Historian links homicide rates to the way people feel about their government
[Gregory Rodriguez is a columnist for the LA Times.]
A few months ago, Ohio State University historian Randolph Roth published a groundbreaking book, "American Homicide," that offers something like a unified theory of why Americans kill each other at such a high rate and what can be done about it.
After meticulously tracing trends in violence and political power in the U.S. from colonial times to the present, Roth concludes that high homicide rates "are not determined by proximate causes such as poverty, drugs, unemployment, alcohol, race, or ethnicity, but by factors ... like the feelings that people have toward their government and the opportunities they have to earn respect without resorting to violence."
Roth's analysis in fact puts politics at the very root of the highest homicide rate of any First World democratic nation. He points to the Civil War as the genesis of even peacetime unrest. It was not simply a case of violence begetting violence. Rather, high homicide rates were the symptom of low overall political confidence. The Civil War, Roth says, was "a catastrophic failure in nation building," when a large percentage of the population lost faith in government and eyed their countrymen with distrust.
"Our high homicide rate started when we lost faith in ourselves and in each other," he says....
Roth's research compares the trends in "political trust" and murder statistics. For example, white homicide peaked in 1980, the final year of the Carter administration, when people angry over school busing, the Iran hostage crisis, and the defeat in Vietnam were uhappy in large enough numbers to bring white trust in government to its post-war low.
Does this suggest that Barack Obama's election will cause a shift in rates of violence? Absolutely. According to Roth, FBI data released in December bear that out. In the first six months of 2009, urban areas that Obama carried saw the steepest drop in the homicide rate since the mid-1990s....
Read entire article at LA Times
A few months ago, Ohio State University historian Randolph Roth published a groundbreaking book, "American Homicide," that offers something like a unified theory of why Americans kill each other at such a high rate and what can be done about it.
After meticulously tracing trends in violence and political power in the U.S. from colonial times to the present, Roth concludes that high homicide rates "are not determined by proximate causes such as poverty, drugs, unemployment, alcohol, race, or ethnicity, but by factors ... like the feelings that people have toward their government and the opportunities they have to earn respect without resorting to violence."
Roth's analysis in fact puts politics at the very root of the highest homicide rate of any First World democratic nation. He points to the Civil War as the genesis of even peacetime unrest. It was not simply a case of violence begetting violence. Rather, high homicide rates were the symptom of low overall political confidence. The Civil War, Roth says, was "a catastrophic failure in nation building," when a large percentage of the population lost faith in government and eyed their countrymen with distrust.
"Our high homicide rate started when we lost faith in ourselves and in each other," he says....
Roth's research compares the trends in "political trust" and murder statistics. For example, white homicide peaked in 1980, the final year of the Carter administration, when people angry over school busing, the Iran hostage crisis, and the defeat in Vietnam were uhappy in large enough numbers to bring white trust in government to its post-war low.
Does this suggest that Barack Obama's election will cause a shift in rates of violence? Absolutely. According to Roth, FBI data released in December bear that out. In the first six months of 2009, urban areas that Obama carried saw the steepest drop in the homicide rate since the mid-1990s....