The Social Reality of Violence and Violent Crime

by Brownstein, Henry H.

• ISBN13: 9780205288076
• ISBN10: 0205288073
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-07-27
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

This book is written in the form of stories that individually and collectively describe violence and violent crime in America in the twentieth century. Because violence means different things to different people, this book attempts to show the many ways in which we as a society think about violence and how these perceptions have developed in our society during the twentieth century. Weaving a personal narrative style together with official statistics, media reports, research findings, and first-hand accounts, the author illustrates the American experience and the social construction of various forms of violence. Since the language of social constructionism is often difficult to understand, this book utilizes simple explanations of how violence and violent crime are socially constructed. This book succeeds in making an abstract but important theory accessible by grounding these explanations in specific historical and biographical experiences of American society. For anyone interested in understanding violence.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
The Social Meaning of Violence and Violent Crime	1	(16)
The Social Construction of Reality	3	(2)
The Meaning of Violence	5	(2)
The Measurement of Violence and Violent Crime	7	(3)
Why We Tell the Stories We Tell about Violence	10	(7)
The Legend of the Drug-Crazed Killer	17	(24)
Defining Drug Users as Violent Offenders	18	(4)
Anslinger and the Dangers of Marijuana Use	22	(4)
Crack-Crazed Killers	26	(4)
The Relationship between Drug Use and Violence	30	(4)
Conclusion	34	(7)
The Yarn of the Malevolent Drug Dealer	41	(17)
The Relationship between Drug Markets and Violence	42	(3)
Systemic Drug-Related Violence	45	(3)
Battling over Market Share	48	(1)
Managing Product Quality	49	(2)
Declaring War on Drug Dealers	51	(3)
Conclusion	54	(4)
The Allegory of the Innocent Bystander	58	(17)
Who Is an Innocent Bystander?	61	(2)
When a Stranger Is Not a Stranger	63	(5)
Innocent Victims and Public Policy	68	(3)
Conclusion	71	(4)
The Family in the United States: A Romantic Tragedy	75	(20)
The ``Normal'' U.S. Family	78	(4)
When Families Don't Work	82	(2)
The Birth of Family Violence	84	(2)
Violence against Women and Children	86	(2)
Responding to Family Violence	88	(2)
Conclusion	90	(5)
The Myth of the Liberated Woman	95	(16)
The Liberation of Women	96	(2)
Women and Violent Offending	98	(3)
Women and Violent Victimization	101	(3)
Women and the Criminal Justice System	104	(3)
Conclusion	107	(4)
The Age of the Superpredators: A Fable	111	(22)
Changing Patterns of Youthful Violence	113	(3)
Theories of Youthful Violence	116	(2)
The Notion of the Superpredator	118	(2)
Defining and Identifying the Problem	120	(3)
Youth, Violent Crime, and Public Policy	123	(5)
Conclusion	128	(5)
The Parable of Poor and Minority Violent Offenders	133	(19)
Race, Class, and Violence	134	(5)
Minorities as Violent Offenders	139	(1)
The Favors of the Criminal Justice System	140	(5)
The Poor and Minorities as Victims of Violence	145	(2)
Conclusion	147	(5)
The Tale of the Worker Gone Mad	152	(15)
The Relationship among Work, Daily Life, and Violence	154	(3)
Defining Workplace Violence	157	(3)
Corporate Violence	160	(3)
Conclusion	163	(4)
The Social Reality of Violence and Violent Crime	167	(10)
The Measure of Violence and Violent Crime	168	(3)
The Social Reality of Violence and Violent Crime in the United States	171	(2)
Implications for Public Policy	173	(4)
References	177	(20)
Index	197