Citation

Kleck GD. Sociol. Inq. 1987; 57(3): 237-250.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1987, Alpha Kappa Delta, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1475-682X.1987.tb01044.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Do wars between nations encourage violence on the home front by legitimating violence? A time series regression analysis of U. S. homicide trends from 1947 to 1978 shows that neither war years nor postwar years show significantly higher homicide levels than other years, other things being equal. In the U. S., those postwar years which showed higher violence rates, after the Vietnam War, had higher violence levels only because of higher proportions of the population in the high-violence ages, lower criminal justice system effectiveness in crime control, and other differences which characterized those years. Survey research findings support the conclusion that violent actions of government agents like soldiers and police officers, on the one hand, and violent actions by private citizens, on the other hand, lie in distinct and separate cognitive categories for most Americans. Consequently there is little reason to expect that governmental violence serves to legitimate, or exerts a modelling influence on, violent behavior of private individuals in the U. S.Official killing by the state makes killing respectable. It not merely dulls the sensibilities of people to cruelty and inhumanity but actually stimulates cruelty.

Language: en