Most Violent Crimes are recorded as an assault, robbery or homicide. But another common form of violence is abuse. Dispatcher yes, whats the problem . Woman help, hes here again. Hes beating me up. When someone takes advantage of a relationship by using force, or threatening to use force, it is abuse. Who is it . Its my husband. The most common place for it to occur is in the home. David bennett i think one of the things that is very hidden in our societies, certainly societies that have levels of outward violence, is violence within the family, directed at women and children. About one in three women is more likely to be abused in some form in her life domestically, by someone she loves or knows. And he kept hitting me in the face and punching me in the ribs. And i had a bloody nose and i was scared to death. We had this amazing 19yearold girl come up the ramp into the clinic pushing one of those dual carriages with the twin boys in it. And she comes in, walks in the door and she says, the premature baby clinic across the street sent me here. They said you might be able to help me. And she says, he started beating me again. And the story unfolded that she had delivered these two little boys prematurely, because she had been severely beaten in pregnancy, a very common thing in pregnancy. A large percentage of women in pregnancy are beaten, interestingly enough. And she delivered these babies prematurely and they were blind. And he was now beating her again and was furious with her for having given him these little boys that were not perfect. And she says his next step is hes going to kill these little boys. Though violence may be as old as civilization itself, it wasnt until the early 1970s, that it was finally named a Public Health problem. Looking at violence from a health or Public Health perspective has been very helpful, both because it means one looks at those factors that lead to and contribute to violence factors that you can do something about, preventively or even in a treatment sense, but it also tends to decriminalize things so that you can approach communities from a nonjudicial, nonpolice point of view, and that is often that is often more acceptable for communities. Communities are able then to undertake things. In a one year period in the early 1980s, dozens of African American children were abducted and murdered in georgia. Alarmed, and determined to help, Jennie Trotter began working towards violence prevention in her community. Jennie trotter i became aware of communities that had very little resources. I mean, in fact, none. As a result, these kids were very idle, getting involved in juvenile delinquency and just nothing going on in the community, so it became the community program. We were able to get state funding and since then, weve branched out doing so many things. Ive come this far for free statand i wont turn back,en, im climbing the highway from my old dirt track. One of the many programs that she developed, is the simba Violence Prevention Program for incarcerated youth. Laced with wisdom, came up in the ghetto where theyre killing, where Young Brothers occupation be drug dealing. Where in prison we die slow. Tarita triplet is program coordinator. The four objectives of the simba program is to teach violence prevention, African American history, vocational skills and artistic classes. Millicent pierce is one of the simba instructors. This program count the cost was started as a result of my own experiences with violence, first as a victim of violence, second as somebody who fought fire with fire. I was in an abusive relationship. My husband would fight me all the time, and i ended up killing him in response, and i served time in prison as a result. More than 50 of all homicides are a result of violence between family members, friends or acquaintances. Thats right. Its not strangers, its people that know each other that are hurting each other and killing each other, more than 50 . So weve got to look at whats going on with people. Why are we hurting our loved ones and the people that we know . There are many approaches to answering this question. Some studies are focusing on environmental factors that may contribute to violence. Others are asking if genetic make up could predispose certain people to act violently. Well, we think that genes are important for violent behavior, but its clear that the environment is also important, the way a child is raised and the type of society that they find themselves in. Some new studies suggest that its actually nature and nurture together that are most important. Those studies were performed in iowa and they looked at adopted children and they examined both the biological parents as well as the parents who were adopting the children. They looked for signs of trouble, signs of criminal bevior, and then classified the children according to wther their biological or genetic ckground had problems, and or whether or not their adoptive home environment had problems. Whatas interesting was that, it took both a bad genetic background and a socalled bad environment to produce the highest levels of problems. Aggression probably caused many caused by many factors like social or environmental situations but biology may also play a role there. There is a dutch family they have eight or nine males committed a very severe criminal act. When they looked closely, they found there was one particular gene that was abnormal in the violent members of the family. When you have findings in a human, were not sure whether this is because the missing of this gene or some environment in that family that caused the male give aggressive behavior. So we decided to study in mice, where we can specifically remove one gene and see if it would result into the same aggressive behavior and we find this is the case. You shouldnt think that everybody whos violent has a problem with this gene. In fact, this mutation has been found in that family and only that family in the entire world. So obviously this is not whats causing all of the violence that we see. Why is it that there are three times as many men who die from gunshot wounds as women . Why is it that young boys are three times as likely to commit suicide as young girls . You could say that we already have a very good genetic marker for violence and that is the y chromosome. Thats of course the male chromosome found in all men and not in women. The simple fact of the matter is that men commit almost ten times more murders, more Violent Crimes, than do women. So theres something about maleness which is linked to aggression and to violence. So we talk a lot about the problem. We know the problem, dont we . We live the problem, we see it around us every day. The question is, what are we going to do about it . Now there are 9 risk factors for violence, as taught by the omega disease model. Its the best thing ive seen. We have to learn to recognize them, and we have to learn to eliminate them out of our lives. And they are guns. together guns. I think, of course, the accessibility to violent weapons plays a role in this. If violent weapons werent as accessible, there would be less violence because lots of it occurs impulsively. Pick up the gun, pull the trigger, and thats all there is to it. Gail wyatt now certainly gun control is a piece of that, you know, one of the tools that people use to commit these acts of violence. Weve got to take responsibility for that because the more available weapons of destruction are the more people will use them. You know, the most startling statistic about littleton . Not that 12 kids got killed, thats horrific, thats the worst thing you could ever imagine but that, in addition to that, the school reported 76 firearm violations at the school during those 12 months. Dean hamer if you compare seattle to vancouver, those are two very similar cities, equal amounts of rain, close to one another physically, socioeconomically quite similar. The amount of Violent Crime in those two cities is virtually identical. But if you look at the number of murders, its ten times higher in seattle than it is in vancouver. Whats the difference . The difference, very simply, is that in the united states, you can easily purchase guns. In canada, you cannot. Weve lost two children to guns in this practice. Both teenagers one was caught in a gun exchange over drug money. Another was shot because she was dating someones boyfriend at twelve. Drugs. Drugs. Alcohol. Alcohol. They very much increase the impulsive amounts of violent behavior as they are intended to be disinhibitors of ourselves. And so alcohol and drugs, cocaine in particular, is very provocative to violence. A lot of guys they are really fighting over the drugs now. They want to sell drugs because its good way to make money. I think certainly drugs, gangs, these are predisposing factors. We know from the studies kids who take drugs, kids who are involved in gan, are more likely to be involved in violent acts. Police officer a lot of this Substance Abuse is regarding despair. They dont have anything else that gives them temporary relief from their everyday problems. Keep a clear head, no drugs or alcohol. You can show kids as early on as the early as they can learn coping skills, if you can follow this up, the coping skills they get as a result of it, you know, can deter them from future drug use, if they have the skills to deal with, you know, anger, or being lonely or being scared, you know, all the things that people that drive them for this. Destructive language. Destructive language. Most cases of Domestic Violence start with emotional violence, the first step youre dumb, youre stupid, youre ugly, youre fat, you dont deserve anybody better, youre lucky to have me. See, there is power of life and death in the tongue. Cause if somebody calls you the n word or the b word, its on then, right . Its on so see, we have to understand that there is the power of life and death in the tongue. Looking at children, oftentimes, watching children who are living with constant. Constant. Nastiness, and youre worthless, and i wish youd never been born, and i wish you were dead, and youre stupid, and why are you fat . And. What could i do to disrespect you . I need to know. You can disrespect me by putting me down. Putting you down . Okay. Continuously putting me down. Okay. And talk about the rage reaction that is then suppressed that then has to play out someplace else. That must be an enormous rage thats building up inside of that individual. People will disrespect you. People are going to say what they want to say, theyre going to do what they want to do. You cant control that or change that, can you . No. And its going to hurt you, too, isnt it . We have to deal with that pain, right . And we dont deal with it by lashing back out at them, right . Negative view of women. together negative view of women. I think Society Still likes to blame women and children if theyre victims, and likes to find a reason for it. And maybe they did this and maybe did that, shouldnt have been there, and why doesnt she leave . And why did that kid go with that man . And, how come you went into his room with him . And, why were you wearing shorts . And, why did you open the door . And we still do a lot of that in our society, and i think thats an enormous frustration. I just reinforced that it was my fault, and i wasnt somehow i just wasnt good enough, and that if somehow i could get good enough, then he would stop hitting me. Historically, violence within an intimate relationship has been considered a private matter. Women could find little helphin from the justice system. Mary he went to the das office, to the da on the case, and told him that he didnt want his family on welfare that he was real sorry, and that all he needed to know was where i was, and he would come get us off welfare, go into therapy, and make everything okay. And the da told him where i was. I came home from work, he was there, he beat me, he raped me again, and told me if i ever tried to run again he was going to kill me and the kids, and thats all there was to it. But in 1985, in a landmark ruling, the Federal DistrictCourt Reversed earlier rulings stating that a man is not allowed to abuse or endanger a woman merely because he is her husband. Counsel. Furthermore, a Police Officer may not knowingly refrain from interference in such violence simply because the assaulter and his victim are married to each other. Louis hernandez in the past, i know when i first came on, you werent required to document an incident of Domestic Violence as you are now. And theres a reason for that. It has to do with mainly the victim of that Domestic Violence was usually the wife, or the girlfriend, or what the situation might be. Not in all incidents, but usually in that sequence. And they have become so used to being abused that they almost think its part of the relationship. So by requiring police to document these incidents, it gives them a better chance of breaking free from that relationship and maybe giving themselves a better chance of moving on. And then theres unhealthy family environment. together unhealthy family environment. When i encounter, and i have unfortunately encountered a lot of children who have been victims of abuse and that abuse comes in many different forms. It comes in the way of emotional abuse, of physical abuse, of sexual abuse. Gail pincus theyre coming from a background of having seen their father, or their mothers boyfriend, or lover, whoever, physically abuse their mother. And some of them were very severely abused themselves as children. So every time he turned around, his grandfather had him out in the backyard with a switch off the tree, beating him. His grandfather told him that if you didnt beat kids that they grow up bad. And that he only did this because he loved him. Astrid heger those children that are exposed to that Family Violence are the ones that are growing up to spread that violence. We know that witnessing violence against your mother in the household is probably one of the most toxic form of violence for a child to see or to be a victim of. They are the alcoholics, the drug abusers, the fathers that molest their kids. They are much more likely to to be in the criminal justice system. So you have a breeding ground of violence at home. Children who come from violent homes have a higher risk of alcohol, drug abuse and juvenile delinquency. Though violence impacts every race and ethnic group, it impacts more heavily on those who are poor. Astrid heger one breeding grod identifd for decades and its a ground where violence has been a major factor and that is inner city u. S. Weve done some amazingly bad things in those communities, like taking the kids out of the community rather than building the communy. You know, the idea of bussing the kids away from the community rather than restoring the community has allowed this abscess of inner city america to fester as violence. And most of us dont drive there at night. In the streets, the only way you can make a living is selling dope. Thats about it, you know. People sling dope to get paid, right . And they get paid, right . Excuse me, do people get paid . I think they do. It pays on the front end but on the back end, what do you pay with . Man your life. Your life, exactly. Though statistics sh that vlence disproportionately impacts the poor, there have also been incidents of violence in more affluent communities. Gail wyatt i think that violence in our society is very common. And very perplexing to many americans, because its reached the upper echelons. As long as it occurred in people of color or poor people or homeless people, criminals, you know, it was something that people could say, well, its those people. But when you see it occurring in suburban areas and in affluent families, and communities, i think it really begins to shake the roots of this society and begins to call into question. What exactly is happening. I think thats very unfortunate. I think if we had been concerned about anyone being a victim of violence, we would have been a lot better prepared but any phenomena thats left unchecked is going to move into the basic core of our society. Maybe finally, in this country, because violence has seeped out of inner city, well begin to address treating it as an epidemic. And that means that were not only going to treat littleton, colorado, but were also going to treat compton, california, with the same energy in identifying the problems there and creating a community, and giving the kids alternatives to violent behavior and making them understand that being that violence is not an ok way of life. And i think thats where the future is. When the medical Community Begins to deal with an epidemic, it looks for ways to treat those who have been affected and for ways to prevent the disease from spreading. Astrid heger theres two groups of children that we certainly see here and that were treating. One group are the children who are direct victims of an assault against them, then theres another big grp of kth were seeing he in this program and that is the childr that are exposed to violence. And we are regardless of whether theyve ever been hit, whatever, we are engaged in a Preventive Program with them, immediately when theyve been identified that theyre in a violent environment. So if their mothers been hit we have a number of children here whove witnessed their siblings killed by caretakers, et cetera all of those children get an extensive prevention and treatment plan. So that they we begin to give them alternatives and for them to identify that thats not the appropriate behavior. We have to build a system to immunize. Thats the other mode of prevention that we talk about when were talking about an infection. I cant go in that house and prevent that man om hitting his wife inro of his child. But i can say when that child comes to the school system, whether its public or private, from day one. There is a builtin system of prevention conflict resolution, violence is not good, its not okay to hit. Stress control and anger management are important elements in the Violence Prevention Programs in atlanta. They give tomorrows adults the skills they need to cope with stress and anger without resorting to violence. Teacher does everyone have stress . Children yes. Right. It doesnt matter how old you are, what ethnic group you belong to, stress can affect you. Give me an example of a bad stress. Child when y are about to get into a fight, and you dont want to fight that person and everybodys cheering