NCJ Number
192061
Date Published
2001
Length
225 pages
Annotation
This comparative analysis examines violence in Japan and the United States and explores factors that might account for the different responses to conflict in the two countries.
Abstract
The study combined the orientations of psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and sociology to understand how the two societies cope with violence in different ways. The study focused on how cultural differences account for differences of violence, the role of fear of victimization, the effects of the availability of weapons and of attitudes about weapons, and differences in the attitudes about and justifications for the police use of violence. Information came from questionnaire surveys of 5,600 individuals in Japan and the United States. Responses came from 563 people in the United States and 908 people in Japan. Results revealed vastly different perceptions of victimization and interpretations of dangerousness in the two countries. Many people in the United States feared for their lives and thus felt justified in responding with a lethal weapon sooner. The Japanese did not feel so threatened and thus responded with less-lethal means like running away, using verbal aggression and physical aggression rather than lethal force. People in the United States believed the use of weapons early in the escalation process to be appropriate, whereas Japanese waited until the very last moment before saying that they would use a weapon. People in the United States were more willing than the Japanese to have their police use guns sooner and in the context of lower levels of threat. The analysis concluded that the threshold of violence, the context in which the threat occurred, the definition of the threat, and the range of options citizens gave themselves to respond differed between the two countries. Tables, figures, appended instrument and discussion of comparative criminology, glossary, and approximately 300 references