Violent Crime

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Violent Crime

• Mike Keating 2007

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Definition - What do we mean by violent crime ?

• Popular notions of violent crime
• violence in public places and violence against
  the police... they seldom refer to violence in
  the home, to vehicular assaults..., to accidents
  at work, or to violence by the police
• (Levi, p295-296)
• The hegemonic image (is) that real violence
  and crime is something that occurs on the street,
  in public, and is committed by strangers
• (Stanko,1994,p34)
• Need to distinguish between intentional violence
  and unintentional and between instrumental
  violence and expressive violence.

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Legal Definitions

• The Home Office distinguishes between
• More serious offences e.g. Murder,
  Manslaughter, Causing death by dangerous driving,
  wounding etc.
• and
• Less serious offences e.g. Possession of
  weapons, Harassment, Assault on a constable,
  Cruelty or neglect of children
• But it does not include
• (i) sexual assault (classified under sexual
  offences)
• or
• (ii) non-indictable offences e.g. common
  assault or assault on a police officer. These
  are summary offences and dealt with by
  Magistrates Court.

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The benefits of a legal definition.

• We get a category which can be used to collect
  data.
• This produces Official Statistics on crime trends
  official snapshot
• Comparative data can tell us how things may
  change
• By Type
• Over time
• By Victim etc

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Official Snapshot on crime

• (Notifiable Offences recorded by the police in
  2000)
• Since the 1950s violent crime has been on the
  increase even when general crime has dropped.

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The most common recorded violent crimes in
England Wales

• (a) Street brawl
• (b) Domestic violence
• (c) Pub brawl
• (d) Attack on public servant
• Davidoff Greenhorn (1991)
• N.B. Murder is very rare in UK but assault is
  common.

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Patterns of victimisation

• By group (age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality etc).
• By weapon (Gun crime and Knife crime on the
  increase in major cities a specific crime
  within a specific criminal culture Tony Blair
  2007).
• By country Scotland (3) has the highest level
  of assault in the developed world. England and
  Wales (2.8). USA (1.2). Italy (0.2) Japan
  (0.1).
• (UN Report see The Times 19/9/05)
• By region or city Glasgow, Liverpool,
  Manchester, London, Nottingham etc

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The limitations of official snapshots

• Official definitions are conventionally
  delimited and ignore MOST crime (Levi).
• Emphasises the extreme and overlooks the
  normality of everyday violence (Baumeister).
• Reveals only reported and recorded levels of
  violence.
• Interpretation (by victims and CJS crucial).
• Dark figure of hidden violence is problematic.
• Violent crime can be a catchall which does
  not differentiate between the levels of
  seriousness.
• These snapshots tell us nothing about the
  physical and psychological effects of
  victimisation.

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Crime Surveys

• The British crime surveys (since 1982) suggest
  that increased rates of violent crime may reflect
  real increases of violence in society e.g. BCS
  1989 - violent crime of wounding, robbery or
  sexual offences 6 of all crime
• (almost identical to Official proportional
  estimates ).
• A lot more crime but much of it petty.
• Increases have been less steep than official
• Stranger danger on the increase.
• 'Risk' is on average low especially for women and
  elderly despite their greater fears.
• Public fear of crime is high exaggerates risk
  of violent crime (see moral panics)

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Public fear of violent crime

• 1 in 10 men in the Scottish Crime Survey (1992)
  gave crime as a reason for not going out on foot
  compared to 1 in 3 women.
• In the BBC Radio 4 series The Violence Files
  (White Knuckles) 75 of the sample surveyed
  thought they were more at risk today than they
  were in the past (approx 1995).
• Random violence appears to be directed at young
  men
• But, women are more likely to fear violent
  attack.
• But is all this a response to a moral panic
  over violent crime (If it Bleeds it Leads)?
• Media coverage may create climates of unsafety
  (Stanko)
• See also Dutton who challenges the validity of
  some of these survey results.

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Is Violent Crime really getting worse? (Levi pp
318-321)

• Murder rate is actually half what it was in the
  17th century.
• General public violence - decline in U.S.
  Britain in the 19th century but post 1950s
  clear increase.
• Measured by both O.S. and C.S. there seems
  little doubt that there was a substantial
  increase in violent crime during the 1980s in
  England.
• Assaults on the police
• 1850s - 1914 - fell by 64
• Today even lower (approx 12 of force are
  assaulted every year).
• Murders of police have remained same since 1964 -
  46 officers in 26 years.
• Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 attempts to
  tackle violent crime involving alcohol, guns and
  knife crime.

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But some groups are right to be concerned because
they are more at risk

• Racial attacks
• See Hate Crime also Skellington (1992) Race in
  Britain Today - chp. 3 and Modood (1997) chpt8 -
  Asians, Afro-Caribbean
• Social Class
• The poor at risk (Is part of life a culture
  of violence and defence of territory)

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Occupation Risk

• The staff most at risk were those dealing with
  members of the public in descending order of
  risk they are
• Police Officers
• Social / Welfare workers
• Probation Officers
• Publicans and Bar Staff
• Security Guards.
• (in OConner, N Violence at Work in The Safety
  Health Practicioner April 2000 )
• NHS - 95,500 incidents of violence and aggression
  were recorded in 2001-2002.
• Nurses were most likely to be the victims, and
  mental health workers were least likely to report
  incidents.
• Teaching Nigel Nagruci (NAUWT) on teachers as
  victims - more violence over past 20 years,
  especially past 5.
• New trends girls as well as boys, offenders are
  getting younger, increased use of weapons,
  exacerbated by closure of special schools

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Age

• Very young at risk - child abuse
• Teenagers - assault and rape.
• In general young people are more at risk of
  becoming victims of any form of violence except
  spouse abuse and this is related to the general
  patterns of life they lead, including the kinds
  of group drinking and quarrels in public places
  they get into
• (Levi p309)
• Below 40s - at risk
• Over 40 - very rare

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Gender

• From an early age girls are more at risk than
  boys from sexual assault and abuse. But for
  random violence and murder males are the victims
  as well as the perpetrators,
• Murder - England Wales (1990)MF381228Whether by
  acquaintance or stranger234181By aquaintance
• Virtually all violence is committed by men.
• Male violence may even outrank disease and
  famine as the major source of human suffering
• (Archer Male Violence p1).
• Women have been recorded as committing
  significant numbers of assaults 8 - 14 and
  some murders, but this is still rare.

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Male v female views on violence

• In her text, 'Out of Control', Campbell (1993)
  notes a clear distinction in the ways in which
  men and women view their own violence women, she
  claims, perceive outbursts of anger and displays
  of aggression as a 'loss of control'. Men, on the
  other hand, view their acts of aggression as a
  means of 'gaining control'.
• Both sexes see an intimate connection between
  aggression and control, But for women aggression
  is the failure of self-control, while for men it
  is the imposing of control over other
• (From Brookman 2000 Dying for Control).

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Gender offending

• Sex difference explains more variance in crime
  across nations and cultures than any other
  variable.
• (Collier 19982)
• The goal of feminism is not to push men out so
  as to bring women in but rather to gender the the
  study of crime
• (Renzetti 1993232)
• The Man Question - The maleness of crime has
  been so taken for granted as to be rendered
  invisiblestudies have tended to be on men as
  offenders rather than offenders as men.
• (Smith 2005353)

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The Man Question

• The statistics support the traditional view of
  the problem as a male one.
• This tends to be supported by a naturalistic view
  of the aggressive male which comes from
  socio-biology.

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But it may also be explained

• The profiles of violent and abusing men are
  indistinguishable from men in general.
• So what then is masculinity? Is it something
  biological or is it a social construction?

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The masculine turn masculinity culture

• Socialisation processes gender is learned and
  so are the behaviours which lead boys into
  trouble.
• Power Control men exert their dominance
  through violence, intimidation, abuse as Smith
  says the one emotion men do allow themselves is
  anger.
• Masculinity and identity work writers such as
  Connell (1995) and Messerschmidt (1993) have
  argued that there is an hegemonic masculinity
  which is based upon notions of dominance and
  toughness and which criminal activity and risk
  taking are closely linked with traditional
  notions of being a man. Doing crime can be seen
  as a form of identity work.
• In certain situations, men are likely to engage
  in criminal behaviour as a mechanism for
  constructing their masculinity
• (Copes and Hochstetler 2003)

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Masculinity as a social construction

• Boys and girls are socialised into different
  patterns of behaviour interaction thought
  language and emotional response.
• Real men Emotional toughness
• The instability of male identity
• The profiles of violent and abusing men are
  indistinguishable from men in general.

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The costs to men?

• A restricted range of feelings
• Living in a world of distorted relationships
• Emotional illiteracy
• Distant communicating.

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The costs to society

• What we know about the nature of violent crime
  is that males predominate as both offenders and
  victims, at all levels (from the working class
  man on the street to the powerful world leaders
  who wage war). It is almost as if violence
  belongs to men. Women very rarely use violence to
  the same extent, or arguably, for the same sorts
  of reasons as their male counterparts. As Collier
  (1998, p.2) notes Sex difference explains more
  variance in crime across nations and cultures
  than any other variable.
• (Fiona Brookman 2000)

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Masculinity domestic violence

• The centrality of competitiveness, competence,
  aggression and objectification creates a
  masculinity characterised by anxiety and
  instability. Failure to impress, compete or
  acknowledge competence particularly in areas of
  sexuality may well lead to inadequacies and fears
  which, not surprisingly, can then be projected
  onto women and children
• (Bates, 1997220)
• D. Violence tended to dominate early feminist
  critique (1970s onwards)

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Male on male violence

• The masculine turn in the 1990s turned
  attention to male interpersonal violence.
• In Brookmans case study (2000) Male violence is
  a means of asserting identity through toughness
  control which may also be pleasurable
• violence sometimes serves no other goal than to
  exercise the feelings of power and pleasure that
  are derived from an ability to control other
  individuals. For some men, controlling others
  enhances their self-esteem and feelings of
  powerfulness and as such violence can be
  pleasurable
• Available online Dying for control

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Criticisms of hegemonic masculinity

• It ignores the possibility of biological and
  psychological factors.
• It overlooks the fluid nature of masculinity
• Masculinity is a problematic term is it
  describing reality or an ideal type?
• Emphasis on the negative aspects of masculinity
• What about alternative masculinities?
• See Newburn (2007) Chapters 15 32
• Hale et al (2005) Chapter 17.