrality of the link between inequalities and crime will allow for our field to speak to the major social and political issues of our time and will strengthen the field. In this address, I highlight some fruitful avenues of research on inequalities and crime. I then argue that the concept of intersecting inequalities can provide additional connective tissue between research focused on economic, race, ethnic, and gender inequalities. By drawing on recent evaluations of the concept in other fields, I discuss key issues that must be addressed in employing an intersecting inequalities approach and then suggest solutions. I conclude that use of an intersecting inequalities approach has the potential to uncover important insights and span research areas, thereby pushing forward our understanding of the impact of economic, race, ethnic, gender, and other inequalities on crime and victimization.
Violent behavior within correctional settings has been a prominent topic in criminological scholarship. Violence is common among gang members within correctional facilities and scholarship has found that violence also occurs due to race issues. Additional research shows that violent incidents in adult correctional settings may also stem from other personal issues. But there has been little research addressing the characteristics of violent incidents related to gangs, race and other personal issues within youth correctional facilities. The current project fills this research gap by utilizing interviews from over 260 incarcerated male youth, which include over 700 violent incident narratives. Qualitative thematic analyses are conducted on the relationship between the institutional setting and violence, and whether there is a distinct violent subculture. The results highlight similarities and differences in situational characteristics and dynamics of violent incidents motivated by gangs, race, and other personal issues. Implications for theory, policy, and programming, and directions for future research are discussed.
Research reveals that violence in correctional settings occurs due to both gang and non-gang issues. But there has been limited scholarship that directly compares violent incidents from the incarcerated youth perspective. This study aids in filling this research gap by utilizing interviews from 264 incarcerated male youth, which include 623 violent incident narratives. Analyses reveal differences between facility location, participant dynamic, number of racial groups, and situational dynamics when comparing gang and non-gang motivated violent incidents. The results provide a better understanding of violence among incarcerated youth and have implications for theory, policy, and programming within a juvenile correctional setting.
Lonnie H. Athens’ path-breaking work examines a problem that has baffled experts and the general public alike: How does a person become a predatory violent criminal? In the original edition, the process that Athens labeled “violentization” encompassed four stages: brutalization, defiance, dominative engagements, and virulency. In this edition, Athens identifies a new final stage, violent predation, as the culmination of the violent criminal’s development. He uses vivid first-person accounts gleaned from in-depth interviews and participant observation of nascent and hardened violent criminals to back up his theory. In this vastly expanded edition, Athens examines how his thinking and ideas have evolved over the past thirty years and renames and clarifies two stages of development. Athens also addresses, for the first time, criticisms of his original theory. Milestones of this important work are discussed, as well as the paradoxes surrounding its present-day status in the field of criminology. Athens proposes a revised theoretical model that will be useful for classroom use, as well as for interested general readers and professionals.
Violence between social equals differs in character from violence between persons in asymmetrical relationships. Specifically, issues of contention motivating violence vary by the relative status of opponents, such that violence over symbolic issues is more common between symmetrical than asymmetrical opponents. Recent studies have substantiated these predictions in nonpartner relationships. Using data from interviews of incarcerated women, this study explores how intimate partner violence compares with violence between nonpartner opponents. We find that intimate partner violence is more likely to involve symbolic issues compared with violence between all kinds of nonpartner opponents. Consequently, intimate partnerships might be viewed as hypersymmetrical.
**Please note: This is Sean’s work. Sean was too polite and deferential to be listed as first author. Thank you, Sean, for taking my piece of coal and transforming it into a diamond.**
In the following chapter, we employ a public health approach – specifically, a focus on the diagnosis and treatment of problems affecting public safety, to address three questions related to youth violence leading to homicide. First, what are the basics and scope of youth violence, specifically homicide? We reach three primary conclusions: (i) the problem of youth violence leading to homicide is especially pronounced for both black male and female youth in that black male youth are much more likely than white youth to be homicide victims; (ii) homicide victimization amongst blacks has dropped but is still higher than victimization for other groups; and (iii) homicides are usually intraracial (i.e., the victim and offender are members of the same race). Second, what is the diagnosis of the problem of juvenile violence leading to homicide? Out conclusions showcase that several pathways lead juveniles to commit homicides: (i) macro-level factors, such as urban disadvantage, community and family structure, and culture; and (ii) micro-level factors, such as biological, psychological, and psychiatric factors; and (iii) combinations of macro- and micro-level factors. As part of this discussion, we review several theories that help explain this phenomenon. Third, we ask a multipart question related to what treatments are available, what the treatments should target, at which level treatments should be targeted, who should be involved, and what the efficacy of these treatments is. Findings reveal that: (i) several approaches are available at the level of communities, families, and individuals; (ii) numerous, collaborative actors are involved; and (iii) there are several programs that show promise in preventing the conditions that lead to juvenile violence leading to homicide. We end with a discussion of future research directions of this topic, namely: (i) clarifying and better testing causal linkages between risk factors; (ii) combating tendencies toward reductionism, determinism, and imputation; (iii) fostering multidisciplinary research; and (iv) improving understanding of the efficacy of interventions.
The literatures on violence among young men and young women have highlighted the importance of situational context. However, few studies have compared disputes that do not result in violence with those that do, and even fewer have been positioned to investigate the role situational context may play across gender in accounting for these outcomes. Drawing on recent scholarship on gender and violence, this research explores the situational contexts of youth conflicts among African-American adolescent boys and girls. Using a large sample of narrative accounts of 153 violent and nonviolent conflicts, we examine how youth describe the issues of contention in their conflicts, how these relate to the situational contexts in which conflicts emerge, and similarities and differences in the antecedents, contexts, and extent of male and female violence.
A recently growing body of research has examined the importance of perceptions of legitimacy in maintaining social order. However, the literature has largely avoided applying the concept of legitimacy to community-based corrections. The author explores assorted conceptualizations of legitimacy, briefly summarizes what is presently known about how perceptions of legitimacy are shaped and how these perceptions may facilitate noncompliance with formal methods of social control, and concludes with specific recommendations for probation officers to enhance the legitimacy of community-based corrections in the eyes of those under supervision.
This article provides theoretical grounds and empirical evidence that different types of lynching in the post-Reconstruction South were driven by social processes at different levels of analysis. County-level analyses based upon new detailed data on lynchings in Georgia and Louisiana from 1882 to 1930 reveal that ‘private' lynchings, perpetrated by small groups outside the public purview without manifest ritual, were related to whites’ interracial status and social identity concerns on the interpersonal level, whereas ‘public' lynchings, involving larger mobs and ritualized violence, appear unaffected by such dynamics. These results validate relational and interactionist perspectives on violence, lend support to calls for disaggregation in the study of racial, ethnic, and nationalist violence, and shed light on the intertwining of racial identity formation with the generation of racial inequalities. They also carry implications for the study of contemporary ethno-racial hate crime.
Examine relationships between routine activities, character contests in the form of "signifying," and general delinquency and fighting in a street gang context. Samejima's (Estimation of latent ability using a response pattern of graded scores. Psychometrika monograph supplement 17. Psychometric Society, Richmond, VA, Retrieved 10 Aug 2011, from 1969) graded response models and multilevel ordinal logistic regression models are estimated using data from Short and Strodtbeck (Group process and gang delinquency. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1965) study of street gangs in Chicago, 1959-1962. The primary sample consists of 490 boys representing 10 black gangs, 4 white gangs, 9 black lower-class groups, 4 white lower-class groups, 2 black middle-class groups, and 2 white middle-class groups. Unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers significantly increased the likelihood of delinquency among the boys and explained a significant portion of the group-level gang effect. In addition, the more time the boys spent hanging in the streets and attending parties, the more likely they were to participate in signifying, which, in turn, increased their risk of fighting. Findings provide evidence that gangs contribute to delinquency partly through their effect on the routine activities of members. Findings also suggest that signifying is an important mechanism by which unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers leads to violence.
The criminality of crime is defined by law, and therefore falls within the jurisdiction of a completely different theory. This chapter discusses the struggle between law and self-help, the deterrence of crime, the processing of self-help by legal officials, and the problem of predicting and explaining self-help. The approach taken in the chapter departs radically from traditional criminology. Indeed, the approach taken is not criminological at all, because it ignores the characteristics of crime as such. Instead, it draws attention to a dimension of many crimes usually viewed as a totally different—even opposite— kind of human behavior, namely, social control. Crime often expresses a grievance. This implies that many crimes belong to the same family as gossip, ridicule, vengeance, punishment, and law. It also implies that to a significant degree one can predict and explain crime with a sociological theory of social control, specifically a theory of self-help. Beyond this, it might be worthwhile to contemplate what else crime has in common with noncriminal conduct.
We administered the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) to 217 monozygotic and 114 dizygotic reared-together adult twin pairs and 44 monozygotic reared-apart adult twin pairs. A four-parameter biometric model (incorporating genetic, additive versus nonadditive, shared family-environment, and unshared environment components) and five reduced models were fitted through maximum-likelihood techniques to data obtained with the 11 primary MPQ scales and its 3 higher order scales. Solely environmental models did not fit any of the scales. Although the other reduced models, including the simple additive model, did fit many of the scales, only the full model provided a satisfactory fit for all scales. Heritabilities estimated by the full model ranged from .39 to .58. Consistent with previous reports, but contrary to widely held beliefs, the overall contribution of a common family-environment component was small and negligible for all but 2 of the 14 personality measures. Evidence of significant nonadditive genetic effects, possibly emergenic (epistatic) in nature, was obtained for 3 of the measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This research builds on the recent scholarship that questions the anti-agentic depictions of women's acts of violence. We inductively examine women's narratives of their violence to illuminate the diversity of motivations that appear to lie behind that violence. The narratives are drawn from a racially diverse sample of 205 women who were incarcerated in the Hennepin County Adult Detention Facility (Minneapolis, Minnesota). A life events calendar was used to assess women's involvement as both victims and offenders in violent crimes over the 36 months prior to their incarceration. We found that sixty-six women provided information on 106 incidents of violence. Further, given the dominant theoretical framework in studying women's offending, we assess whether particular types of violent incidents are more likely to involve a partner as opposed to someone who is not a partner (friend, acquaintance, or stranger). Our contextualization of these events also includes an examination of the demographic and situational correlates of the incidents. Our findings reveal that women's reasons for engaging in violence are wide-ranging and that we need not essentialize stereotypic views of gender in the study of violence.
Violence comes in many forms and occurs in many different circumstances for many different reasons. Is it really possible to develop a single theory that can explain all these disparate acts? In this paper, we argue it is. We will make the case that acts of violence are essentially moral actions and therefore can, and should, be analysed and explained as such. We will maintain that all acts of violence can be explained within the general framework of a theory of moral action. We will present just such a theory – Situational Action Theory – and demonstrate how it can be applied to the explanation and study of violence.
Using multiple data sources and methods, this book presents a micro-historical analysis of the nature of change and stability in homicidal situations over time. With a focus on the homicidal situation as the unit of analysis, it explores similarities and differences in the context of homicide for different social groups. Analysis of over 400,000 U.S. homicides is supplemented by qualitative analysis of narrative accounts of homicide events to more fully investigate their structure. Findings of homicidal situations across different time periods and social groups are then considered regarding their implications for criminological theory and public policy. © Terance D. Miethe and Wendy C. Regoeczi 2004 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.
The problem : violent criminal acts and actors -- A review and critique of the dominant approaches taken in the study of violent criminality -- An interpretive approach -- Self as process : interpretation of the situation -- When interpretations of the situations lead to violent criminal acts -- Self as object : self images -- Self as object and process : the linkage between self-images and interpretations -- Careers of violent actors -- Conclusions. Data on convicted violent offenders. Participant observation of violent actors and acts -- A second look at violent criminal acts and actors -- The conflicting assumptions of positivism and interpretivism -- The origin of my interest in violent crime -- The preliminary phase : the self and the violent criminal act -- Theprincipal phase, I : violent criminal acts and actors -- The principal phrase, II : the larger theoretical implications -- The principal phase, III : the policy implications -- Final thoughts.
When and how will third parties intervene in the conflicts of others? When will third parties further violence, and when will they foster peace? These are questions addressed by Black's theory of the third party. The authors conducted the first systematic test of the theory, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from in-depth interviews with 100 men imprisoned for assault or homicide. Specifically, they tested Cooney's elaboration of Black's theory, which argues (1) that the social location of a third party, based on ties to the principals, predicts whether he or she will act as a partisan or settlement agent or remain uninvolved, and (2) that the third-party structure of a conflict, based on the general configuration of all the third parties present, predicts whether the conflict will escalate to violence. The study results confirm most of the theoretical predictions regarding both third-party behavior and violence. The discussion also extends the theoretical model, offering new concepts and suggesting how the theory can be applied to a range of subjects, such as international war and the long-term historical decline of interpersonal violence.
Much attention is given to young men's experience with inner-city violence; however, this ethnographic study demonstrates that innercity girls are not necessarily isolated by virtue of their gender from much of the violence experienced by poor, urban boys and men. Over time, both young women and men in distressed inner-city neighbourhoods come to realise how reputation, respect and retaliation — the fundamental elements of ‘the code of the street’ (Anderson, 1999) — organise their social world. At times, how young people work the code is similar across gender. Gender also works to shape teenaged girls' and boys' experiences with violence in distinct ways.
This article examines characteristic elements of male violence that take the form of honor contests. Several examples are drawn from previous investigations of male violence to emphasize that honor contests cross historical and cultural boundaries. Next it analyzes three features of honor contests: (a) characteristics of those who participate (usually male, young, and lower class); (b) the settings where such violence occurs (leisure scenes where young working-class males can circulate and where their leisure involves consumption of alcohol and an audience of other males for the violent episodes); and (c) the interactional dynamics of these contests (consisting of opening moves, countermoves, and then a working agreement to engage in violence). Recognition of this form of violence will contribute to a better-informed theoretical discussion of the masculine nature of lethal violence than is possible through more conventional categories of classification of either social relationships or motivations in cases of homicide.
From the author’s study of violent and nonviolent offenders and nonoffenders’ accounts, he drew two main conclusions about the interaction that takes place between the perpetrator and victim when violent crimes are committed. First, these crimes are committed during violent encounters that encompass five stages: (1) role claiming, (2) role rejection, (3) role sparring, (4) role enforcement, and (5) role determination. Second, based on how many of these stages are completed, violent encounters can be divided into three subtypes: (1) engagements, (2) skirmishes, and (3) tiffs. Violent dominance encounters that go through all five stages constitute engagements, those that enter only four of the stages constitute skirmishes, and those that enter only three of the stages constitute tiffs. Thus, for any theory to provide a complete explanation of violent crimes, it must be able to account for not only violent engagements but also violent skirmishes and tiffs.
We examined the relation between personality traits and crime in two studies. In New Zealand we studied 18-year-old males and females from an entire birth cohort. In Pittsburgh we studied an ethnically diverse group of 12- and 13-year-old boys. In both studies we gathered multiple and independent measures of personality and delinquent involvement. The personality correlates of delinquency were robust in different nations, in different age cohorts, across gender, and across race: greater delinquent participation was associated with a personality configuration characterized by high Negative Emotionality and weak Constraint. We suggest that when Negative Emotionality (the tendency to experience aversive affective states) is accompanied by weak Constraint (difficulty in impulse control), negative emotions may be translated more readily into antisocial acts. We review additional evidence about the developmental origins and consequences of this personality configuration and discuss its implications for theories about antisocial behavior.
I will examine the organization and development of seventy transactions ending in murder. In all seventy cases, murder was the culmination of an interchange between an offender and victim, resembling what Goffman termed a "character contest," a confrontation in which opponents sought to establish or maintain "face" at the other's expense by remaining steady in the face of adversity. The transaction took a sequential form: the victim issued what the offender deemed an offensive move; the offender typically retaliated with a verbal or physical challenge; a "working" agreement favoring the use of violence was forged with the victim's response; battle ensued leaving the victim dead or dying; the manner of the offender's exiting was shaped by his relationship to the victim and the moves of his audience.
tise offers a first person yet analytical ac- count of life in the inner city. What Anderson describes is disturbing- it's a world wracked by violence and a general lack of de- cency. Like Thomas Hobbes' state of nature Anderson s inner city is a place where life is poor nasty, brutish , and short. The book begins with a stroll on Germantown Avenue. Chestnut Hill, located on the northwest edge of Philadelphia, is a mostly white area, with boutiques , clean streets, and polite people. Life has a happy buzz here; foul language, rude behavior, and violence are very rare. Anderson then walks readers further down Germantown Avenue toward the heart of Phila- delphia. Slowly but surely the scene changes. The number of Whites decreases , the number of Blacks increases. Check cashing joints and liquor stores multiply; pricey brick townhouses give way to unkept, dilapidated buildings with barred win- dows. Graffiti tags are everywhere and trash blows about the streets. The walk ends in the North Philadelphia ghetto, where crack zombies and drug-addicted prostitutes stagger the streets , children run amok and unsupervised, and people drink alcohol and smoke dope openly on the street. There s not a white man to be found. It's a great introduction to the book, for it shows the reader a spectrum of American life-from the 1990s white, wealthy, well-ordered, and urbane to the black, impov- erished, chaotic, and inner city. Most of the remaining 300 plus pages are devoted to describing life in this particular ghetto. In sum, a great number of inner-city residents appear to Anderson to be wholly uncivilized by engaging in obviously self- destructive , anti-so- SPRING 2000 cial behavior. Though some families and people have life nurturing cooperative lifestyles , Ander- son finds that most inner-city dwellers do not. They rob, they dope up, they brutalize. Young men father children and then disappear , preg- nant girls drop out of schools and have child after child, but spend their days watching televi- sion and getting high instead of being attentive mothers. Armed young men with hair trigger
This article uses African-American women's experiences with violence as a particular lens to explore the relationships among (1) social constructions of violence; (2) how violence operates to link power relations of race and gender; and (3) potential contributions of transversal politics in anti-violence work. Since definitions of violence have little meaning in the abstract, the article first analyses how hierarchical power relations in the United States influence what counts as violence. Definitions of violence depend not only on the specifics of any given situation, but generally on who has the power to define both group identity and social context. The article then examines how intersectional approaches to African-American women's experiences with violence provide new insights for reconceptualizing the significance of group histories for constructing American violence. Finally, the article explores the potential implications of definitional shifts of violence for a transversal politics that might resist violence.
The volume's 19 chapters and 2 appendices summarize the author's research in his sociological analysis of criminal homicide in which he used Philadelphia as a community case study. "Analysis has been made of 588 criminal homicides listed by the police in this city between January 1, 1948, and December 31, 1952. A critical review of the important homicide literature in this country is provided, and whenever feasible, comparison is made of criminal homicides in Philadelphia with research elsewhere." Consideration is given to such problems as alcohol, motivation, temporal and spatial patterns. 4 chapters discuss the relationship between the victim and the offender. This sociological work is held to be of major interest for the criminologist and the police administrator. 20-page references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Violent incidents arising out of trivial conflicts and insults have been explained by subcultural theories of violence, but empirical support for those theories has been lacking. Recent cognitively oriented research on anger and aggression is combined in this analysis with W. Wilson's (1987) arguments about the “truly disadvantaged” to revise those theories. An individual-level theory explains the violent incidents, and an aggregate level theory explains the distribution of those incidents among social groups. A subculture of angry aggression arises under conditions of social isolation, when multiple feedback loops result in concentration effects.
The authors argue that the concept of personality has much to offer the field of criminology. To this end, they used meta-analytic techniques to examine the relations between antisocial behavior defined relatively broadly and four structural models of personality: Eysenck's PEN model, Tellegen's three-factor model, Costa and McCrae's five-factor model (FFM), and Cloninger's seven-factor temperament and character model. A comprehensive review of the literature yielded 59 studies that provided relevant information. Eight of the dimensions bore moderate relations to antisocial behavior; the dimensions could all be understood as measures of either Agreeableness or Conscientiousness from the FFM. The implications of these findings for future research are considered.
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This presentation revisits the “level of explanation problem” in criminology (a personal project begun more than 35 years ago). I develop the problem historically, paying tribute to those who have led the way and those who continue it. I distinguish between the situational and interactional levels of what has previously been termed the “microsocial” level of explanation. I then elaborate the interactional level and its application to the study of youth collectivities discussed.
This research attempts to elaborate a routine activity model of violent victimization by incorporating an explicit rational choice perspective on potential targets’ decision making to avoid violent encounters. We propose that the costs associated with a violent attack and the probability of offender retaliation depend on whether the offender's targeting strategy is opportunistic or deliberate—a function of the relational distance between the offender and target. Specifically, we propose that victim efforts to limit exposure to an offender may motivate a violent retaliatory response when the victim and offender are intimates compared to when they are strangers. We develop hypotheses based on these ideas and test them using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (1992–2000). The results suggest that female targets are more sensitive to an offender's targeting strategy than are males. We conclude with a discussion of how knowledge of the potential risk of violent retaliation on the part of intimate and spousal offenders can be used to create more efficacious policies to protect victims of violence.
This paper presents a general strain theory of crime and delinquency that is capable of overcoming the criticisms of previous strain theories. In the first section, strain theory is distinguished from social control and differential association/social learning theory. In the second section, the three major types of strain are described: (1) strain as the actual or anticipated failure to achieve positively valued goals, (2) strain as the actual or anticipated removal of positively valued stimuli, and (3) strain as the actual or anticipated presentation of negatively valued stimuli. In the third section, guidelines for the measurement of strain are presented. And in the fourth section, the major adaptations to strain are described, and those factors influencing the choice of delinquent versus nondelinquent adaptations are discussed.
Separata de la revista American Socioligical review, vol. 48 Incluye bibliografía
By articulating a general theory of crime and related behavior, the authors present a new and comprehensive statement of what the criminological enterprise should be about. They argue that prevalent academic criminologyâwhether sociological, psychological, biological, or economicâhas been unable to provide believable explanations of criminal behavior. The long-discarded classical tradition in criminology was based on choice and free will, and saw crime as the natural consequence of unrestrained human tendencies to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. It concerned itself with the nature of crime and paid little attention to the criminal. The scientific, or disciplinary, tradition is based on causation and determinism, and has dominated twentieth-century criminology. It concerns itself with the nature of the criminal and pays little attention to the crime itself. Though the two traditions are considered incompatible, this book brings classical and modern criminology together by requiring that their conceptions be consistent with each other and with the results of research. The authors explore the essential nature of crime, finding that scientific and popular conceptions of crime are misleading, and they assess the truth of disciplinary claims about crime, concluding that such claims are contrary to the nature of crime and, interestingly enough, to the data produced by the disciplines themselves. They then put forward their own theory of crime, which asserts that the essential element of criminality is the absence of self-control. Persons with high self-control consider the long-term consequences of their behavior; those with low self-control do not. Such control is learned, usually early in life, and once learned, is highly resistant to change. In the remainder of the book, the authors apply their theory to the persistent problems of criminology. Why are men, adolescents, and minorities more likely than their counterparts to commit criminal acts? What is the role of the school in the causation of delinquincy? To what extent could crime be reduced by providing meaningful work? Why do some societies have much lower crime rates than others? Does white-collar crime require its own theory? Is there such a thing as organized crime? In all cases, the theory forces fundamental reconsideration of the conventional wisdom of academians and crimina justic practitioners. The authors conclude by exploring the implications of the theory for the future study and control of crime.
Minor debts, derisive remarks, a fight over a parking space, butting in lineâthese are the little things that nevertheless account for much of the violence in human society. But why? Roger V. Gould considers this intriguing question in Collision of Wills. He argues that human conflict is more likely to occur in symmetrical relationshipsâamong friends or social equalsâthan in hierarchical ones, wherein the difference of social rank between the two individuals is already established. This, he maintains, is because violence most often occurs when someone wants to achieve superiority or dominance over someone else, even if there is no substantive reason for doing so. In making the case for this original idea, Gould explores a diverse range of examples, including murders, blood feuds, vendettas, revolutions, and the everyday disagreements that compel people to act violently. The result is an intelligent and provocative work that restores the study of conflict to the center of social inquiry.
A 'social interactionist approach' is applied to incidents of interpersonal violence in a variety of cultures. Violence, like other forms of coercion, is viewed as goal-oriented behavior, designed to produce compliance, restore retributive justice, and to assert and protect social identities. The approach emphasizes the role of grievances and social control, the escalation of coercive interactions when identities are attacked, and the role of third parties. It is suggested that the incentives for violence and other forms of coercion are similar in all cultures.
Crime and Everyday Life
- Felson
- Marcus
Felson, Marcus. 1998. Crime and Everyday Life, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Violent encounters: Violent engagements, skirmishes, and tiffs
- Athens
Athens, Lonnie. 2005. Violent encounters: Violent engagements, skir-mishes, and tiffs. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 34:631– 78.
Warriors and Peacemakers: How Third Parties Shape Violence
- Mark Cooney
- Yule Griffiths
- Gartner
- Daly
- Margo Wilson Martin
Cooney, Mark. 1998. Warriors and Peacemakers: How Third Parties Shape Violence. New York: NYU Press. GRIFFITHS, YULE & GARTNER Daly, Martin, and Margo Wilson. 1988. Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Stuck up, telling lies, and talking too much: The gendered context of young women's violence
- Miller
- Christopher W Jody
- Mullins
Miller, Jody, and Christopher W. Mullins. 2006. Stuck up, telling lies, and talking too much: The gendered context of young women's violence. In Gender and Crime: Patterns in Victimization and Offending, eds. Karen Heimer and Candace Kruttschnitt. New York: NYU Press.
Seductions of Crime: A Chilling Exploration of the Crim-inal Mind—From Juvenile Delinquency to Cold-Blooded Murder
- Katz
- Jack
Katz, Jack. 1988. Seductions of Crime: A Chilling Exploration of the Crim-inal Mind—From Juvenile Delinquency to Cold-Blooded Murder. New York: Basic Books.