Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to Criminal Violence

• NCJ Number: 74490
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 71 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1980) Pages: 646-656
• Author(s): H Toch
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper delivered at the 1980 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, San Francisco (CA)

Annotation

Three violence - related problem areas in which interdisciplinary fusion seems possible are examined: the intersection of psychodynamics and social norms; the prediction of violence - chronicity; and the design of violence - promotive (countertherapeutic) and violence reducing (therapeutic) settings.

Abstract

The premise of this paper is that the murderers used to locate a violent subculture are atypical of it because they exceed its norms. Although the interface between personality and culture in the genesis of violence has been short-changed by the culturists, they legitimately criticize the formula of 'violent impulsivity,' and the diagnosis of pathology among violent offenders as clinical assumptions that are gratuitously polarizing. Aggressive impulsivity no more explains violence than does the labelling of sex offenders as oversexed or overeaters as hunger driven. Violence dynamics implies origins, functions, and context; clinicians should focus on pathology-relevant data (personality themes) as well as on violence-relevant data through analysis of violent incidents of offender-victim encounters. Violence-related personality variables alone are inappropriate predictors; instead clinical synthesis, which involves taking a prediction produced mechanically and treating it as a datum to be combined clinically with other data, should be used. The impact of setting on the violent offender is critical if it promotes a cycle of neglect, rejection, transfer, and failure, but a violence-reducing climate must be more than a nonalienating environment or a sharp departure from the violence-promoting setting. Self-regulatory mechanisms which allow or maintain violence can be attacked by environments that raise questions about the offender's standards and values and their relationship to behavior. Unfortunately, the only way to affect setting is often negatively through imprisonment or banishment. Therefore, the only reliable strategy involves changing the offender's reaction to the inevitable temptations, pressures, and challenges of life. Over 35 footnotes are provided.