Chapter Summary

Violence can occur between two or more individuals as interpersonal violence, or it can involve identifiable groups in society and erupt as intergroup violence. Clashes between racial, religious, or political groups are examples of the latter. Much interpersonal violence involves acquaintances, while intergroup violence is more apt to involve people who are strangers prior to confrontation. Studies reveal a considerable amount of violence throughout American history, fluctuating from one period to another, with the reasons changing. Today virtually all Americans, if not directly exposed to violence, are indirectly exposed to it through the mass media. In the 1990s, attention has focused on violence at the workplace. Children experience a great deal of violence, and much of this occurs in the school setting. The violence that occurs in intimate relationships dramatizes the extent to which we are a violent society; over thirteen percent of all violent victimizations occurs between intimates. There is also a great deal of intergroup violence. The tragic bombing incident in Oklahoma City punctuates a new form of this type of violence, but this was not the first encounter between the federal government and militia groups.

The meaning of violence must be totaled in terms of human destruction, injury, psychological disruption or trauma, dehumanization, economic cost, and seductive self-destruction-a term referring to self-defeat resulting from the use of violence in order to obtain victory. Posttraumatic stress disorder is another possible outcome for people in abusive situations.

Although some people have thought that violence is linked with a human need to be aggressive, recent observers have argued for other factors, including frustration, a subculture of violence, cultural values and patterns, political processes, social inequality, and social psychological reasons such as legitimating attitudes or rationalizations. The politics of gun control must also be considered. A frequent explanation for violence involves the notion of relative deprivation, the sense of deprivation in relation to some standard. This theory holds that people are not unhappy or do not revolt simply because they are poor; rather, they become anguished and rebellious when their expectations exceed their objective conditions. Although people may be better off in terms of their past, they are worse off in terms of their expectations or aspirations. The notion of a subculture of violence must also be taken into account. Two values that support official violence or violence used for social control are retributiveness and self-defense. The mass media expose us to an enormous amount of violence.

The authors express their own position by advocating (a) a change in the norms surrounding our society's attitudes toward violence; (b) gun control measures; (c) reduced presentation of violence in the mass media; and (d) reduction of social inequality in our society.

Our legal code distinguishes between two kinds of rape, forcible and statutory, the latter referring to consensual sexual intercourse between a male over the age of consent with a female below legal consent age. The concern in this chapter is with forcible rape, which is one of the seven major felonies in the FBI Crime Index. It is defined as actual or attempted sexual intercourse through the use of force or the threat of force. It is a form of interpersonal violence rather than an expression of sexual passion. According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, there were 105,000 cases of forcible rape in 1993. Victimization studies now estimate that about 500,000 women are raped each year. A victim is likely to be young and in the lower-socioeconomic stratum.

At least 85 percent of rape victims wind up physically abused; perhaps all are hurt emotionally. The authors discuss these victims in terms of physical and emotional consequences. Rape is a highly traumatic experience and the fear of rape probably causes uneasiness in most women at some time. The victims of rape experience severe emotional trauma. The rape victim may also suffer physical harm; the force and brutality so commonly involved in rapes leads us to conclude that we are dealing with an act of violence rather than of sexual passion.

Of particular concern to the authors are the factors that tend to encourage offenders and oppress victims. Certain traditional norms about sex roles are factors in some rape cases; in general, the more that men are integrated into a culture where the norms support male dominance and superiority, the more likely they are to find rape acceptable. Negative family experiences can foster the development of a rapist. Many people accept certain myths about rape. The mass media play an important role in perpetuating these myths. Macho values also seem to be a factor in the tolerance of, and proneness to, rape.

The authors suggest four lines of attack in dealing with this social problem: (a) programs of prevention need to be established; (b) sex-role norms, legal processes, and certain attitudes must be modified; (c) rapists need treatment, not simply punishment; (d) we must provide genuine help for the victims and the potential victims of rape through such means as rape crisis centers and police rape teams. Ending the chapter on an optimistic note, the authors believe that more people are realizing that rape victims should be helped and not oppressed further by humiliating encounters with either the public or the authorities.