10.3: Violence
While violence may be considered by some to be a criminal justice or policing issue alone, it is also a public health issue because it affects the lives and health of the public. Violence, including self-inflicted harm, contributes to some of the leading causes of death for young people. Suicides are now the second leading cause of death for those between the ages of 1 and 44, while homicides have been in the top 5 since the 1980s (CDC - Injury Prevention and Control, 2024).
Violent behavior is influenced by a variety of factors. Personal factors include psychological trauma, particularly that which is experienced during developmental stages in childhood. Children who experience ACE’s and high levels of family stress may have heightened “fight or flight” responses as adults, and may not have learned cooperative coping mechanisms to deal with interpersonal conflict - such as empathy and problem solving. Community factors include many of the social determinants of health; such as job opportunities, social cohesion, and witnessing violence as children. Overall, violence seems to create more violence; victims of abuse are at an increased risk for later victimization or becoming violent themselves. Yet, there are also known protective factors that can help prevent violence. Stable, caring relationships from friends and family, connections to mental health and drug abuse recovery services, and the development of non-violent coping skills, can all support preventing the many different forms of violence (Wilkins et al., 2014).
Violence encompasses a spectrum of physical and psychological harm. Often we think of violence as only damaging a person’s physical body, yet even threats and verbal abuse are harmful to a person’s mental and emotional health. Below is a list of harmful behaviors and types of violence, but it is not an exhaustive list.
- Stalking, cyberstalking, controlling behaviors, verbal or written threats, “doxing”
- Verbal abuse, including yelling/screaming, calling names, demeaning, bullying and cyberbullying
- Child maltreatment, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse or neglect of a minor
- Elder maltreatment, including physical, sexual, emotional, and financial abuse of an older adult
- Physical assault, including battery, or road rage
- Sexual assault, including groping, rape, and intimate partner violence (IPV)
- Suicide and attempted suicide
- Homicide and attempted homicide
- School violence, youth gang violence, and violence related to organized crime
- Robbery and arson ( Violent Crime , 2011).
The prevalence of violent crimes varies by location and year. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) publishes information on national crime rates reported by participating law enforcement agencies each year, however it should be remembered that these are only the crimes reported to law enforcement agencies (property crimes like larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft, and burglary are not considered violent crimes by the FBI definition). The most commonly underreported crimes are sexual assault and rape - in fact some estimates indicate that the majority (over 60%) of sexual assaults are not reported (National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2015). See Fig. \(\PageIndex{1}\) below for the crime rates published by the FBI in Crime in the Nation, 2022 :
The most recent update provided by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program at the time of this writing demonstrates a 15.2% decline in violent crime between the first quarters (January through March) of 2023 and 2024. Murder and rape declined the most by 26.4% and 25.7% respectively, and aggravated assault decreased by 12.5% (FBI National Press Office, 2024).
Data on the prevalence of violent deaths from the CDC are slightly different, and place the homicide rate for 2022 at 7.5 per 100,000 population, for a total of 24,849 deaths that year. The CDC also reports that gun homicides accounted for 19,651 of those deaths (CDC/National Center for Health Statistics, 2024a). The suicide death rate is nearly double that of homicides. According to the CDC, 49,476 people lost their lives to suicide in 2022, which is 14.8 per 100,000 population (CDC/National Center for Health Statistics, 2024b).