Structural Factors Affecting the Level

¶ … structural factors affecting the level of violence in America. Violent crime is viewed to be one of America's most significant social problems, so it is important to study the different factors that contribute to rates of violence in our society. This type of work on the part of sociologists is important in the face of apathy among members of the general public towards the issue of violence in society.

Violence is typically understood as violent crime, so that the definition is often tied to charges or convictions relating to violent criminal acts. Acts that go undetected by law, or that go uncharged -- as is the case with many instances of bullying and domestic violence -- are considered in the study of violence but are not always included in the traditional definition. Some studies break down violence by type, for example Ander et al.'s (2009) work on gun violence in Chicago. At times, violence is blended with aggression, in order to address acts of violence or the threat of violence that exists outside of the criminal justice system.

There are a number of causal factors associated with violence in society. Prothrow-Smith (1995) identified a number of factors generally considered to contribute to the level of violence in society -- family stability, education, and other social conditions such as poverty all have a high correlation with rates of violence. Other contributing factors include peer influences, antisocial personality traits, depression, abuse history (Ferguson, San Miguel and Hartley, 2009). One of the more contentious potential influences is that of violent images in media. Television, movies and video games in particular have come under fire for their depictions of violence, although other media forms have also occasionally come under fire -- music and books in particular. While Ferguson et al. found no link between violence in media and violent behavior, a German study by Krahe and Moller (2010) did find a link in both boys and girls.

The German study also examined the links between media violence and empathy. It is often viewed that a relative lack of empathy is a condition associated with violence in society. American society has a higher rate of violence, therefore, in part due to its highly individualistic nature.

There are a number of consequences of violence in society. A higher rate of fear is one of those consequences, and this fear drives a number of other outcomes, including "white flight" and social attitudes that stigmatize members of groups that are believed to have higher rates of violence. Violence also directly costs thousands of American lives each year, and steeper rates still of injury. This has a direct economic impact in terms of missed work; employees lost either due to violence or to prison; certain violence-prone regions suffer economically; and many members of society become less productive than they otherwise would be.

The structural functionalism perspective is particularly useful in understanding violence in America. The approach is focused on integrating norms, institutions and customs into the framework by which an issue is examined. In the case of violence, there are no clear problems, but rather a broad range of contributing factors that impact the level of violence in American society. The broad-based, integrative approach of structural functionalism is well-suited to understanding how this broad range of factors influences violence because it examines each factor not only individually but in context with each other as well.

There are a number of preferred solutions to the social ill of violence. Norms and customs are often the target of such solutions. For example, public education programs are utilized to help convey that violence is unacceptable in society. The issue is often dealt with in terms of both prevention and intervention strategies (Eisenbraun, 2007). This flows from an approach focused on reducing the structural antecedents of violence, while allowing that there are times when violence but be addressed on an individual and specific level owing to the complex underlying causes of violence and the ramification that all violence acts stem from a unique set of circumstances.

The strengths of this perspective lie in its ability to bring together a broad range of underlying factors that contributes to a societal ill. Violence is subject to a broad range of underlying factors, so it requires a comprehensive approach such as that offered by structural functionalism. Conflict theory is inadequate to address the issue of violence because it is rules out non-conflict sources of violence. For violence committed outside of a poor-on-rich or some other societal mismatch of perpetrator-victim, there is no explanation in conflict theory. Social interactionism has some value in understanding individual acts of violence, and the complex nature of violence lends itself to the approach. However, social interactionism fails to deliver policy prescriptions because it is too acutely focused on individual acts, and inhibits sociologists from understanding the preventable, macro level causes of violence.