III. The Real Causes of Violence and Crime

This report cannot begin to survey the causes of man's inhumanity to man, which has been the subject of scientific, philosophical and artistic inquiry for centuries. Nor can it offer the last word on why America has the highest rate of violent crime in the industrialized world." It can, however, attempt to put the alleged role of the media into perspective, The roots of individual aggression and high rates of violent crime are deep and complex, historical, cultural, economic and personal.

Multiple factors: the "ecology of violence." "The truth is no one factor by itself predicts aggressiveness very well," wrote Eron and Huesmann. Although these two are the most cited proponents of the theory that television can cause aggression, they never suggest fictional images are solely or independently culpable.

"To understand the development of aggression, one must examine simultaneously a multiplicity of interrelated social, cultural, familial and cognitive factors, each of which adds only a small increment to the totality of causation. It is unrealistic to expect that any one of these factors by itself can explain much about aggression. But in conjunction with each other they may explain a lot about aggression."

Bernard Friedlander, now retired from the University of Hartford, applied an apt name to these interactions: the "ecology of violence."'

Family dysfunction

The research linking family troubles with child aggression" and adult crime is voluminous. In a summary of the literature, Julie Withecomb, a forensic child and adolescent psychiatrist from the U.K., named poor family functioning and socionomic status as "two of the most important factors in the genesis of aggressive behavior in the majority of individuals." Depressed and neglectful parents, frequent and exaggerated discipline, parental strife and battering, and physical or sexual abuse instill suspicion, self-loathing and anger in a child. These can produce a hair-trigger temper and a tendency to turn to violence." Young murderers frequently report they have been abused." Fan-&y structure in itself, such as single motherhood, does not predict children's aggression, however."

Poverty

"Poverty itself does not explain much of the variance in violent behavior," argued Eron, Nancy Guerra and Huesmann in 1997. "However, each of the accompaniments of poverty probably contributes its own effect-homelessness, overcrowding, lack of opportunity, economic deprivation. And these then interact with the biological and psychological factors, e.g., low birth weight, neurological trauma, learning disorders, bad socialization practices of parents, etc.""

The results speak for themselves. In 1991, a third of jail inmates were unemployed prior to being locked up, and a third had annual incomes under $5,000.1 Historically, high unemployment and high crime go hand in hand. "Murder peaked in the Depression in 1933 at 9.7 homicides per 100,000," Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn pointed out. Meanwhile, recent substantial drops in adult crime have coincided with the longest economic expansion in American history.

Poor education

According to the Sentencing Project, 65% of state prison inmates in 1991 hadn't completed high school. Among prison inmates 25 and older, a full 40% couldn't read or write. Poor education contributes to poor parenting, which can lead to childhood aggressiveness and later criminal behavior.

Failure to communicate

The cultivation of what psychologist Daniel Goleman calls "emotional intelligence" is not just a yuppie parenting trend. It can be an antidote to violence. In a New York Times/CBS poll of 1,083 teenagers in October 1999, the most frequently cited cause of school violence was "pride/being made fun of." The second cause was "people don't get along/argue." That jibes with research about violent delinquents. Such kids, especially if they have been themselves abused, may be constantly on guard for slights and challenges. They may even be certifiably paranoid. Abused children also tend to use fewer words to express their feelings. "This impaired emotional expression may result in children acting out their distress as violence."

Gender

Although America has seen a slight increase in violent crimes by women, you could say that violence isn't an American problem, it is an American male problem. Ninety percent of murderers are men, as are 99% of rapists." Almost every study linking media consumption with increased aggression sees such effects in boys far more than in girls, if effects are observed in girls at all."

Age

"Crime rates increased in the 1960s as baby boomers hit their crime-prone teenage years, but it has been essentially stable since then," according to the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives. The most reliable correlate to violence is the number of men, ages 18 to 34, in a given area.

Biology

Limited intelligence or learning disabilities, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses sometimes contribute to violent behavior. Early, more deterministic theories of the genetic causes of criminality have been supplanted by recent neuroscience that explores the complex interaction between body and environment throughout a lifetime." For instance, a recent study found that early brain injuries may inhibit a person's ability to make moral decisions later on, even if he or she is raised in a stable home and educated well .

Guns

Guns may explain homicide trends over time. Historians believe that during the 19th century, at least some cities had more crime than they do today." But there were fewer murders then, simply because assailants used knives or clubs, which usually didn't kill the victim. Criminologist Zimring argued that the mini-wave of youth homicides in the 1980s was not the work of a burgeoning generation of remorseless "superpredators," but an artifact of the number of semiautomatic handguns on the street and their employment in crimes related to a brief but viciously destructive period of high crack cocaine use."

Gun ownership may also account for America's extraordinary lethal-crime rate. An illuminating study published in The New England Journal of Medicine compared crime rates of Seattle, Washington and neighboring Vancouver, British Columbia from 1980 to 1986. The cities are fraternal twins-residents' incomes, education and ethnic backgrounds are almost identical; they watch the same TV channels. Overall crime rates were almost the same in the studied period; existing gun laws were strictly enforced in both cities. But the rate of assaults involving firearms was seven times higher in Seattle, and the risk of being murdered by a handgun 4.8 times higher. Why? Because Vancouver's gun restrictions were far more stringent and firearm ownership was lower, the researchers concluded."'

Jens Ludwig, a political science professor at Georgetown University, described the relationship between guns and crime this way: "The availability of guns doesn't affect the rate of crime, but it affects the rates of crimes committed with guns, and therefore the rates of lethal crime. If you punch me in the face, I get a bloody nose. If you shoot me in the face, I die."