Henry Brownstein’s book, The Social Reality of Violence and Violent Crime, and Joel Best’s books, Random Violence and Damn Lies and Statistics, have various connections. “The social world is which we live is designed by us in the context of our own values and interest,” per Brownstein. Those values and interest are placed into social context by those in power to design policies and procedures. Social problems start out with a typifying event and then attention by the media to publicize the event. The publication of the event then attracts the attention of the government to impose policies to solve the social problem.
Claims are made in regards to social reality to construct from one’s experience or social phenomena that will attract the attention of members of the society. Attraction of the issue is described in Best and Brownstein’s books. Violence is considered one of the social issues. The meaning of violence is not usually specifically defined. Many use examples to define violence. Joel Best describes guessing and defining social problems as ways of causing a bad statistic. “Whenever example substitute for definitions, there is a risk that our understanding of the problem will be distorted,” according to Best. Broad definitions or example definitions allow the possibility of false positives and false negatives to be added to the statistical information.
The definition of a social problem, such as violence, has an impact on the measurements of that problem. Measurement issues are discussed in Damn Lies and Statistics and The Social Reality of Violence. A common and mutually agreed definition must be established and the actions, decision, and interpretations of those who measure the problem can impact the measurem...
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...ons cause mutant statistics. Besides the generalization issue, there is no way to predict random violence. Policies and programs are difficult to design if there is no way to predict the future of the violence. Best and Brownstein both discuss the NCVS statistical issues regarding reporting family violence compared to stranger violence.
The main connection, I seen in the Social Reality book and Random Violence book was the discussion of language. Best describes language as the, “deciding factor that shapes what we think about, and therefore how we deal with, our problems.” Brownstein discusses the language of social problem theory as making claims from a subjective experience to confront other members of society as objectively. Since everyone has different language and cultures creates differences in identifying, defining, and categorizing social problems.
Structural violence is differentiated from direct violence both in terms of etiology and nature. D...
The subculture of violence theory revolves around individuals using violent acts in need of survival. In this theory, people kill because one was living their lifestyle through violent acts as normal behavior. According to Thio, Taylor, and Schwartz they mention, “violent behavior is more effective than nonpoor families’ (Thio et al, 2013, p. 79). Most poor neighborhoods have higher chances of committing crimes, especially, knowing that the behavior of the actions is reflected towards survival. These behaviors can be reflected on the family, peers, and community aspects. Living in poor neighborhoods, can be scary when not knowing what type of violent act or individuals that live around one. For example; some individuals might be influenced with gangs or fall into the wrong crowd. Individuals, who choose violence, are influenced by the experience from these gang groups, peers, parents, or normal neighborhood behaviors. These individuals live through the violence acts to kill because this is the type of lifestyle they are living in. I believe that people are violent because they believe killing is an escape to get away from issues and own problems. Also, people might turn to killing because it’s the main solution for survival. For example; if one is being harassed, one might feel that violence could to a key factor to protect themselves in this type of
...ment an integrative approach in a disjointed system of fragmented agencies and separate departments. In addition, examining violence through social development requires long term studies of development through life stages. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of crimes like the Virginia Tech murders, the pressure to re-act can outweigh the patience to act logically.
Schmalleger, F. (2009). The Conflict Perspective. In F. Schmalleger, Criminology: An Intergrative Introduction (p. 347). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Recently, the effect that violent media has on society has been the focus of many psychological studies. According to an article published in the New York Times, research has found that: “Exposure to violent imagery does not preordain violence, but it is a risk factor” (Pozios, Kambam, Bender, 2013). There has yet to be a direct link between violence actually causing people to go on these massive shooting sprees that have been so common lately. It is natural and understandable for the
However, his work has been very influential in both the policy making process and criminological theories both in Britain and around the western world. Merton’s theory does not explain all crime but it has great merit in the ones he attempts to explain. --------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Merton. R-(1968) Social Theory and Social Structure.
Violence causes a great deal of suffering and harm in the world today and yesterday (Cross 2013). Peace and conflict researchers are undeniably justified in their selection of inter and intra-state violence as objects of study because the social context for both the performance and understanding of violence is of central importance (Cross 2013). However it is surprisingly rare to find a definition of violence (Moore 2003). Thus uncertainty prevails as to whether violence is limited to physical abuse or includes verbal and psychological abuse (Moore 2003). Agreeing with Moore (2003), Galtung (1969) said it is not important to arrive at a definition of violence because there are obliviously many types of violence. Violence is not
Cressey, Donald R. “Methodological Problems in the Study of Organized Crime as a Social Problem.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 374: 101-112. JSTOR. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. .
This kind of social issue is more evident when episodes with violence are trending topics. For example, during and after the September 11th’s attack in New York, many Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians, were subject to revisions and detentions because authorities had no clue about how those mentioned attacks were perpetrated and who did them. It was not just a matter concerning authorities, society in general condemned hardly to the entire eastern community, even though many of that people stopped, detained, and questioned, did not have any linkage with this terrorist event.
To look at the world sociologically, one must first understand the definition of sociology. Sociologists, according to Peter L. Berger are people who are “intensively, endlessly, and shamelessly interested in the doings of men.” They study people in their natural habitat, which is wherever people gather. So in order to look at the world from this perspective, one should “think systematically about how many things we experience as personal problems are really social issues that are widely shared by others born in a similar time and social location as us.” (Pearson Custom Sociology, 5) This is known as the “sociological imagination”, first coined by C. Wright Mills. In The Promise, Mills describes how there is a connection between our problems and those of the social world. In order to understand these connections however, one must look at the different aspects that make up the social world and how they affect us. The various themes to understand when looking at the world sociologically are social structure, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and social interaction.
Conflict criminology strives to locate the root cause of crime and tries to analyze how status and class inequality influences the justice system. The study of crime causation by radical criminologist increased between 1980s and 1990s as this led to the emergence of many radical theories such as Marxist criminology, feminist criminology, structural criminology, critical criminology, left realist criminology and peacemaking criminology (Rigakos, 1999). In spite of critical criminology encompassing many broad theories, some common themes are shared by radical research. The basic themes show how macro-level economic structures and crime are related, effects of power differentials, and political aspects in defining criminal acts.
Crime exists everywhere. It is exists in our country, in the big cities, the small towns, schools, and even in homes. Crime is defined as “any action that is a violation of law”. These violations may be pending, but in order to at least lower the crime rate, an understanding of why the crimes are committed must first be sought. There are many theories that are able to explain crimes, but three very important ones are rational choice theory, social disorganization theory and strain theory.
This demonstrates that the media obviously over represents in violent crimes such as street crimes compared with other crimes such as property crimes (Moston, 2012). The media use this method to report crime in order to heighten the impact of crime and to gain the mass audience’s attention, which alternatively will result in more sales for media products. This approach is known as ‘postmodernism’ where the media report crime on the notion of ‘entertainment’ for consumers. Postmodernism approach rejects the causes and consequences of crime but instead focuses on impacts to the society to create fear within the community (Jewkes, 2010). Hence lead to crime wave reporting on issues like assaults, homicide and street crimes to allow for attention grabbing headlines providing maximum entertainment to consumers. Crime wave increases the public’s awareness of particular crimes due to extensive media coverage provided for crimes revolving around violence (White and Perrrone, 2015). As a result, this has lead to moral panic where the media coverage influence the public’s perception in believing that they are in physical threat from violent crimes. This is prime example of the media using discretionary powers to insert values and dominant interests into the community. Criminologist Gramsci developed
Crime rates, especially violent crimes such as murder, rape, and robbery, peaked around 1991 and 1992, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports. The major crime topics of that time included drug abuse and the war on drugs, still some remnants from the crack cocaine epidemic from the late 1980s, and the increase in juvenile violence in the late 1980s. In addition to these, legislation such as the Brady Bill continued to surface as a public policy that drew attention to the issue of gun violence, and other topics tended to be emphasized by the Bush administration, such as the exclusionary rule, the death penalty, habeas corpus, and the insanity defense. Community policing developed at the grassroots level in the early 1980s, coming out of local police demonstration projects that were often funded by the National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Community policing came about out of the rejection of traditional policing practices in the 1970s, largely as a result of various studies that found that long held assumptions in policing were found not to hold up to scrutiny. An article written by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling published in an edition of Atlantic Monthly in 1982 brought about the broken windows theory. This theory holds that when people no longer care about their community, the condition on that neighborhood often sends signals to people that no one cares. This allows for disorder and minor crimes to pass unnoticed, which will lead to more serious crimes. Once disorder begins to take hold and minor crimes become common, eventually the neighborhood will decay and become crime ridden. The key to fixing the broken windows is for police to target these minor crimes...
Criminology is the study of crime and criminals; a branch of sociology. More accurately, it is the study of crime as a social trend, and its overall origins, its many manifestations and its impact upon society as a whole. That makes it more a form of sociology than a law enforcement tool. But the trends it studies have a huge impact on the way the police do their jobs, the way society treats its criminals, and the way a given community goes about maintaining law and order. The writer will describe and give examples of the three perspectives of viewing crimes. The perspectives that will be highlighted are the consensus view, the conflict view or the interactionist view. Each perspective maintain its own interpretation of what constitutes criminal activities and what causes people to engage in criminal behaviors (Siegel, p.12).