According to the “violence” theory, most of the perpetrators have been abused before, and were initially victims of violence. However, Athens did not intend to justify the violent crimes committed by these people later.
“A person’s life is dancing on thin ice. It is extremely cold under the ice layer. Once you stumble and fall, your life will die. Sometimes this ice layer cannot withstand some people, they Then it fell, and this is the moment I want to analyze.”
This article is from WeChat official account:Economic Observer Network (ID: eeojjgcw), author: Gao Guang Tong, from the title figure: vision China
Why does a person commit extremely cruel and violent crimes to others? Pulitzer Prize winner and author Richard Rhodes(hereinafter referred to as the “author”) in his “Why They Kill: Why Do People Become violent, what can we do about it” (written in 1998, hereinafter referred to as “the book”) details crimes The theory of “violence” put forward by the scientist Dr. Lonnie Athens. This theory challenged the mainstream interpretation of violent crime at the time (1970s). Many theories about violent behavior attribute the violent behavior of the offender to genetic inheritance, unconsciousness, or the offender’s socioeconomic status, etc. However, in Ascens’ view, violent criminals are not born homicides, they commit violence The crime is not out of passion, but is “violent”.
How does the blood cool down: four stages of “violence”
“Violence” is a term proposed by Assens, which is a combination of violence and socialization. People are the product of social environment and their own experience, and violent criminals are no exception. The difference is that their growth environment is full of violence. Violent criminals have gone through the four stages of “violence”-tyranny, state of war, violence, and hatred.
“Tructification” refers to a person experiencing violence, or witnessing the violent conquest of a family member or caring person, in the process, they learn that when encountering violence, they need to use force to respond.
After experiencing painful tyranny, the victim enters a “state of war”. The victim learns to use violence to control and subdue others. When the victim encounters severe violent provocations and thinks he has only When they resort to violence to avoid further violence, they will be determined to use violence. At this time, the only reason why the perpetrators are violent is that they believe that only through violence can they avoid the violent blows they receive in the tyrannical stage.
The third stage is the “expression of violence”. At this stage, the victim is still uncertain whether he can harm another person. If he wins with violence, he may no longer resort to violence and rely only on the reputation he has gained through violence; or he is happy with the respect or fear he has gained through violence to control others, he may decide on this, whether it is facing the most Slight provocation or no provocation at all, you must attack others with force. If he loses when he fights back with violence, he is more likely to stop the violence and use other means to protect himself, such as leaving home or staying away from the violent community.
In the last stage, Assens called it “hate.” So far, the perpetrators have completely formed the determination to use violence as a tool to treat others. “Even if they receive the smallest or the slightest provocation, they They must solemnly attempt to seriously injure or kill the provocateur.” In the end, their self-perception and understanding of their interactions with others have become violent, and they have also changed from tyrannical victims to provocations. And perpetrators.
Assens believes that the above four stages must be fully experienced before violent criminals can be produced, and only through the previous stage can they enter the latter stage. If the victim stays in any of the first three stages, he will not go to the path of violent crime.
The key to interfering with the “violent” process
According to the “violence” theory, most of the perpetrators have been abused before, and were initially victims of violence. However, Athens did not intend to justify the violent crimes committed by these people later. Atsens’ concerns are more like what the German criminal defense lawyer Ferdinand von Schlach said in the preface of his novel “Crime” based on the real cases he has dealt with. Dancing up, it’s extremely cold under the ice layer. Once you stumble and fall, your life will die instantly. Sometimes this ice layer cannot withstand certain people, and they fall down. This is the moment I want to analyze.”
Asens pays attention to the causes of violent crime, precisely in order to make fewer people fall from the thin ice due to the violent environment, avoiding or blocking the process of “violence”. His research shows that most violent criminals have encountered domestic violence or school violence before committing a violent crime, so reducing domestic violence and school violence is direct and effective.
In the book “Violent Crimes and Revisited Criminals,” Assens emphasized that schools are the key to preventing or interfering with the process of “violence.”
As mentioned earlier, in the process of “violence”, violent criminals have formed a distorted way of viewing themselves and others, using violence to deal with their interactions with others. Assens believes: “Although the community cannot guarantee that every child has a good family, it can guarantee them a good school.” A good school can make up for a bad family to a large extent, and education can change a person. Awareness of self-image and interpersonal interaction. In addition, schools can also serve as community crime prevention centers and provide community rehabilitation programs to intervene in the formation of “violence.”
criminologist who problematizes personal violence experience
The literal translation of the original English title of this book is “Why They Kill: The Discovery of a Maverick Criminologist” (Why They Kill: The Discover -Ies of a Maverick Criminologist), these are exactly the two clues of the book-both the discussion of the reasons for people’s violent crimes, and the biographical retrospective of Assens’ research and resume. The author is a master of storytelling. He ties together Assens’ research, academic discoveries and personal experience naturally without any sense of escape.
Asens is a non-mainstream criminologist who problematizes personal experiences of long-term violence.During his childhood and adolescence, he was shrouded by violence in his native family, and had to face the violence and threats of his father against himself, his mother and his brother. Fortunately, because of his small size, Atsens only had some minor acts of violence. He only stayed in the third stage of “violent manifestations”, and finally embarked on another path-going to university, and how he became more towards people The topic of violence had a problematic consciousness very early, and eventually became a doctor of criminology. Assens admitted that when he first entered university, he did not know the existence of the subject of criminology. It was not until a sociology class that he “suddenly had an idea and thought, wow, I know this! I have personal experience, I I should be able to do something about this…I am always confused about violence. In my home and in my community, I always want to know why violence occurs, why people commit violence, and why no one does anything about it.”< /p>
Since the early 1970s, Athens has conducted in-depth interviews with more than one hundred violent criminals who have murdered, raped, burned, and cut others in many US prisons. Criminals tell their own stories, let them recall the decision-making process of committing the crime, their views and explanations of their crimes. This book selects more than 20 long fragments of interviews on crimes of murder, serious injury, rape, and kidnapping. Readers can face the original criminal psychology anatomy. It is Athens’ personal experience of direct contact with daily violence and the experience of almost becoming a vicious violent criminal that enables empathy and understanding between natural and violent criminals, thus breaking the criminals’ guard against him and winning the trust of criminals. This is the first time that criminology researchers have directly talked with violent criminals such as killers, trying to summarize their thinking when committing violent crimes and discovering their “social and psychological development process behind them.”
Of course, there are many difficulties in interviewing these violent criminals, the most serious of which is the violence and threats faced by Assens. Although the prison has set up some protective measures during his interview, Assens still faces double dangers from some criminals and prison managers. Fortunately, Assens was secretly protected by a criminal “big man” in some prisons, but he was also nearly assaulted by a male criminal who had colluded with the guards beforehand. The interview experience has also become a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it left Assens with lingering fears and often fell into lonely self-doubt; on the other hand, the other prisoners in this prison heard that Assens did not report the attempted obscene. Criminals, more people are willing to be interviewed.
“violence” is not enough to explain everything
Regarding Atsens’ research methods, the author concluded, “Asens is not interested in the antecedents of violence that data may reveal, He pays more attention to the violent acts experienced by the perpetrators of violence themselves. Since they are not at the scene of injury, rape or murder, narrative descriptions are his primary data. “Asens even believes that it is difficult for researchers who have not experienced violence and stared into the abyss of violence to truly understand the causes of violent crimes. This may be a bit radical. After all, criminal law scholars do not need to commit crimes to explain the elements of a crime. . But there is no doubt that the violence that Atsens endured allowed him to discover the omissions of the previous researchers and draw insightful conclusions.
In addition to the interviewees of Assens, the author tested the theory of Assens’ “violence”, including the case of Hollywood actress Lana Turner’s daughter Cheryl Crane stabbing her mother’s lover, The case of American boxer Mike Tyson’s ear bite and the triple murder of Pierre Rivere’s mother, brother, and sister discovered by Foucault and his students, and many other well-known real cases are explained by the theory of “violence” How the violent crime career of these criminals developed.
Although the author supports Assens’s theory with historical arguments, the explanatory power of his theory has always faced great challenges since it was put forward. Is “violence” sufficient to explain the causes of all violent crimes? Asens only focuses on the violent experience that violent criminals have encountered without considering the influence of other factors. His research and conclusions may raise more questions than he gave. However, this does not affect the charm of this book, so that we who survived the ice and can continue to dance can have a better understanding of guilt and more vigilance against daily violence.
This article is from WeChat official account:Economic Observer Network (ID: eeojjgcw), author: Gao Guangsheng children