Violent Crime

1
Violent Crime

• Mike Keating 2007

2
Definition - What do we mean by violent crime ?

• Popular notions of violent crime
• violence in public places and violence against
  the police... they seldom refer to violence in
  the home, to vehicular assaults..., to accidents
  at work, or to violence by the police
• (Levi, p295-296)
• The hegemonic image (is) that real violence
  and crime is something that occurs on the street,
  in public, and is committed by strangers
• (Stanko,1994,p34)
• Need to distinguish between intentional violence
  and unintentional and between instrumental
  violence and expressive violence.

3
Legal Definitions

• The Home Office distinguishes between
• More serious offences e.g. Murder,
  Manslaughter, Causing death by dangerous driving,
  wounding etc.
• and
• Less serious offences e.g. Possession of
  weapons, Harassment, Assault on a constable,
  Cruelty or neglect of children
• But it does not include
• (i) sexual assault (classified under sexual
  offences)
• or
• (ii) non-indictable offences e.g. common
  assault or assault on a police officer. These
  are summary offences and dealt with by
  Magistrates Court.

4
The benefits of a legal definition.

• We get a category which can be used to collect
  data.
• This produces Official Statistics on crime trends
  official snapshot
• Comparative data can tell us how things may
  change
• By Type
• Over time
• By Victim etc

5
Official Snapshot on crime

• (Notifiable Offences recorded by the police in
  2000)
• Since the 1950s violent crime has been on the
  increase even when general crime has dropped.

6
The most common recorded violent crimes in
England Wales

• (a) Street brawl
• (b) Domestic violence
• (c) Pub brawl
• (d) Attack on public servant
• Davidoff Greenhorn (1991)
• N.B. Murder is very rare in UK but assault is
  common.

7
Patterns of victimisation

• By group (age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality etc).
• By weapon (Gun crime and Knife crime on the
  increase).
• By country Scotland (3) has the highest level
  of assault in the developed world. England and
  Wales (2.8). USA (1.2). Italy (0.2) Japan
  (0.1).
• (UN Report see The Times 19/9/05)
• By region or city Glasgow, Liverpool,
  Manchester, London, Nottingham etc

8
The limitations of official snapshots

• Official definitions are conventionally
  delimited and ignore MOST crime (Levi).
• Emphasises the extreme and overlooks the
  normality of everyday violence (Baumeister).
• Reveals only reported and recorded levels of
  violence.
• Interpretation (by victims and CJS crucial).
• Dark figure of hidden violence is problematic.
• Violent crime can be a catchall which does
  not differentiate between the levels of
  seriousness.
• These snapshots tell us nothing about the
  physical and psychological effects of
  victimisation.

9
Crime Surveys

• The British crime surveys (since 1982) suggest
  that increased rates of violent crime may reflect
  real increases of violence in society e.g. BCS
  1989 - violent crime of wounding, robbery or
  sexual offences 6 of all crime
• (almost identical to Official proportional
  estimates ).
• A lot more crime but much of it petty.
• Increases have been less steep than official
• Stranger danger on the increase.
• 'Risk' is on average low especially for women and
  elderly.
• Public fear of crime is high exaggerates risk
  of violent crime (see moral panics)

10
Public fear of violent crime

• 1 in 10 men in the Scottish Crime Survey (1992)
  gave crime as a reason for not going out on foot
  compared to 1 in 3 women.
• In the BBC Radio 4 series The Violence Files
  (White Knuckles) 75 of the sample surveyed
  thought they were more at risk today than they
  were in the past.
• Random violence appears to be directed at young
  men
• But, women are more likely to fear violent
  attack.
• But is all this a response to a moral panic
  over violent crime (If it Bleeds it Leads)?
• Media coverage may create climates of unsafety
  (Stanko)
• See also Dutton who challenges the validity of
  some of these survey results.

11
But some groups are right to be concerned because
they are more at risk

• Racial attacks
• See Hate Crime also Skellington (1992) Race in
  Britain Today - chp. 3 and Modood (1997) chpt8 -
  Asians, Afro-Caribbean
• Social Class
• The poor at risk (Is part of life a culture
  of violence and defence of territory)

12
Age

• Very young at risk - child abuse
• Teenagers - assault and rape.
• In general young people are more at risk of
  becoming victims of any form of violence except
  spouse abuse and this is related to the general
  patters of life they lead, including the kinds of
  group drinking and quarrels in public places they
  get into
• (Levi p309)
• Below 40s - at risk
• Over 40 - very rare

13
Gender

• From an early age girls are more at risk than
  boys from sexual assault and abuse. But for
  random violence and murder males are the victims
  as well as the perpetrators,
• Murder - England Wales (1990)MF381228Whether by
  acquaintance or stranger234181By aquaintance
• Virtually all violence is committed by men.
  Male violence may even outrank disease and
  famine as the major source of human suffering
• (Archer Male Violence p1).
• Women have been recorded as committing
  significant numbers of assaults 8 - 14 and
  some murders, but this is still rare.

14
Occupation Risk

• The staff most at risk were those dealing with
  members of the public in descending order of
  risk they are
• Police Officers
• Social / Welfare workers
• Probation Officers
• Publicans and Bar Staff
• Security Guards.
• (in OConner, N Violence at Work in The Safety
  Health Practicioner April 2000 )
• NHS - 95,500 incidents of violence and aggression
  were recorded in 2001-2002.
• Nurses were most likely to be the victims, and
  mental health workers were least likely to report
  incidents.
• Teaching Nigel Nagruci (NAUWT) on teachers as
  victims - more violence over past 20 years,
  especially past 5.
• New trends girls as well as boys, offenders are
  getting younger, increased use of weapons,
  exacerbated by closure of special schools

15
Is Violent Crime really getting worse? (Levi pp
318-321)

• Murder rate is actually half what it was in the
  17th century.
• General public violence - decline in U.S.
  Britain in the 19th century but post 1950s
  clear increase.
• Measured by both O.S. and C.S. there seems
  little doubt that there was a substantial
  increase in violent crime during the 1980s in
  England.
• Assaults on the police
• 1850s - 1914 - fell by 64
• Today even lower (approx 12 of force are
  assaulted every year).
• Murders of police have remained same since 1964 -
  46 officers in 26 years.
• Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 attempts to
  tackle violent crime involving alcohol, guns and
  knife crime.