Act Of Violence Research Articles

An Efficient Deep Learning Framework for Optimized Event Forecasting

There have been several catastrophic events that have impacted multiple economies and resulted in thousands of fatalities, and violence has generated a severe political and financial crisis. Multiple studies have been centered around the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) approaches that are most widely used in practice to detect or forecast violent activities. However, machine learning algorithms become less accurate in identifying and forecasting violent activity as data volume and complexity increase. For the prediction of future events, we propose a hybrid deep learning (DL)-based model that is composed of a convolutional neural network (CNN), long short-term memory (LSTM), and an attention layer to learn temporal features from the benchmark the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). The GTD is an internationally recognized database that includes around 190,000 violent events and occurrences worldwide from 1970 to 2020. We took into account two factors for this experimental work: the type of event and the type of object used. The LSTM model takes these complex feature extractions from the CNN first to determine the chronological link between data points, whereas the attention model is used for the time series prediction of an event. The results show that the proposed model achieved good accuracies for both cases—type of event and type of object—compared to benchmark studies using the same dataset (98.1% and 97.6%, respectively).

Colonial enquiry, pathology and the making of the ‘Afghan crisis’ (c. 1857–1878)

ABSTRACT Two powerful and intersecting themes continue to bear on the framing of Afghanistan in international politics: Afghanistan’s rendering as a place of pathology and continuing crisis, uncertainty, and transition – and ‘our’ ability to intervene, articulate strategy (politically, militarily, economically or otherwise), or retaliate at will. Conventionally, the idea of inquiry is understood as a state-led process of investigation, often undertaken after intervention or the departure of occupying militaries. The article attempts to widen the notion of inquiry by approaching it from a historical perspective and in a historicizing manner, focusing on colonial enquiry as the making of interventionist rationales that underpinned the unleashing of colonial military violence in the service of empire in history. The paper affords colonial enquiry a place in thinking about modern, state-led, public inquiry. The article’s chronology is roughly bookended by the two Anglo-Afghan Wars of the nineteenth century (ca. 1839–1843 and 1878–1881, respectively). In the ideational build-up of imperial intervention prior to 1878, discourses of medicine in the broadest sense provided an important enrichment of the vocabulary and intellectual thought frameworks of colonial intervention. As a result, the entanglement of medicine and politics resulted in a quasi-humanitarian argument for military violence. The pathologization of Afghanistan undergirds a broader objectification of Afghanistan that is colonial enquiry. Concluding the article are sections on the manifold legacies of the Second Anglo-Afghan war and on ‘our’ approaches to inquiry.

A Review of Biological Foundations of Anger

Anger, happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust are the six fundamental emotions that people can experience. Anger is a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. It is a blaming emotion that is aimed against individuals, and it frequently leads to violent actions. However, anger serves survival purposes and is embedded in humans. While anger is typically viewed as a psychological or social phenomenon, it also has a biological basis. This literature review focuses on anger and its underlying biological foundations. The biological basis of anger can be explained through the activation of the amygdala, which plays a crucial role in emotional processing. Additionally, studies have shown that anger is associated with decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. When a person becomes angry, this region of the brain is less active, leading to impulsive behaviors and decreased rational thinking. This explains why individuals often engage in aggressive or violent behaviors when angry. Understanding the biological basis of anger can help us better manage and control this emotion. By recognizing the physiological changes that occur when we become angry, we can take steps to calm ourselves down and develop healthier coping mechanisms.Keywords: Emotions, Anger, Amygdala, Prefrontal cortex, Biological basis

Hospital employees’ perceived racism, ethnically offensive behavior, and patient violence

Abstract Background Hospitals are sensitive environments with complex interactions between employees and patients. Israeli society is ethnically diverse, and Israeli hospitals reflect this diversity and may create opportunities for rapprochement between different ethnic groups or might raise conflicts between them. In radical situations, such encounters might lead to violence. The phenomenon of physical or verbal violence towards caregivers and hospital employees exists. However, the uniqueness of this study is in examining whether the origin of the violence stems from racist reactions and how offensive behavior on an ethnic background could develop into actual violence. Methods Data were collected through an online close-ended survey among 370 hospital employees. 83% were Jewish, 68% were female, and 38 years old on average, with a mean hospital tenure of 6.5 years. The survey explored respondents’ perceived racism toward them, their exposure to offensive patient behavior based on ethnicity, and their exposure to general violence. Data were analyzed by SPSS 28. Results Preliminary results suggest positive correlations between study variables (r=.42-.52, p< .001). Regression analysis revealed that perceived racism contributed to general violence (β=.43, p< .001; R²=.19). Next, ethnic-based offensive behavior was added to the model (β=.36, p< .001). The analysis shows that general violence can be explained by these variables [F(2, 359)= 70.42, p< .001; R²=.28]. The R² of the general model increased significantly by 9.6%. The weight of perceived racism dropped yet is still significant (β=.24, p< .001). These results indicate that patients’ ethnic-based offensive behavior partially mediates the relationship between employees’ perceived racism and general violence. Conclusions The results suggest that employees who suffer from racism experience patients’ offensive behaviors based on ethnicity, which finally results in higher exposure to general violence in the workplace. Key messages • Understanding the phenomenon of violence in hospitals and examining the relationship between it and racism may amend policy and improve the quality of care and working conditions in the health sector. • The hospital environment involves diverse groups of society. Hence, the awareness of offensive behavior on an ethnic background is a condition to reduce racism and violence proactively.

Family: cornerstone for young people to be victims of violence in the university stage

Abstract Introduction Violence is a pervasive issue that wreaks havoc within communities, with the family serving as a cornerstone for the development of individuals, thereby influencing their behavior within society. Objectives To determine the association between a history of family violence and being a victim of violence among university students. Methodology This is a cross-sectional, prospective study that included university students of both sexes. Family function was measured using the Family APGAR test, while the dependent variable was experiencing any type of violence during the university stage. Results A total of 1148 participants were included, with an average age of 20.47 (±3.3) years, 63.9% were women, 94.9% were cisgender, and 77.3% were heterosexual; 45.3% of participants identified with family dysfunction, 45.3% had witnessed a violent act in their family, and 46% of participants experienced violence at university. When evaluating factors associated with experiencing violence, a positive association (OR/CI95%) was identified for attending a private school (1.4/1.1-1.9), alcohol consumption (2.4/1.7-3.5), having family disfunction (1.5/1.2-1.9) living in a family with violence (2.3/1.8-2.9), knowing friends who experienced partner violence (2.1/1.6-2.7) or family violence (1.9/1.4-2.5). Conversely, a negative association was found for being heterosexual (0.6/0.4-0.8), never witnessing sexual (0.3-0.2-2.5), physical (0.5/0.4-0.65), or psychological (0.3/0.2-0.4) violence in the family, nor experiencing violence during childhood (0.4/0.3-0.5), middle school (0.4/0.3-0.5), or high school (0.4/0.3-0.5) (p < 0.001), likewise, not exercising physical, psychological, sexual, digital or other types of violence during college presents OR = 0 (p < 0.001) in each of these items. Conclusions The social environment, alcohol consumption, a history of witnessing violence in family and friends, as well as the perpetration of violence are associated with receiving violence. Key messages • Evidence indicates the importance of the family for the development of its members, since, just by witnessing behaviors, they favor the development of social roles. • The first contact physician must return to his essence, focusing on the care of the patient in a comprehensive manner, including the environment in which he develops.

Government justification of police actions against protesters: biopolitics in Poland during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT How did the government justify aggressive, and, at times, violent police actions against demonstrators during the pandemic? We use a biopolitical framework to empirically explore how leading members of Poland’s government justified protest policing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Poland’s PiS-led government, like others across Europe, implemented social distancing measures that curtailed the right to peaceful assembly. The government justified aggressive crowd control tactics such as kettling to ‘protect’ society from what they perceived as illegal and unruly protestors who seek to cause indirect mass harm, e.g. spread the virus via street protesting, or cause direct harm to police officers through physical acts of protester aggression. The government argued that protesters, instead of being whom the state must keep safe from biological harm, actually threaten a vulnerable police force and other institutions. The government projected their own vulnerability to cast protesters as biological threats to the nation and, thus, as dangerously norm-breaking ‘others,’ in order to justify surveillance of demonstrators and aggressive police tactics.

Correction to: Semi‑state violent actors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: the case of PMC Wagner

Correction to: Semi‑state violent actors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: the case of PMC Wagner

Small War as Global War: Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Campaign in German East Africa, 1914-1918

This article discusses Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who commanded the Schutztruppe for German East Africa between 1914 and 1918, as a strategic thinker who clearly perceived the rupture that the First World War implied for colonial governance and the use of military violence. While local resistance to colonisation had been the predominant security concern before 1914, the globalisation of the First World War meant that many colonies became recruiting grounds for loyalist soldiers as well as battlefields in the clash of arms between colonial powers. Conversely, the possibility of anti-colonial rebellions presented a vulnerability for colonial powers that could have a global impact. Based on new archival material, this article shows how Lettow-Vorbeck recognised that small war had the potential to tip the scales in a global war and linked his efforts in German East Africa to the Imperial German strategic efforts to instigate global jihad against Entente colonial powers.

A Criminological–Military Enterprise

Abstract This article builds upon, and extends, critiques of British criminology’s enterprising collaboration with state-based institutions. Through an investigation of the discipline’s discreet contribution to the UK military ‘knowledge economy’ (Catignani and Basham 2021), criminological research is revealed as having the capacity to insulate the British military from critique and depoliticize military violence. Informed by criminological and critical military studies scholarship, the ‘criminological–military enterprise’ is introduced into academic discourse. This term offers a critical analysis of the discipline’s contemporary ‘blended’ (Shields 2024) research with the British military estate, provides ‘enriched reflexive’ (Danielsson 2022) problems for critical scholars to contemplate, and calls for a (re)politicization of military issues within criminological research.

History, Memory and Memorabilia: Kamala Dasgupta and the Politics of Remembering Revolutionary Bengal

ABSTRACT This paper examines the interplay between memory, history, nationalism, and visual cultures by focussing on a framed photograph of a revolver gifted to Kamala Dasgupta’s family by the Calcutta (Now Kolkata) police after Indian independence. Once used in an attempted assassination during the anti-colonial struggle, the revolver has become an anomaly in the nation’s collective memory – a ‘floating signifier’ with an unfixed meaning. Analysing the photograph as a media spectacle and a symbol within national myths, I argue that it disrupts linear narratives of progress that dominate nationalist historiography. The article shows how Kamala’s act of procuring the revolver has been overshadowed by her comrade Bina Das’s violent act. Drawing on theories of the spectacle, national temporality, and subaltern studies, I illustrate the selective commemoration of revolutionary violence in India. The research in this paper demonstrates how precarious and subaltern histories such as Kamala’s can destabilise established national narratives and pluralise temporal orders of the nation.

Wound: creativity, the military and a sculpture inspired by faces, minds, and landscapes scarred by the weapons of war

ABSTRACT In reference to Alice Cree’s observation that the words ‘creativity’ and ‘military’ do not seem to ‘fit together comfortably’, the first section of this autoethnographic article critically explores my personal experiences and motivations as an artist working in close proximity to military culture. This creative practice-military relationship is examined in a variety of contexts, including designing war memorials, exhibiting in military museums, and actively participating in military, commemorative rituals. The potential risks – being co-opted by military agendas – and benefits – having a platform to use my creative voice to express the consequences of martial violence – are discussed. Focusing on one of my artworks, Wound (2022), the second section demonstrates the capability of creative practice to interrogate consequences of military (and by implication, state) violence. Wound is a bronze sculpture cast from an original First World War British Brodie helmet and a German Mauser rifle cartridge. By means of moulding, casting, and modelling processes, I reconfigured the original sources of armour and ammunition as a narrative site to metaphorically explore the ‘wounding’ and ‘healing’ of landscapes and human faces and minds. Through the allegorical interpretation of this artwork and by recounting personal experiences related to its research and creation, I discuss my creative practice as a memory artist and explain my motivations for making artworks that explore human violence and warfare. The article surveys other examples of visual art and human violence in war from classical antiquity to the present, with particular emphasis on the First World War.

Estimation of Bullying Incidence Using Linear Regression Algorithm

Bullying is a violent act intended to cause harm or humiliation to another person. Bullying can take many different forms, including verbal and nonverbal, and it frequently targets people who are thought to be weaker or different. Nevertheless, because many bullying incidents go unreported, it is challenging to gather reliable statistics on the prevalence of bullying. In this study, the number of bullying cases in the field of education is estimated using a linear regression approach. This algorithm is used because it may estimate based on pertinent data, like the gender-based type of bullying and data on the quantity of bullying events that occurred in the preceding year. According to the study's findings, 2,250 bullying incidences are predicted for the upcoming year 2024, with a MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) of 0,07% or an accuracy level of 99,3%, categorized as highly accurate forecasting results.

الإرهاب السياسي: دراسة اجتماعية تحليلية

Violence has roots that go deep into antiquity, and its use began with the second generation of humanity, when Cain killed his brother Abel, thus committing the first crime in human history. This prompted thinkers, psychologists, and sociologists to say that violence is an instinct inherent in the human self and associated with human nature in its tendency to control and impose influence and domination. There have been many studies that have dealt with the subject of violence and that have come to addressing the subject of terrorism, and we find many of these studies that have defined it, and we also find that some of these studies and some governments, organizations and political figures intentionally and unintentionally confuse in many cases the phenomenon of terrorism with other human phenomena and problems. Other violent forms, such as national resistance, armed liberation movements, political crime, war, and the crime of genocide. In this analytical study, we will determine when terrorism transforms and acquires a political character? By analyzing political terrorism sociologically. We take into consideration two basic elements of this problem. The first is the subject of the phenomenon of political terrorism, or to whom the violent act of political terrorism occurs, and the second is the goal or objectives of practicing the act of political terrorism.

The paradox of violent leaders and organizational structures

ABSTRACT How do violent groups create and operate an organizational and leadership structure when they face duelling and simultaneous organizational imperatives for control and secrecy? How important is one of the imperatives compared to the other? Using the Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior (MAROB) dataset, our analysis shows that organizations seem to be much more concerned with control than secrecy. Variables related to the need for control (size, engaging in complex, violent activities) are, indeed, associated with centralized organizations, while the variable related to secrecy (repressive measure by the state) is not associated with any organizational type.

Semi-state violent actors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: the case of PMC Wagner

Semi-state violent actors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: the case of PMC Wagner

Explaining Political Violence In South Asia: Theories And Concepts

Political violence in South Asia has escalated significantly since the region’s independence, primarily driven by the erosion of social cohesion. This paper investigates the socio-political and economic foundations that underlie violent political actions. By examining key movements across South Asia, including the Bengali liberation struggle, Kashmir and tribal conflicts in Northeast India, the MQM problem in Pakistan, the JVP and Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka, the study identifies internal colonisation, state repression, and resource mobilisation as central catalysts of violence. The analysis highlights the role of relative deprivation, land disputes, and marginalisation as pivotal motivators for insurgencies. Additionally, state incapacity and external support further exacerbate and sustain violent movements. The paper concludes that the exclusion of marginalised groups from political power and economic opportunities, compounded by uneven development, continues to fuel cycles of violence in the region

The Effectiveness of Restorative Justice in Resolving Juvenile Criminal Cases: An Examination of Legal and Social Perspectives

The objective of this research is to examine and address issues pertaining to the enforcement of the law in instances of violent criminal activity perpetrated by students of legal age who are enrolled in educational institutions. External factors, including association, education, and social environment, exert a significant influence on children's criminal behavior, which frequently originates from the tendency to emulate negative behaviors and the lack of adequate parental supervision. This research employs a normative legal approach to elucidate the nature of the penalties imposed upon minors who perpetrate criminal acts, as delineated in the Juvenile Criminal Justice System No. 11/2012. The findings indicate that to avert criminal conduct by minors, it is imperative to implement sustainable development initiatives that bolster the survival, physical, mental, and social advancement of children, while safeguarding them from threats that could jeopardize their future and the nation. The juvenile criminal justice system incorporates community involvement throughout the entirety of the case process. Crimes occurring within the community are shaped by the prevailing social conditions, along with individual factors pertaining to the perpetrators and victims. At the conclusion of each case, the community is tasked with facilitating the reintegration of offenders and victims back into the social milieu. This is achieved through either the establishment of new informal institutions or the reinforcement of existing formal ones.

Domestic violence: alcoholism as a cause and a contributing factor

The article examines the influence of alcoholism as one of the main factors contributing to domestic violence. It was established that alcoholism is a problem that significantly increases the psychological causes of violence, is a significant factor that affects the spread of domestic violence, as it significantly changes a person’s behavior and psycho-emotional state. Under the influence of alcohol, people can lose self-control, become more aggressive and prone to violent actions, which is especially dangerous in the home environment, where interaction takes place against the background of close relationships and emotional dependence. It is motivated that people under the influence of alcohol can exaggerate the importance of minor misunderstandings or react to them with disproportionate aggression, which leads to the escalation of conflicts that could be resolved without violence under normal circumstances. It is indicated that an important aspect is that alcoholism affects the psychological state of all family members. Victims of violence, especially domestic violence, often feel isolated and vulnerable, which can lead to social tension and conflict in communities. Victims of domestic violence may experience constant fear and stress due to the unpredictability of their partner’s behavior, which creates a state of chronic tension that can lead to mental disorders. It is highlighted how the use of alcohol changes a person’s behavior, reducing his ability to self-control and increasing the risk of aggressive actions. Particular attention is paid to how alcoholism creates economic instability and psychological stress for victims, making it difficult to get out of violent relationships. The social aspect of the problem was also investigated, in particular the influence of the cultural legitimization of alcohol on the perception of violence. In some societies, alcohol is part of a cultural practice that can contribute to the normalization of aggressive behavior and reduce the perceived seriousness of violence. To effectively combat domestic violence, it is necessary to change social norms and raise awareness of the negative consequences of alcoholism, while providing adequate support to victims.

Explaining strategic disinterment: Forensics and the reconstruction of the missing in Cyprus

The paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘strategic disinterment’ in Cyprus, namely the purposeful and selective destruction of primary graves and removal of remains of missing persons to unknown secondary burial sites. Our examination of why violent actors invest valuable resources to exhume victims from the original burial location, even when they no longer pose a security threat, has significant theoretical and methodological implications. First, it pushes the boundaries of our understanding of violence by challenging the assumption that violent actors target only the living. Second, it innovates methodologically by introducing the use of forensic data to explain the strategic logic of selective removal of remains of victims from original grave sites in Cyprus. By exploring the interplay between temporal, spatial, demographic, and political considerations and analysing variables that may explain strategic disinterment, we make informed inferences about the possible drivers of grave selection. We argue the decision of armed groups to engage in strategic disinterment in Cyprus was shaped by a set of two factors. On the one hand, they were ‘pushed’ by the degree of perceived accountability associated with specific graves that concealed incriminatory evidence of heinous crimes. On the other hand, their capacity to organize sophisticated operations, such as mass-scale reburials, was crucial. Only actors with the capacity and attentive to (international) accountability norms were likely to engage in strategic disinterment.

Mere exposure to conspiracy theories: effects on radical intentions among believers and nonbelievers

ABSTRACT This study investigated the relationship between exposure to conspiracy theories and radicalization, focusing on conspiracy theories from QAnon and Russian propaganda. Through an experimental design, 1736 US-based participants were exposed to four conspiracy theories either before or after answering questions about their activist intentions and radical intentions. The results indicate that exposure to conspiratorial narratives led to a significant increase in radical intentions but a non-significant decrease in activist intentions. This finding supports existing literature linking conspiracy beliefs to non-normative behavior, suggesting a causal relationship between exposure to conspiracy theories and intentions for illegal and violent political action. Additionally, results show that individuals who already held beliefs in the narratives exhibited higher radical intentions after exposure compared to non-believers. This supports theories suggesting that conspiratorial narratives play an important role in radicalization, particularly when combined with other radicalizing factors. Discussion focuses on possible long-term radicalization effects of conspiratorial narratives as well as on the ethical considerations stemming from our findings.