Propensity For Violence Research Articles

The Patterning of Repression: FBI Counterintelligence and the New Left

While the social movement literature recognizes the interactive nature of collective action, models almost uniformly focus on protestors themselves. Consequently, we know a great deal about how social movement organizations recruit participants, mobilize resources, and initiate activity, but have considerably less understanding of how authorities allocate repression in response to (and sometimes in anticipation of) protest events. Here, I use memosfrom the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) against the New Left between 1968 and 1971 to understand the patterning of repression against protest groups. COINTELPRO is a unique data source; the program was autonomous from other government agencies and was organized solely to covertly expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of FBI targets. The level of tangible threat proxied by New Left groups' size, level of activity, or propensity for violence did not directly structure FBI activity. Instead, these target group characteristics were mediated by organizational processes endogenous to the FBI itself. Specifically, central actors in the FBI allocated organizational controls that ensured that visible (i.e., nonlocal) targets were repressed independent of the targets' local activities. The literature on social movements and collective action usefully recognizes that protest is an interactive clash between authorities and challengers. Most work in this area, however, has dealt with one side of this equation, focusing squarely on the challengers themselves. Consequently, we know a lot about how

Community Correlates of Serious Assaults on Police

Violence against police officers is a widely held concern for the law enforcement profession. Prior research into this problem has focused almost exclusively on individual, situational, or ecological correlates at the city or higher levels of aggregation rather than at the neighborhood level, potentially masking important local variation. This study examines block-group-level risk factors for serious assaults on police from a criminal opportunity perspective. Data for the study included 603 aggravated assaults on police in Boston, arrestee location data, violent crimes known to the police for the years 1993 to 1999, and 1990 census data. Findings indicate strong associations between serious assaults on police and block groups characterized by high arrestee density, criminogenic conditions, and propensity for violence.

Identifying and controlling threatening airline passengers

Airlines have a duty to exercise the highest possible degree of care to protect passengers from the foreseeable acts of fellow passengers. If passengers are injured as the result of such assaults, the airlines are liable for those injuries. Airlines have both the right and the duty to deny transportation when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a passenger poses a threat or annoyance to other passengers. In-flight assaults are generally foreseeable (and may be preempted) because there usually is an escalation of conflict through these stages: frustration, agitation, belligerence, and physical violence. On-board security personnel cross-trained as flight attendants are fundamental to backing up regular flight attendants. Airlines have the right and the duty to restrain and isolate potentially violent passengers; however, flight-crew members should not rely on other passengers for assistance because passenger-volunteers may themselves have propensities for violence.

Population Dynamics and Susceptibility for Ethnic Conflict: The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

While it is recognized that the progenitors of war are multilayered and complex and that they consist of political, historical, religious, demographic, economic, and psycho-cultural forces, this article reports on research that looked at the role of one them, demographic trends. Demographic trends can influence the rise of ethnic territoriality and ultimately violent resolution. Two of the three protagonists in the war, namely the Bosnian Muslims and the Bosnian Serbs, are the focus of the study. The level of abstraction at which these rival ethnic groups were sensitive to demographic trends, and therefore the level at which that rivalry played out, was the local municipality, the opstina where competition over jobs and political power was manifest. It is at this level that basic tenets of ethnic competition theory are considered to have been at work. An index of ethnic competition is introduced to measure competition in terms of the relative balance of ethnic populations. This index is complemented by analysis of the trend of relative ethnic population numbers over the two decades prior to the war. Data from the Yugoslavian census show how the demographic position of the Bosnian Serbs declined dramatically in over 90% of the opstinas throughout the country. These population trends are translated into an index of demographic disadvantage. Positive correlations between the two indices (ethnic competition and demographic disadvantage) and discrete-event data of hostilities between Serbs and Muslims are found to be significant. In addition, there is some evidence that the geographic pattern of the propensity for violence, while clearly part of a broad strategic Bosnian Serb national campaign, is also associated with local prewar demographic dynamics.

Risk Factor

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessRisk FactorEric D. Lister, M.D.Eric D. ListerSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 Jul 2000https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.51.7.941-aAboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail This is psychiatrist Charles Atkins' second novel. His first, The Portrait, was reviewed here last year (1). As he did in The Portrait, Dr. Atkins brings us a novel of suspense set in the world of psychiatric practice, peopled with individuals familiar to all of us who work in the mental health professions.As with any novel worth reading, Risk Factor delivers itself, simultaneously, on three different levels. The most superficial stratum is a murder mystery. We have multiple acts of seemingly senseless violence. Are they connected? If so, how? And, who done it? Dig deeper, and Atkins asks us to come to grips with the nature of man's propensity for violence and the nature of evil. As a good psychiatrist, he understands full well the obstacles we all erect against truly knowing what we wish not to have to face. Finally, we are asked to make sense of one particularly dark soul whose self-absorption and sadism in some ways define what it is to be evil.For me, the novel succeeds reasonably well on the first level but disappoints in its attempts to mine deeper material. As a storyteller, Dr. Atkins has matured since The Portrait. My attention was held more steadily, and I had a keen interest in what was coming next. The obligatory romantic tension— between the book's protagonist, a female psychiatric resident, and a police lieutenant investigating crimes to which she has been exposed— is well done as a counterpoint to danger and darkness. The world of mental illness and mental health practitioners is represented in an accessible and fair way, although the idealized therapist whose assistance the protagonist seeks is, well, larger than life.At deeper levels, however, Risk Factor disappoints. Indeed, it is anything but easy to maintain suspense while challenging the reader to explore issues that are daunting, complex, and easily avoided— issues such as the nature of evil and our propensity for violence. Finally, as much as I want to applaud Dr. Atkins' effort and follow his unfolding career as a novelist, I found his evil murderer to be disappointing, as he is too superficial a character to be believable. His hidden sadism is too easily explained by formulaic trauma in early life. Where I wanted to be troubled and moved, I found myself shaking my head "no." Unfortunately, this feeling distracted me from the book's final chapters, even as a novel of suspense.Perhaps the ways in which I was disappointed by Risk Factor reflect my own hopes that Dr. Atkins would hit home runs on every level or the application of a standard for clinical believability that would be less troubling to nonpsychiatric readers. Nevertheless, I can recommend Risk Factor as an interesting and well-paced novel of suspense. However, I await Dr. Atkins' next offering to see whether we might have a more successful treatment of the deeper issues that so clearly intrigue him.Dr. Lister is managing partner of Ki Associates, an organizational consultation firm based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.by Charles Atkins, M.D.; New York City, St. Martin's Press, 1999, 244 pages, $23.95

America Is Too Violent: What Can We Do About It?

America Is Too Violent: What Can We Do About It?

New developments concerning negligent hiring

Workplace violence has become a national issue in recent years. Statistics have shown an alarming trend of workers injuring or killing other workers. Amid this chaos, a new legal concept is emerging called “negligent hiring”. This law requires employers to thoroughly investigate the background of job applicants to determine if candidates have propensity for violence. Employers are negligent if they fail to follow this requirement. Nevertheless, as a law, negligent hiring is flawed. In substance, it is vague and broad, and in application, it lacks the flexibility to adopt into dynamic of the employment market. Compounding this deficiency are the judges’ lack of concern for the unintended impact of their rulings. These two problems could mean that the law of negligent hiring itself could become a public issue if not addressed by the courts in the near future.

Neuropsychological Correlates of Domestic Violence

Neuropsychological functioning was assessed in 39 males who had committed domestic violence (batterers) and compared to 63 nonviolent (both maritally discordant and satisfied) subjects recruited by advertisement. Subjects were subsequently divided into two groups (head injured, nonhead injured) and these groups were also contrasted as a function of batterer status. Tests were administered to assess for cognitive and behavioral functions, including executive dysfunction, hypothesized to be a factor contributing to propensity for violence. Questionnaires and structured clinical interviews were used to assess marital discord, emotional distress, and violent behaviors. Batterers differed from nonbatterers across several cognitive domains: executive, learning, memory, and verbal functioning. Batterers were reliably discriminated from nonbatterers based on three neuropsychological tasks: Digit Symbol, Recognition Memory Test-Words, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Neuropsychological performance was the strongest correlate of domestic violence of all clinical variables measured. However, the inclusion of two other variables, severity of emotional distress and history of head injury, together with the neuropsychological indices provided the strongest correlation with batterers status. Among batterers, neuropsychological performance did not vary as a function of head injury status, indicating that while prior head injury was correlated with batterer status, it was not the sole basis for their impairments. The findings suggest that current cognitive status, prior brain injury, childhood academic problems, as well as psychosocial influences, contribute along with coexisting emotional distress to a propensity for domestic violence.

Effects of a prison‐based program for reducing violence

This study evaluates a prison‐based intervention for reducing violence, known as the Altematives to Violence (ATV) program. The study also explores the ATV participants' defining personality characteristics for their therapeutic implications. Self‐report personality and anger measures collected from volunteer ATV participants were compared with those from a control group at program commencement and again at its end. Results indicated that at program commencement the ATV group displayed a strong propensity for violence as reflected in high levels of anger, expressed antagonism, cynicism, and impulsivity. At program's end, the ATV group displayed improved interpersonal qualities, becoming more open and accepting of others. They also improved their anger proneness, resentful brooding, and anger control. The data support the program's efficacy and document the challenges posed by ATV participants' tendency to antisocial personality characteristics.

Prediction of violence both art and science

TATTOOS, which appear to be enjoying unprecedented popularity especially among young people in the United States, are aptly described as "bumper stickers of the soul" and should alert a physician to assess a patient's propensity for violence, said Phillip Resnik, MD, director of a course on the prediction of violence at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, held in New York, NY. Tattooed persons show a higher likelihood of drug use, criminality, and impulsivity, said Resnick, who practices psychiatry in Cleveland, Ohio. The most common tattoo—found on 1 in 4 tattoo-wearers, according to Resnick—says "Mom" or "Mother." Sentiment notwithstanding, mothers are also the most likely victims of violence, particularly repeated violence, by psychiatric patients with or without tattoos. Mentally disabled men often live with their mothers, with their fathers absent, Resnick noted, and mothers and significant others are most likely to become targets of aggression when setting limits.

Prediction of Violence Both Art and Science

TATTOOS, which appear to be enjoying unprecedented popularity especially among young people in the United States, are aptly described as bumper stickers of the soul and should alert a physician to assess a patient's propensity for violence, said Phillip Resnik, MD, director of a course on the prediction of violence at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, held in New York, NY. Tattooed persons show a higher likelihood of drug use, criminality, and impulsivity, said Resnick, who practices psychiatry in Cleveland, Ohio. The most common tattoo—found on 1 in 4 tattoo-wearers, according to Resnick—says Mom or Mother. Sentiment notwithstanding, mothers are also the most likely victims of violence, particularly repeated violence, by psychiatric patients with or without tattoos. Mentally disabled men often live with their mothers, with their fathers absent, Resnick noted, and mothers and significant others are most likely to become targets of aggression when setting limits.

Economic Recovery and Reconstruction in Postwar Beirut

For many westerners the dominant image of Beirut, its buildings reduced to bombed-out shells riddled with bullet holes, freezes the city in time. Although the memory of Lebanon's civil-war landscape looms large in the collective consciousness, the nation has moved forward and seeks a revived economic role in the Middle East. And Beirut is being rebuilt. The society and government confront the dual tasks of reconstructing the physical infrastructure of the city while attempting to create interreligious societal harmony to ensure peace. In light of the major demographic and political shifts that initiated and sustained intersocietal hostilities, it is imperative to place reconstruction plans for Beirut within Lebanon's social and political context. Although armed conflict has ended, many of the issues that aggravated relationships among the country's various confessional groups remain unresolved.(1) The physical and economic reconstruction of Beirut thus holds enormous implications for the future of Lebanon. The greatest challenge is to use the reconstruction process to weld the divergent sectors of the multireligious society and to create, along with economic prosperity, a stronger sense of national unity. Yet reconstruction also has the potential to aggravate old tensions between groups and to renew internal strife. Although the case of Beirut has unique aspects, the problem of joining divergent sectors of society while repairing the built environment is not limited to Lebanon. The apportionment of representative space for ethnic or religious groups will surely be raised during the reconstruction of Sarajevo and throughout the republics of the former Yugoslavia as well. Issues of economic and cultural integration face East European cities as they try to attract investment and create a regional economic presence. A unified Berlin, specifically, faces the challenge of integrating Ossies and Wessies economically and culturally. Admittedly, though, the stakes may be higher in Lebanon, where reconstruction is assumed to be the foundation for future stability and where the propensity for violence is certainly great. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT Though not as monumental an Arab city as Cairo or Damascus, Beirut has held an important and occasionally central role in the Levant for 2,000 years. Much of its historical prominence derived from a favorable maritime location that allowed creation of a trade-based economy. Its important role as a broker for trade between Europe and the Middle East expanded in the fifteenth century with the return of Europeans (they had twice seized the city during the Crusades but were lastingly repelled in 1291) (Boulanger 1965). Beirut's central role in the economy of Greater Lebanon was solidified during the last stage of Ottoman rule (1840-1920).(2) In a period marked by rapid growth, the city's population increased from 6,000 in 1820 to 120,000 by the close of the nineteenth century (Reed and Ajami 1988, 16). Newly created infrastructure, including a major addition to the port of Beirut, facilitated economic growth and drew additional immigrants. The city expanded beyond its old walls as immigrants and refugees arrived, fleeing a civil war between the country's Maronite Christians and Druze sectarians. Members of each religion tended to live among their own, creating Beiruti suburbs that were distinctly homogeneous (Reed and Ajami 1988). Following the defeat of Ottoman troops in 1918 by British and Arab troops, control of Lebanon and Syria was given to France under the newly established League of Nations mandate system. During French control, which lasted from 1920 to 1943, economic and cultural links were forged between Lebanon and Europe that would persist long after French rule ended. Economic and educational opportunities further facilitated the growth of Beirut, the center of French administration, and its population. In the twentieth century Beirut absorbed waves of immigrants, ranging from Armenians to Kurds, who increased both the size and the diversity of its population (Khalaf and Khoury 1993). …

Spousal violence among Anglos, Blacks, and Mexican Americans: The role of demographic variables, psychosocial predictors, and alcohol consumption

Racial/ethnic differences in the prevalence and correlates of self-reported spousal violence in a community sample of Anglo, Black, and Mexican American adults are examined. Females, the formerly married, and Black females in particular (up to 60% of formerly married) were most likely to report both being beaten by and beating a spouse. Multivariate analyses controlling for demographic variables, financial stress, social desirability, sex role traditionalism and drinking quantity (and spouse's drinking among the currently married) did not eliminate the greater likelihood of reports of both beating and being beaten among married Black females. There was little consistent evidence to suggest greater violence propensity among Mexican American than Anglo respondents. The findings raise questions about simplistic socioeconomic status or financial stress explanations of observed racial/ethnic differences in spousal violence. Further, curvilinear effects of alcohol quantity and spouse drinking upon reported violence question simple “disinhibition” arguments and suggest the need for data regarding couple dynamics.

Aggression and erotic attraction toward children in incestuous and pedophilic men

Twenty-one incest offenders and 22 heterosexual pedophiles were compared to 22 violent offenders, and 17 normal controls recruited from the community. The groups were compared with respect to: 1) the pattern of coercion and sexual behavior used in their offences; 2) erotic attraction to children, pubescent and adult females, based on measures of penile tumescence; and, 3) their propensity for violence. About a third of incest and pedophilic offenders assessed actually penetrated their victims, engaging in both physical (e.g. slapping, hitting) and emotional (e.g. yelling, threatening) coercion in order to obtain compliance from uncooperative children. As predicted, some sexual perpetrators do appear to engage in "gratuitous" violence. The data suggest that 15 (68%) of the heterosexual pedophiles preferred fondling and mutual masturbation with children, while 7 others (32%) were more aroused by scenes depicting forced penetration (both digital and genital), contrary to their initial self-reports. Incest offenders reacted most to sexual interactions with adults but they also showed comparable reactions to consenting sex with children. Both incest perpetrators and pedophiles were less violent generally than the nonsexually violent offenders but more violent than community controls. The results support recent research findings that violence may be a more common and integral part of the sexual behavior of some pedophiles or incest offenders, than previously believed. The data also lend credence to the growing body of evidence which suggests that "violence" in pedophilic offences has been underestimated and needs serious reexamination.

Personality and Criminality in Violent Offenders

Four groups of serving prisoners, 29 murderers, 30 assaulters, 51 armed robbers, and 25 nonviolent controls, were compared on measures of personality, demographic variables, and past history of violence. The measures were selected to examine the range of personality dimensions and factors considered important in violent offenders, to compare their relative value in predicting violent offenses, and to determine if nonhomicidal assaulters and armed robbers share features in common with murderers. Between-group differences occurred mainly on the hostility and violence measures. Results showed that murderers, on the whole, more often distorted their clinical profiles by minimizing their aggressiveness or propensity for violence. The history of violence variables were “better” predictors of group membership than personality indices. Overall, defensiveness emerged as a major characteristic of the murderer. In contrast, the armed robbers and assaulters tended to distort primarily their self-confidence and level of self-consciousness. The findings call into question the usefulness of personality measures in assessing and understanding the violent individual.

Who riots? An empirical examination of the ?new urban black? versus the social marginality hypotheses

Much of the research on the socioeconomic characteristics of rioters has centered around the question of whether rioters were the dispossessed fringes of the black community who rioted “for fun and profit” or the more upwardly mobile segments of the black community who used civil violence as a means of political influence. This study presents evidence that willingness to participate in civil violence is fairly evenly distributed across income, educational, and occupational strata, thereby disconfirming the social marginality hypothesis. However, militancy involves nonviolent protest as well as civil violence. In order to explore the complexities of this concept, the authors use discriminant function analysis to demonstrate that, while violence propensity is related to age but not socioeconomic status, the willingness to participate in nonviolent protests is associated with higher socioeconomic status. A tentative explanation of this pattern of relationships is offered, with the more politically motivated militancy of higher status groups being linked to their desire to eliminate various forms of racial discrimination.

Negative response bias and the MMPI Overcontrolled-Hostility scale: A response to Deiker.

Tested the hypothesis of T. E. Deiker (see record 1974-27935-001) that naysaying accounts for the MMPI Overcontrolled-Hostility (O-H) scale's ability to discriminate among criminal groups differing in their propensity for violence. 4 balanced O-H scales were constructed by adding true or deleting false keyed items according to different selection strategies. The 2 extended scales discriminated cross-validation groups as well or better than the regular imbalanced O-H scale, and the shortened scales were significant or approached significance in 3 of 4 comparisons. It is concluded that the validity of the O-H scale is not dependent on naysaying. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)