Blog Thirteen: Violence in Society

What are the leading causes of violence in society and what do you think could be done about them?

Violence is not a one step action but rather a cycle that affects everyone in society in one way or another. However, they’ re many causes to this cycle. Some of these causes that lay the foundation to violence in society are: biological, sociological ad psychological causes according to John Monahan a Psychologist and Professor at the University of Virginia.                                                                         Biological in regards to violence affect our society through biological factors such as hormones (testosterone, transmitters in the brain like serotonin), blood abnormalities etc. However, many of the biological factors are not hereditary. For example, this could be causes such as a head injury, poor nutrition, environmental events such as exposure to lead paint. The National Academy of Sciences did many studies on the relationship between biology and violence and they came to the conclusion that there are no patterns with the two variables. Nevertheless, these factors do indeed correspond with violence significantly in society. Next are sociological affects. These are factors such as demography, poverty, race etc. This fuels how statistics of certain communities have higher rates of crime and other illegal activity. For example, in America the murder rate is almost twice as high in the South as it is in the Northeast but the robbery rate is almost twice as high in the Northeast as it is in the South. Poverty and race for example are similar to not only to violence but to each other as well. If impoverishment is considered, the effect of race on violence diminishes substantially. It is not entirely comprehensible to whether or not unemployment leads people to commit crimes or if they’re violent acts lead employers to not want to hire them.  However the reasons why sociological effects takes place is due to the community an individuals is brought into. Psychological causes are the final component. This does not necessarily refer to as people with mental disorders. In fact, at most, 3% of the violence in American society is through individuals that have major mental disorders. Instead, it is through developmental processes that we all face. The sociological and biological affects together make up the psychological affects. For example, our families; the sociological standpoint would factor in a parent’s being unemployed and many of the biological factors such as poor nutrition would affect a family as well. Together this would affect the child growing up and how they form their morals. 

These three factors shape violence in society and in order to attack this cycle we must approach this issue through small steps, not only looking at society as a whole but the focusing on individuals that make up a whole. This will allow no barriers or stereotypes to occur when analyzing violence in society.