Interesting news report

[Pond James Pond]

I was looking through some reports that Al Jazeera produces. They are often very good and one caught my eye: Is Gun Violence in the US Infectious?

I thought: "Ok.... Here we go again..." expecting some more of the same, but it didn't seem that much the case.

Basically the report, based on research in Chicago (everyone's favourite in the gun debate), is by an epidemiologist who explained the patterns of violence followed the same spread as that of an infectious disease. That being exposed to, let alone party to violence made someone more likely to engage in it themselves later on.

It follows therefore that if it behaves like an infection it might be combatted like an infection albeit not with pills or drips.

Anyway, one thing that struck me, despite the title, was that the focus was not on guns (although they were the most frequent tool of violence) but rather on behaviours. This makes a refreshing change, to my mind, from the typical line of the tools being the problem, and therefore the solution, rather than the operator.

As an example, one interviewee stated how, within the gang culture, one argument between two people had snow-balled over time and eventually cost the lives of almost a 1000 people; all from that one disagreement.

When you think of that oft-touted total of 33,000 deaths from guns every year, that puts it in perspective!

Based on the conclusion of the report, the societal program that has been set up seems to be bearing fruit.

So, you have a city of highly regulated legal gun-ownership with a nationally high rate of violence (often perpetrated with guns, despite the gun control measures) where a community based program of mentorship and support has seen some areas not have a single violent death in the last year.

Perhaps, it would be cheaper and less controversial for the powers that be to invest in this, rather than further gun restrictions...

 

[Snyper]

Anyway, one thing that struck me, despite the title, was that the focus was not on guns (although they were the most frequent tool of violence) but rather on behaviours. This makes a refreshing change, to my mind, from the typical line of the tools being the problem, and therefore the solution, rather than the operator.

This is actually an old anti-gun ploy that wants to make "gun violence" a "disease" which would come under the jurisdiction of the CDC (Center for Disease Control), allowing them to spend more Federal money to fight the "public health problem"

 

[Pond James Pond]

However, the report was not focussed on gun violence, but simply on violence. It just happens to be that most of that seems to be carried out with guns. It also made no mention of the CDC that I noticed, but rather community based activists.

Violence is a social problem. Anything that sees it in those terms and tries to apply a social solution is probably a step in the right direction, IMO.

It's either that or leave things as they are, or go for the easy solution of gun control initiatives to let people think you're doing something.

 

[Frank Ettin]

....Basically the report, based on research in Chicago (everyone's favourite in the gun debate), is by an epidemiologist who explained the patterns of violence followed the same spread as that of an infectious disease. That being exposed to, let alone party to violence made someone more likely to engage in it themselves later on.....

The problem with that analogy is that it is fundamentally flawed. We know what causes infectious diseases and the various mechanisms by which infectious diseases spread.

An infectious disease is caused by an identifiable agent -- a bacterium, a virus, or a prion. The disease spreads as that agent is transmitted from an infected person to uninfected persons. And we understand the various mechanisms for transmission: some infectious agents are transmitted by contact; some through the air; and some through an intermediate vector (e. g., plague is transmitted by the bite of a flea which has previously bitten an infected rodent).

So the pattern of the spread of a particular infectious disease is related to, and indeed a consequence of, the nature of the infectious agent and its mechanism of transmission. And indeed, identifying a pattern in the spread of an infectious disease has led to identification of the mechanism of its transmission. So in 1854, John Snow noticed that an outbreak of cholera in the Soho district of London was centered around a particularly communal water pump. Snow removed the handle from the pump ending the outbreak. Further investigation led to the understanding that cholera was caused by drinking contaminated water.

But seeing a pattern in violence is essentially meaningless without also being able to associate the pattern to a cause and means of transmission.

Humans have a tendency to see patterns where none really exist. This phenomenon has been well studied. See, for example, "Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise", Shermer, Michael (Scientific American, 2008); and "Patterns: The Need for Order", Hale, Jamie (PyschCentral.com, 2015). Parallel or relate phenomena include:

• Apophenia:

  ...the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data.

  and
  
  
• Pareidolia:

  a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus (an image or a sound) wherein the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where none actually exists.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

However, the report was not focussed on gun violence, but simply on violence. It just happens to be that most of that seems to be carried out with guns. It also made no mention of the CDC that I noticed, but rather community based activists.

Violence is a social problem. Anything that sees it in those terms and tries to apply a social solution is probably a step in the right direction, IMO.

Whether the claimed focus today is "gun violence" (which is simply violence carried out with a gun) or just "violence" (which includes other implements and thus allows them to categorize more incidents, raising the number of events and making the problem appear more critical), the fact is that for at least ten or fifteen years the anti-gun forces have been working overtime to make gun violence into an epidemiological issue.

It's not. You don't contract gun violence by standing next to a violent person when he sneezes. You don't contract violence by eating after touching an infected doorknob. If you want to use an epidemiological model, then you have to apply epidemiological tools to the problem. What do hospitals do with infected, contagious individuals? They put them in quarantine. Apply that to urban violence and the answer becomes ==> lock up the perpetrators of violence until they aren't violent any more. But that runs counter to the bleeding heart modus operandi, which is to turn the worst serial offenders back on the street just as quickly as is humanly possible.

And then they wonder why there's more crime ...

 

[44 AMP]

an epidemiologist who explained the patterns of violence followed the same spread as that of an infectious disease.

When your only tool is a hammer, all your problems look like nails!

Guns may SEEM to be the most used tool, but they aren't. What they are is the most REPORTED item that can be identified, and statistics compiled about.

SHOOTINGS, get reported, often nationally, stabbings seldom do, and people being beaten almost never does.

where a community based program of mentorship and support has seen some areas not have a single violent death in the last year.

ah this does make it look like community outreach/mentorship and support organizations, both have a point, a purpose, and do work, because "some areas have not had a single violent death in a year", does it not??

Consider, the many small towns and other places WITHOUT such programs that have not had a violent death in many years, sometimes decades!!!

Oh, hadn't heard of them? Why not? Sorry, that's just not news. It doesn't support any study, and researchers can't get PAID to study what isn't there.

Violence is the way of nature, and sadly its the way of a large segment of mankind. It may be individual, and personal, or not. It may be done with the claimed justification of political or religious reasons. POLICE are state AUTHORIZED violence.

Studies like these, and the implication that violence is a disease, and DOCTORS know how to cure it, and what's best for all of us is a good way to employ doctors and those who study statistics.

Bottom line, violence is done by PEOPLE, who WANT TO DO VIOLENCE.

The main reason they do it is for some kind of gain, real, or perceived. The other reason (or the same one) is that they LIKE DOING IT.

until the doctors can cure that, which isn't happening until you change people AND the world we live in, all these discussions are meaningless.

Oh, and did I mention, its also a CULTURAL thing??

 

[Old Bill Dibble]

It took me about five minutes to debunk their claims.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/07/gun-violence-infectious-160731083342582.html

Slutkin's theory is borne out in Cure Violence's swift and significant results: a 2012-2013 study showed that the Chicago neighbourhoods where it operates saw incidences of shootings drop by 41 to 73 percent. His approach has now gone global, with affiliate programmes in New York City, Cape Town and Jerusalem.

Chico says his work with Cure Violence has given him the confidence to plan for the future. "For the first time, I could be proud telling people how I earned a living."

http://cureviolence.org/the-model/about-us/

Cure Violence was founded by Gary Slutkin, M.D., former head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Intervention Development Unit and Professor of Epidemiology and International Health at the University of Illinois/Chicago School of Public Health. Cure Violence launched in West Garfield Park, one of the most violent communities in Chicago, and was quick to produce results, reducing shootings by 67% in its first year. From 2000-2008, Cure Violence (as CeaseFire Chicago) focused its activities in the United States, quickly expanding to Baltimore, New York, New Orleans, Oakland, Loiza, Puerto Rico and other sites.

Yes the murder rate crashed in 2004 and has since gone back up. Why was that?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-0412190514dec19-story.html

With less than two weeks left in the year, the murder count was down a staggering 25 percent from last year's nation-leading 598 homicides.

"There are still too many shootings, there are still too many murders," Police Supt. Philip Cline said Friday, when the homicide total stood at 431. "But I never dreamed we'd be this low this year."

The decline in Chicago's murder toll is a story of politics and police strategies. After watching murder rates fall dramatically in New York and Los Angeles, officials here embraced techniques that poured swarms of officers onto streets where violence was at a boiling point. Dozens of corner drug markets were busted. Surveillance cameras were mounted on light poles to help keep dealers from returning.

Good news right... until...

http://www.fashionweekdaily.xyz/chicago-violence-takes-no-holiday

The city’s deadly violence has risen dramatically in the past 12 years. After adopting crime-fighting techniques in 2004 that were recommended by Los Angeles and the New York City police departments, Chicago recorded 448 homicides, its lowest total since 1965. But by 2010, its homicide rate had outpaced Los Angeles (16.02 per 100,000), and was more than twice that of New York City (7.0). By the end of last year, Chicago’s homicide rate soared to 18.6 per 100,000.

Garry McCarthy, the former Chicago police superintendent, says a “no-snitch code” on the street is the biggest reason more murders aren’t being solved and why people are literally getting away with murder.

Another factor is the relatively light sentences for those found illegally in possession of a firearm. One study found that most people convicted of illegal gun possession receive the minimum sentence, one year, and serve less than half of the sentence because of time for good behavior and pretrial confinement.

The last article has a good run down of current events.

Anyway back to the group behind the feel good rub out session...

They also claim great success in Baltimore, a city where murder is up something like 40% over two years as well as others. Their claims are bogus, their studies were done by other groups but the US tax payers are sending them money by the trainload.

This is exactly the kind of group that will throw gun rights under the bus at the first opportunity.

 

[44 AMP]

As an alternate line of examination, consider EXCLUDING all major cities, and then see what the violence rates are.

Perhaps the problem isn't guns but CITIES???

It is a long observed behavior trait of mammals that when too many are confined too close together, when dirt, noise, and overcrowding reach a certain point, violence results. Up to, and including general mass insanity. It varies widely from species to species, but it seems to be common to most mammals, that there is such a point. it is rarely found in nature but examples exist (lemmings, for one).

Also many species of mammals have individuals who, for no apparent reason "run amok".

Put too many rats in a cage, they eat their young.

Humans ARE mammals.

make no mistake about that...

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Perhaps the problem isn't guns but CITIES???

It is a long observed behavior trait of mammals that when too many are confined too close together, when dirt, noise, and overcrowding reach a certain point, violence results. Up to, and including general mass insanity. It varies widely from species to species, but it seems to be common to most mammals, that there is such a point. it is rarely found in nature but examples exist (lemmings, for one).

Yes. Long ago, when I was young and before I had encountered any sociological studies, I arrived at this conclusion all by my lonesome. I referred to it as my "critical mass theory."

I even recall reading about a simple experiment to demonstrate how it works. Take a 10' x 10' room. In the center of the floor, place one mousetrap, set, with a ping pong ball on the tripper. Stand in the door and throw one ping pong ball into the room. The odds are astronomical that you'll miss the trap, and that nothing will happen.

Now, fill the room wall to wall with mousetraps, all of them set and all of them having a ping pong ball on the tripper. NOW toss a single ping pong ball into the room and see what happens. The point being that, when too many people are crammed into too little space, it doesn't take much to set off a violent and disproportional reaction.

 

[Old Bill Dibble]

As an alternate line of examination, consider EXCLUDING all major cities, and then see what the violence rates are.

Perhaps the problem isn't guns but CITIES???

It is a long observed behavior trait of mammals that when too many are confined too close together, when dirt, noise, and overcrowding reach a certain point, violence results. Up to, and including general mass insanity. It varies widely from species to species, but it seems to be common to most mammals, that there is such a point. it is rarely found in nature but examples exist (lemmings, for one).

Years ago I used to think much like this. I came to several realizations though.

- Other countries have large cities with very low murder rates, much lower then the cities in the United States and other countries. The cities are much larger too.

- Some countries have much higher murder rates than the US. These countries are often called "third world".

- There is no such thing as a third world country today. Third world countries were countries that were neither under the sphere of the US or the CCCP.

- The left would have you believe that these more violent countries are "primitive". This is openly racist and bigoted. Some of these countries existed before the US or are about the same age. Calling their people primitive or third world or whatever is as racist as it gets.

So what is the difference? There are two things that pretty much determine the murder rate.

- Respect for Rule of Law
- The consumption rate of intoxicants

The US is the largest consumer of narcotics in the entire world by every possible measure. Some drugs such as prescription Opiods we actually consume more of than the entire rest of the planet combined. Every country with a high rate of consumption of intoxicants to the point of intoxication has a high murder rate. Strangely this does not account for alcohol, even in countries where alcohol is illegal.

Ireland for example is a top ten consumer of alcohol per capita but murder is currently very low. Where other drugs such as Cocaine, meth and Opiods are consumed murder rates are very high. The cycle of addiction and the lengths people will go to fill these addictions are very high. Because people will go to great lengths to fulfill their addiction needs criminals will go to even greater lengths to profit from their misery.

Respect for ROL is the other issue. Clearly if people are resolving their difference by killing each other there is something lacking there. Often times in these countries with high murder rates those in power are corrupt or dictatorial and ROL is defined as whatever the current leader decides. There will be little respect for rule of law if the police are merely an arm of the dictator. A participatory society tends to have a lower crime rate

If what I am saying is true then it would seem to follow that if the most of the country respects ROL in overwhelming numbers (such as in the US) then the murder rate in that country would be low. The problem in the US is that we have a segregated society where the portions that respect ROL tend to live separate from certain communities where the majority do not.

Certainly we have cities in the US where the crime rate is low. NYC comes to mind. NYC forced a policy of high enforcement of respecting ROL and experienced a corresponding drop in the murder rate to below the national average. High murder rates correspond with low levels of enforcement. This is cultural issue. Culture can be changed.

I have written a lot and proved nothing. This is merely a hypothesis I have formed of the years. I will add that practically everyone who commits murder consumes intoxicants or mind altering drugs on a regular basis. This goes for mass shooters, DV killers and certainly gang members. There are notable exceptions but they are the exception.

 

[zukiphile]

OBD, that's an interesting thought.

Currently, parts of the rural midwest are experienceing an opioid and heroin use epidemic, but this doesn't seem to have fueled a high rural murder rate.

Would you explain that as anything other than a ROL vestige in the culture?

 

[K_Mac]

The problem in the US is that we have a segregated society where the portions that respect ROL tend to live separate from certain communities where the majority do not.

Certainly we have cities in the US where the crime rate is low. NYC comes to mind. NYC forced a policy of high enforcement of respecting ROL and experienced a corresponding drop in the murder rate to below the national average. High murder rates correspond with low levels of enforcement. This is cultural issue. Culture can be changed.

OBD, this is the real issue. We can change this if we are serious about it. Changing the culture of drugs and violence in segregated cities where poverty, unemployment, racism and ignorance are systemic is not easy though. New York City put boots on the ground to clean up large areas of the city. It is the only approach that works IMO. I am not talking about a militaristic takeover either, but enough police to enforce the law and restore order and trust. As long as police are viewed as the enemy, and prisons are filled beyond capacity with nonviolent offenders this situation will not, can not, get better. We have to get violent offenders off the street and change the culture. Everything else is just talk.

 

[Old Bill Dibble]

Probably but it is on it's way. The least safe counties in the country right now are mostly rural:

http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/most-dangerous-counties/

A part of the reason that there are more murders in cities is that people go to cities looking for things like drugs and property to steal even though they may be from a rural area. The overwhelming majority of meth consumed in the US is manufactured in Mexico and then sold in large cities.

 

[Pond James Pond]

The problem with that analogy is that it is fundamentally flawed. We know what causes infectious diseases and the various mechanisms by which infectious diseases spread.

You don't contract gun violence by standing next to a violent person when he sneezes. You don't contract violence by eating after touching an infected doorknob. If you want to use an epidemiological model, then you have to apply epidemiological tools to the problem.

So, there is no such phenomenon as people who are repeatedly exposed to violence becoming desensitised to it and thereby committing it themselves then becoming much easier?
Is this not the logic behind the favourite culprit for social ills, the "violent video game"?

Is mass hallucination therefore a myth? Is that not something that affects a group of people in a measurable way, yet lacks a pathogen?

Aren't teenagers in the bosom of their peer group more likely to start smoking if others do it too? Even when they know it is bad for them?

And, Frank, I think applying the findings to apophenia is doing a disservice to epidemiology. Still, I'll be sure to tell my wife, as she writes her dissertation, that she's really just finding convenient patterns in randomness.

the fact is that for at least ten or fifteen years the anti-gun forces have been working overtime to make gun violence into an epidemiological issue.

So are you against the idea because a sociological approach cannot, will not, has not worked, ever or because it is something that anti-gun folks like the sound of?

Just because they decided to pitch something that says "violence is a disease", doesn't automatically mean there may not be some useable, exploitable approach in it which may well improve the rates of violence.

What do hospitals do with infected, contagious individuals? They put them in quarantine. Apply that to urban violence and the answer becomes ==> lock up the perpetrators of violence until they aren't violent any more. But that runs counter to the bleeding heart modus operandi, which is to turn the worst serial offenders back on the street just as quickly as is humanly possible.

What hospitals also do is try to keep the environment as clean as possible: in other words, prevent the infection from taking hold to begin with. In fact they work much harder to do that: better outcomes if you prevent rather than treat.

The main reason they do it is for some kind of gain, real, or perceived. The other reason (or the same one) is that they LIKE DOING IT.

And yet, there are things I'd like, and I could use violence to get them. Sometimes I meet people who, frankly, could do with a smack in the mouth.

I opt for neither. Why? Because I, like every human, to a greater or lesser degree have a capacity to reign in baser instincts thanks to social conditioning and my upbringing, my "ethical programming" says it's wrong.

It is a long observed behavior trait of mammals that when too many are confined too close together, when dirt, noise, and overcrowding reach a certain point, violence results. Up to, and including general mass insanity. It varies widely from species to species, but it seems to be common to most mammals, that there is such a point. it is rarely found in nature but examples exist (lemmings, for one).

Also many species of mammals have individuals who, for no apparent reason "run amok".

See above.
We are indeed mammals, but unlike other species, our intellectual and social complexity has allowed us to work around those behaviours that other animals exhibit through an instinctive response to stimuli. As for running amok, there will no doubt come a point in animal behavioural understand that will be able to explain those instances too.

ah this does make it look like community outreach/mentorship and support organizations, both have a point, a purpose, and do work, because "some areas have not had a single violent death in a year", does it not??

Consider, the many small towns and other places WITHOUT such programs that have not had a violent death in many years, sometimes decades!!!

Oh, hadn't heard of them? Why not? Sorry, that's just not news. It doesn't support any study, and researchers can't get PAID to study what isn't there.

Regardless of how infrequent violence is in rural, if some dangerous urban area have seen a drop in violence, don't you welcome that?
Isn't it a good thing if a scheme sees bloodshed reduced?

Look, TBH, I'm a bit surprised.
I'd have thought that the response to a study that finally says "It's the people, not the guns (knives, hammers, pitchforks, bricks, broken bottles...)" would be something people would receive a little better.

Is it not what many on here have said all along? "Guns don't kill. People kill...!" Yet, now that someone says it in a news report, in Chicago no less, virtually every post has been to repudiate it...

Let's remember that the report never claimed it was a disease, just that the spread resembled one, and if you can block the transmitting mechanism, such as calming situations before they become flash points for escalating response, over all that violence will drop. Less violence, less focus on guns in society (and knives, hammers, pitchforks, bricks, broken bottles...).

I'm a firm believer that is no single solution and, as such, many approaches are needed, in combination. So this is not THE answer, but it may be part on an answer.

 

[Frank Ettin]

So, there is no such phenomenon as people who are repeatedly exposed to violence becoming desensitised to it and thereby committing it themselves then becoming much easier?....

I don't know. Do you? Are there really solid studies supporting that hypothesis? Are there studies contradicting that hypothesis?

On the other hand, there seem to be a variety of causes for violent behaviors -- anger, disappointment, underlying psychopathology, belief in a cause, etc. Can a disease model be meaningful?

...Is this not the logic behind the favourite culprit for social ills, the "violent video game"?....

That's one for Glenn.

He's touched on the question --

• here:

  The lack of evidence for the video connection is now becoming well known in the professional literature.
  
  One telling point is the dramatic drop in crime and dramatic increase in violent video games. I've an article that describes such but it's at work. Too lazy to search now. Sue me.

  and
  
  
• here:

  ...Among the psychological world - there is a fierce battle about the video games being a major factor in rampages.
  
  Some claim they are causal - which is hard to support. Others say that if one is prone in that direction they channel you towards specific actions and train in techniques. Grossman argues that the games help remove natural inhibitions towards close in violence.
  
  All these are debatable based on evidence. ...

...I think applying the findings to apophenia is doing a disservice to epidemiology. Still, I'll be sure to tell my wife, as she writes her dissertation, that she's really just finding convenient patterns in randomness....

I'm sure that your wife is familiar with the need to be able to distinguish meaningful patterns from imagined patterns.

....What hospitals also do is try to keep the environment as clean as possible: in other words, prevent the infection from taking hold to begin with. In fact they work much harder to do that: better outcomes if you prevent rather than treat....

On the other hand, rigorous antiseptic protocols in hospitals have helped foster the evolution of strains of pathogens resistant to antibiotics and antiseptics.

And there seems to be some evidence that too much cleanliness during certain stages of childhood inhibits the development of some resistance to disease.

How does that mesh with a disease model for violence?

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Look, TBH, I'm a bit surprised.
I'd have thought that the response to a study that finally says "It's the people, not the guns (knives, hammers, pitchforks, bricks, broken bottles...)" would be something people would receive a little better.

It's not better received because we have seen the argument before, and we know where it leads.
What did you write about hospitals? Oh, yes:

What hospitals also do is try to keep the environment as clean as possible: in other words, prevent the infection from taking hold to begin with. In fact they work much harder to do that: better outcomes if you prevent rather than treat.

So if the problem is "violence," how do you keep are area "clean" of violence, other than incarcerating violent people? And we know that current trends are heading away from incarceration of violent offenders, not toward more incarceration.

So what's left? Ahhh -- that's when "violence" suddenly (miraculously) again becomes "gun violence," and the epidemiological "solution" is to clean the area -- of guns. Which, of course, are not and never have been the problem, but they make a convenient scapegoat and whipping boy.

 

[K_Mac]

Semantics. Is a disease model valid? Is violent behavior spread by casual contact or is more intimate contact required? Is there genetic predisposition or is it a result of environmental influence? We can spin it anyway we want, but children raised in poverty where education is minimal and drug abuse, crime and violence is endemic are far more at risk of "catching" a proclivity for the same.

 

[TXAZ]

I asked my daughter the Epidemiologist / PhD candidate about this.
She noted the following:
If this was a study only about the City of Chicago and so noted, then it could be representative. On the other hand, if the sample is only from Chicago and applied to the US (and supposed to also be representative of cities like Amarillo, Boise, Jacksonville, Virginia Beach, Phoenix, ...) then it is a sham study and should reflect on the researcher and their ethics.

She noted that there are many researchers for hire who will be happy to sell their (what's left of) reputation and credentials, or that of their institute to stay employed or meet 'publish or perish' criteria.

Finally, to say that gun violence is a disease, is to call folly on yourself.
For someone from WHO to make such a claim is to throw any scientific process away and allow their biases to show.

 

[Old Bill Dibble]

I guess anything can be a disease.

"Losing is a disease; as contagious as Polio.... Losing is a disease; as contagious as Syphilis... Losing is a disease; as contagious as Bubonic Plague... impacting one but effecting all... ah! but curable..."

 

[44 AMP]

the article mentioned how the charts and graphs were consulted, and it was noted that a pattern of clusters and spreads was noted, similar to a disease.

Which is not quite the same as saying violence IS a disease, but we have plenty of people saying that, as well. It seems like only a small, and reasonable step, from "acts like a disease" to "is a disease".

However, that line of argument also results in "witches are made of wood", and weigh the same as a duck. (classic Monty Python, look it up...)

There is, I think, a crucial factor being overlooked.

FREE WILL

Unlike an actual disease, which simply is, violence is a choice. And it cannot be "cured" it can only be prevented, or it can be met.