Understanding Violent Crime

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Ranked #359 in Books, #28,910 overall

Violence by James Gilligan: A thought-provoking work on understanding violent crime, punishment, and shame.

According to James Gilligan, psychiatrist and author of Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, behind every violent crime lies a common emotional experience: shame. Gilligan argues that shame is not only the main psychological factor that drives violent criminals, but also the primary motivation behind government-sanctioned punishments in the criminal justice system. Violent crime and punishment share a common purpose: to annihilate shame and restore self-respect.


The result: violent crime never ends. Punishment of violent criminals replaces public shame with pride, and the community feels better now that "something has been done." But punishment does not heal shame; it only hands it back to the criminal, who must commit more violent crime in order to correct what he perceives as an injustice done to him by the authorities.

Making Sense of Violent Crime 

Why do we need to understand criminal behavior?

A major strength of Gilligan's book is his acknowledgment of the assumptions he makes and his anticipation of arguments that could be made against his position. His most significant and controversial assumption is that violent crime has a single underlying cause.

He suggests that since everyone has feelings and ideas about violence, it is important to deliberately adopt a unifying theory to explain violent crime. Otherwise, we risk denying that violence has any meaning at all. If we have no conscious understanding of violence, it is left to our unconscious minds to dictate how we react to it.

Can you imagine what would happen if we all behaved according to our gut instincts in response to violent crime? There would be no one left alive.

Violent Criminals: Evil or Sick? 

You must choose one or the other! Then you can write a comment to explain your choice.

If you aren't sure which side to take, you're not the only one. I expect (and hope) that this will be difficult for some people, but I still want to hear what you think! You can flip a coin if you want, but you have to take a side. For a real challenge, pick the option you like less and see if you can argue in favor of it. If you end up more confused about violent crime than you were before, that's ok; I don't believe it should be an easy thing to understand.

I agree with Gilligan's objection to the legal practice of classifying offenders as either evil (of sound mind but with defective souls) or insane. Labeling violent criminals this way fails to acknowledge their true need: to get the respect and sense of self-worth that every human being deserves.

Gilligan points out that to call someone "evil" is a value judgment. It is a moral assessment, not a reasoned explanation for that person's behavior. To address those who might accuse him of being "soft on crime," Gilligan responds that attempting to understand the behavioral and structural causes of violent crime is not the same thing as sanctioning it. His conclusions do not excuse violent criminals from personal responsibility for their crimes.

Are people who commit violent crime driven by evil, or are they sick?

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Evil is the driving force behind violent crime.

Samson Babayan says:

All Have sinned and Have fallen short of the glory of god.There is no hierchy of sin.Engaging in premarital sex is also evil, even if you don't believe that! The judge of the universe says that it is evil.

Posted June 08, 2009

0ctavias0fferings says:

I disagree that violent criminals feel shame, many are self-delusional and incapable of admitting even to themselves the disgusting and perverted nature of their crimes.
Emotions, the normal human emotions, are usually absent from these people, they cannot understand why others are so revolted by their acts.
It isn't a sickness, it's an aberrant nature. Just as someone can be born with a disability or even a birthmark, these individuals are born that way, with something vital to being a human missing from their make up.
For the vast majority of violent criminals there is little to no hope of ever rehabilitating them.
If they were animals, many of them would be humanely destroyed - it isn't something which anyone would consider doing with a human being but the rest of humanity MUST be protected from the violent offenders who destroy far too many lives.

Posted May 28, 2009

TheWhistler says:

The overwhelming majority of violent crime is pure evil.

Posted May 14, 2009

Violent criminals are sick.

cjsysreform says:

All right, I'm finally ready to answer my own question. Here it is:

I don't actually believe in evil as something that exists within individuals. There are evil actions, but not evil people. I don't believe in demons or hell or any of that. The reason I mention those things is because I think religious doctrine about witchcraft and so forth is similar to the belief lots of people seem to have about psychopaths and other violent criminals having been "born that way." What does that mean, exactly... that the rest of us are born good? Not so much. We're all capable of evil actions. So if violent criminals are evil, I'd have to say the rest of the human race is too.

But I don't think that all violent people are sick, either. Lots of them are, certainly, although the most common diagnosis given to violent criminals (antisocial personality disorder, or dissocial personality in the UK) is barely even acknowledged as an illness. I'm getting off track here, but before I get back to the point I think it's important to say that violent people with severe personality disturbances aren't exactly having a great time. They suffer and self-destruct. A lot of them die violently at young ages. They're prone to depression and chemical dependency. I've worked directly with these people and it's true what OctaviasOfferings said: the worst of them are liars who love to cause trouble and pain in others. But they do it because they are so desperately empty.

That's not a sickness, exactly... it's more of an existential emergency that drags on for most of their lives.

Posted June 13, 2009

Stazjia says:

I think most people have felt the occasional impulse for violence. The difference between us and those who commit violent acts is that we control our impulses. We have been socialised enough during childhood and teenage years to restrain anti-social impulses. We see this in dogs. If they aren't socialised or have been badly trained when young, they can become vicious and dangerous.

Evil is a value or moral judgment. Perhaps the system that allows children to be beaten and sexually abused is evil, but to accuse people of being evil when we don't understand what drives them to violence doesn't help stop the kind of child abuse that is often part of the history of violent people. Putting violent people into violent institutions that deny basic humanity and even resort to a form of torture with solitary confinement - humans are social animals - does nothing to change the behaviour, anger management and impulse control of offenders.

I believe that putting the label 'evil' on violent offenders is a cop-out because it means society is impotent and can do nothing to change these people. All society can and does do is warehouse them in violent prisons and they continue their patterns of behaviour when they are released. The real point is that doing anything else would cost more money and nobody wants to pay higher taxes. Instead individuals pay as the victims of violence and the wasted lives of prisoners who could perhaps lead useful lives with help.

Posted May 15, 2009

 

How Shame Drives Violent Crime 

Gilligan specifies three preconditions that must be met before shame can drive someone to commit a violent crime:

  1. The shame must be intense, chronic, and unremitting. It must be so intolerable to the individual that he is "ashamed of feeling ashamed" and would rather die than reveal this secret torment to anyone.
  2. The individual must believe that the only possible way to free himself of his toxic shame is through an act of violence. He knows of no other way to feel powerful and accomplished. The act of violence is a desperate, last-ditch effort to restore his sense of self-respect and dignity.
  3. Feelings of guilt, love, and fear must be absent or strongly suppressed. These feelings inhibit violent behavior. The violent person has come to experience shame as life-threatening, and the immediacy of the threat leaves no room for guilt or love.


What I think Gilligan means here is that when a person experiences shame as potentially fatal, he must focus all of his energy and planning on simply finding a way to survive. Without the basic assurance that we are safe and under no threat of fatal harm, we cannot shift our focus away from self-defense, and we are too absorbed in preserving our livelihood to be capable of feeling anything for anyone else.

Gilligan supports his theory with individual case studies, research studies, and discussion of his own experiences treating violent prisoners. He notes that violent criminals have high rates of self-mutilation and suicide, which suggests that these men are nothing like the common stereotype of the evil psychopath who murders people for fun.
Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic

Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic

by: James Gilligan

Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now
Used Price: $1.76

Victims and Criminals 

Most violent criminals have also been victims.

The murderers Gilligan refers to were far from satisfied with themselves or with their lives. They were very unhappy. Case studies of mass murderer Charles Starkweather and serial killer David Berkowitz illustrate the cognitive distortion some murderers have about their status as living human beings. They feel inhuman, dead inside, and stripped of their souls.

The sense of having had one's soul stolen or killed is more commonly associated with victims of violence than with perpetrators, and in fact Gilligan points out that most of the violent men he treated had suffered extreme psychological trauma and neglect in childhood. He presents several brief case studies as examples violent men with independently corroborated histories of severe physical and sexual abuse. This information serves as a reminder that the categories of victim and offender are not mutually exclusive.

The Cycle of Violent Crime and Punishment 

Why prison inmates so often go back to crime after their release.

The toxic shame of child abuse is compounded for many violent criminals once they enter the prison system. The book cites one study reporting that "28 percent of prisoners in one New York state prison had been targets of sexual aggression at least once," and Gilligan notes that this figure is probably too low.

The cases of Lloyd A., who was released from prison and immediately committed murder after having "spent virtually his entire previous sentence in solitary confinement," and Jeffrey L., a victim of gang rape while in prison, demonstrate how men serving time are exposed to yet more degradation and shame. This results in many of them becoming more violent and re-offending shortly after release, as Lloyd A. did.

For more on violent crime in prisons and victimization of prison inmates, see Prison Inmates and Mental Illness.

Blacks sustain about 280 percent more deaths per 100,000 than whites.

U.S. Public Health Service

Violent Crime and Society 

Poverty, racism and restrictive gender roles increase violent crime.

Prisons, Gilligan claims, are microcosms of society as a whole. There is just as much chaos and danger outside prison walls, but the difference is that in free society these forces are structural rather than behavioral.

Structural violence takes the form of humiliation, deprivation, and hatred. Ethnic minorities are exposed to structural violence when they are discriminated against, deprived of adequate income and education, and exposed to racist ideas.

A large percentage of victims of fatal violence, especially gun violence, are black men. Gilligan notes in his chapter on gender and violence that there is strong cultural pressure on men to use violence to defend their honor.

Does Gilligan really understand violence? 

Rate Gilligan's theory, or share your own ideas about the causes of violent crime.

Overall, Gilligan's work impressed me as highly original and contributed significantly to my understanding of the psychological dynamics of violence. I am not convinced that shame is the only cause of violent crime, but certainly in many cases it is a factor.

Gilligan seems to focus mainly on extremely violent offenders and not on those incarcerated for crimes like assault, which could take place in a context where the violent act was perceived by the offender to be undesirable but necessary, such as during a robbery.

The book also fails to address violence that is closely tied to specific forms of mental illness, like schizophrenia with command hallucinations or pyromania.

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