{"id":1545,"date":"2012-08-07T10:11:39","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T16:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/?p=1545"},"modified":"2012-08-07T10:11:39","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T16:11:39","slug":"are-we-more-violent-than-ever-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2012\/08\/07\/are-we-more-violent-than-ever-before\/","title":{"rendered":"are we more violent than ever before?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/CBSMIN.images.worldnow.com\/interface\/js\/WNVideo.js?rnd=524202;hostDomain=video.minneapolis.cbslocal.com;playerWidth=425;playerHeight=375;isShowIcon=true;clipId=7585413;flvUri=;partnerclipid=;adTag=News;advertisingZone=CBS.MINN%252Fworldnowplayer;enableAds=true;landingPage=;islandingPageoverride=false;playerType=STANDARD_EMBEDDEDscript;controlsType=fixed\"><\/script><br \/>\nI&#8217;m often hesitant to do interviews in the immediate aftermath of a horrific crime, but I was glad when WCCO-TV asked &#8220;<em>Are we more violent than ever before<\/em>?&#8221; as part of their <a href=\"http:\/\/minnesota.cbslocal.com\/category\/watch-listen\/wcco-tv-shows\/good-question\/\">Good Question<\/a> series. Jason DeRusha (and his colleague Liz Collin) do a terrific job with this feature, interviewing diverse experts\u00a0on questions ranging from dandelions and tick spray to ammunition purchases and solitary confinement.<\/p>\n<p>Since one can&#8217;t really provide a reading list\u00a0on-air, I&#8217;ll offer a few supporting citations for those interested in\u00a0trends in violence and homicide. On long-term historical trends, Steven Pinker&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stevenpinker.com\/publications\/better-angels-our-nature\"><em>Better Angels of our Nature<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is an\u00a0accessible starting point.\u00a0In my research and teaching, I&#8217;ve been\u00a0most influenced by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.crim.cam.ac.uk\/people\/academic_research\/manuel_eisner\/\">Manuel Eisner&#8217;s<\/a> work,\u00a0particularly his <a href=\"http:\/\/soci.ucalgary.ca\/brannigan\/sites\/soci.ucalgary.ca.brannigan\/files\/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf\">2003 review<\/a>\u00a0in <em>Crime and Justice. <\/em>For more recent years, good data are widely available, especially for homicide. For the United States, I go directly to the FBI&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/about-us\/cjis\/ucr\/crime-in-the-u.s\/2010\/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010\/tables\/10tbl01.xls\">Uniform Crime Reports<\/a>\u00a0and the Bureau of Justice Statistics&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov\/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&amp;iid=2224\">Criminal Victimization<\/a> series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m often hesitant to do interviews in the immediate aftermath of a horrific crime, but I was glad when WCCO-TV asked &#8220;Are we more violent than ever before?&#8221; as part of their Good Question series. Jason DeRusha (and his colleague Liz Collin) do a terrific job with this feature, interviewing diverse experts\u00a0on questions ranging from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1545"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1550,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545\/revisions\/1550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}