Violence in America

Annmarie Griffin

This week I was pretty surprised to find that America was a leader of industrialized nations that had the most violent crimes.  I think that it pretty much has to do with the fact that we actually report these types of crimes to a national agency to record.  I also believe that because America has such a diverse population with different backgrounds that it can create a cultural divide among it citizens.

If I think back to the days of the Wild West I would concur with the text in the book that states that people have been solving personal problems through violence for centuries.  I also found that it said that homicide rates usually increase after a period of wartime.  I think that it may be because countries at war may face a downturn in the economy causing economic strain for its citizens.  I think that people under this kind of stress will not think before they react to negative attention given to them.  I think this goes along with the statistics that say that crime is more prevalent among the lower class.

I think that power and economics play a huge part in why someone would commit violent offenses.  The book touched on many different aspects of interpersonal violence such as rape, child abuse, elder abuse and murder.  It described almost the same reasons for why violence occurs within each group.  It seemed to all come back to a person wanting control of situations or others and financial stresses in the family or group dynamic.


The one thing that I found interesting was that smoking is a form of child abuse.  I do agree that people should not be smoking in confined spaces where children. I am unsure if I would relate this to a form of child abuse.  I think that America needs to re-evaluate it self defense laws.  I have seen TV programs that document women in prison who killed their spouses due to both physical and emotional abuse.  I feel that these women may have felt that if they did not defend themselves that they would end up dead.  I think that these women should not face criminal sanctions when they can prove that their spouse had repeatedly put their life in danger.  The book said that more attention is now being given to domestic abuse and I think that it has to do with the growing number of murder suicides in this nation.  I also feel that many of these situation also happen due to financial stresses or the desire to have total control over another.