Better angels of our nature - Ode to 2014

The perfect way to start a new year is to take a big picture look at our future trajectory. For that, one book stands above all others - Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature.

This summer I linked to a TED Talk by Pinker when I first described his work in my blog Rising above the swamp.

I've just re-read Better Angels and it's terrific. Pinker shines a beam of analysis through the dark media images of "breaking news exclusives" and instant access to every hell-in-a-hand-basket story in every corner of the globe. In doing so he reveals that violence world-wide is on the decline. Contrary to media stories, things are getting better, not worse!

Pinker is no slouch waxing eloquent. He is an award-winning, Harvard based, Canadian-born experimental and cognitive psychologist. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Time Magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential scientists.

Peter Singer's review says it all:

"The central thesis of “Better Angels” is that our era is less violent, less cruel and more peaceful than any previous period of human existence. The decline in violence holds for violence in the family, in neighborhoods, between tribes and between states. "

Pinker's book Better Angels of Our Nature reexamines the history of violence

Enter the naysayers: Edward S. Herman and David Peterson's On The Alleged Decline of Violence.

First they say Pinker ventures too far outside his field of expertise. Now there's an irony-drenched slam (Herman is a professor of finance and Peterson a journalist).

Then they claim Pinker "completely ignores the kind of violence that is built into the structure of social relations and shows up…as unequal life chances…such as the savage global class war of the 1 percent against the other 99”.

Wandering so blithely onto the thin ice of political polemics, I wonder how long it would take their "savage global class war" to crash through the frozen pond of cultural relativism upon witnessing the bloody genocidal slaughter of the Mongol invasions or a half million murdered during the Christian Inquisitions?

Perhaps the long-term decline of violence will not persist. Perhaps war will break out over environmental collapse or an empty island in the East China Sea. There are plenty of problems to fix, especially the environment! And crime still persists.

But I'm a bit weary of the cynical, sky-is-falling crowd…when it isn't. Stewart Brand says "It is sometimes fashionable to despise modernity. A more appropriate response is gratitude." 

I agree.

A new year is upon us. Let's take a breath, appreciate our remarkable historical progress, and then reset our sights on our many remaining problems. Including crime.

Happy New Year!

We still allow places of high crime risk. We can do better.

Rising above the swamp

Nobel-prize laureate Malala Yousufzai - Photo Creative Commons by Southbank Center

This week I watched Malala Yousufzai speaking to the United Nations, the brave 16-year old Pakistani student whom the Taliban attempted to murder because she promoted education for girls. She is inspirational and, though a victim of violence, offers welcome respite from news of violence.

Whether Islamist fanatics killing young Muslim girls or fundamentalist Christian ideologues attacking abortion clinics, Malala Yousufzai reminds us political nutcases will always surface. Tragic also is how they are sensationalized in the putrid swamp that passes for contemporary news reporting. That may be as much the fault the media as it is the fault of the extremists themselves.

News reports of violence

The same can be said for stories of murder, rape and violence that find their way into headlines. Is there validity to the claim that by airing such atrocities we raise alarm, show disgust, and shame local authorities into taking action? Does media attention allow us to hear the Yousufzai’s of the world?

Perhaps.

Putting aside for a moment recent blips in crime trends of a few cities, (possibly due to the Recession) new research suggests the trend for worldwide murder, mayhem and violence is actually on the decrease. Yes, things are getting better (though you wouldn't know it from the media)!

This according to a number of respected journalists who rise above the putrid smell of info-tainment, for example Joe Schlesinger’s recent article on CBC titled You do know, right, that the world is getting better?


Steven Pinkers 2007 TED.com presentation “The Decline of Violence”

Schleshinger cites Steven Pinker’s book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. Pinker reveals a dramatic decline in violence rates around the world. The Middle Ages - the so-called Dark Ages - were particularly brutal and violent says Pinker.

He should know. Ever since criminologist Ted Robert Gurr wrote the historical classic Rogues, Rebels and Reformers in the 1970s (showing the same downward trend from ancient times until the crime explosions in the 1960s), few historians have looked so exhaustively at the topic. Pinker has compiled the most comprehensive historical data on homicide to date.

"Even for the 20th century as a whole, with its two world wars, revolutions, genocides and man-made famines, the violent death rate was down to 3 percent…a marked decline from the 15 and 10 percent rates that he documents for prehistoric times and the Middle Ages." 

It is left to Malala Yousufzai, a victim of violence, to show us that even in a swamp there are flowers.

Cutting violence with social science

Irvin Waller is a leading expert in violence prevention. He is professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa. He developed the Safer Cities program with the United Nations Habitat and was a founder of the UN-affiliated International Centre for the Prevention of Crime. Irvin agreed to offer the following blog to SafeGrowth about a new study on preventing violence. 

A new study confirms sustainable ways for violence prevention to succeed against one of the most intransigent challenges for urban violence. Prairie cities in Canada have failed for many decades to prevent violence affecting urban Aboriginal peoples. Politicians and judges seemed to only be able to react with prison time and punishment.

This comprehensive study bravely starts with the innovative goal of stopping violence before it leads to victimization and criminal justice costs. It examined both the social science knowledge on what reduces crime affecting urban Aboriginal people as well as a growing body of knowledge about how ¨risk focused¨ prevention gets implemented and sustained.

RESEARCH 

The study tested this knowledge with stakeholders in one of the cities. Stakeholders were optimistic about the potential for risk focused strategies to reduce crime and prevent victimization in this difficult inner city population. However, the stakeholders and the study identified missing pieces.

For instance, success requires cities to support a leadership centre to sustain partnerships between schools, housing, policing and others. Funding must go to smart policing and effective prevention – not one or the other.

A plethora of government agencies provide living proof that violence is preventable, not inevitable. The U.S. Department of Justice and the World Health Organization have scoured the world to provide even more. Public Safety Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada have selected best practices and made them publicly accessible. 

But despite their success, these practices have yet to be shared and implemented from coast to coast. As a result, cities like Edmonton and Winnipeg still ended 2011 with record numbers of homicide victims.

The chief of detectives for Glasgow, one of the U.K.’s most violent cities, got fed up investigating homicides. Looking for another option, he took knowledge from around the world and applied it locally, targeting gang violence. He brought in public-health experts and oversaw the installation of programs to limit alcohol abuse, stop youth from carrying weapons, promote mentoring, improve bad parenting, and more. 

Five years later, these efforts have reduced rates of violent offending by 50 per cent among those engaging with the initiative.

For more information, visit http://irvinwaller.org/

The Interrupters

Dying in the street - scene from The Interrupters

Gary Slutkin is another prevention kid with a great program on the block. Despite Newsweek's yellow journalism alleging conflicts between David Kennedy's and Gary Slutkin's different anti-violence programs (and their eviscerating response), they both have the same goal and similar successes. You say tomato, I say tomahto.

Recall Kennedy uses the justice system, targets high risk populations, collects cases on offenders, and uses the threat of sanctions to intervene.

Slutkin takes the public health approach. He blocks violent outbreaks by targeting high risk offenders and uses community "interrupters". Interrupters are savvy street workers who convince family and friends to help offenders see violence is in no one's best interest.

A new award winning film is out called The Interrupters. It describes a year in the life of violence in Chicago. It's a fascinating documentary about Slutkin's program.



I hope the film - and the program - does well.

Still…getting the right program is only half the battle. Staying on point is the other.

Kennedy's CeaseFire anti-violence program cut Boston homicides in half in the 1990s - the Boston Miracle. Now he says they moved away from CeaseFire and crime is on the rise. Streetworker unionization, role change and budget cuts decimated a once proud program.

Oakland too lost the plot. Courts issued gang injunctions without CeaseFire coordination. Then "funds from the city to CeaseFire were interrupted when the number of Oakland police dropped below levels required by the ballot measure."

When will officials learn to keep political fingers off things that actually work in the hood? When will we, the neighborhood dwelling public, wise-up and slap their fingers for it?

Escaping L.A.'s violence - a haven within

An L.A. Times article tells a story we should heed, a gem at the end of a neighborhood safety rainbow. The gem is Vermont Knolls, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. The L.A. Times calls VK a "place where people know each other, have an emotional and financial investment and don't take kindly to anything that might disturb the peace."

In any traditional suburb we might label that NIBMYism. Here - for very different reasons – something else is going on.

In the past 3 years the L.A. Times reports there were 2,603 murders in Los Angeles. In the vortex of the gangs, drugs and shooting storm lies Vermont Knolls where the Times says there hasn't been a single murder in the core area. In fact, the first murder in 3 years happened only 5 days ago.

Even in neighborhoods immediately adjacent to Vermont Knolls there are of lots of murders. Those nearby places suffered 28 homicides in the same period. No doubt crime still happens in VK, but why so few murders?

The L.A. Times story suggests a few answers.

* Though 15 gangs vie for control of turf around VK, police successfully targeted a gang who resided there.
* Surrounding areas are dominated by high turnover, section 8 subsidy housing, boarded up homes, foreclosures, liquor stores, and urban blight.
* In VK investors are working at commercial rehabilitation. It also has well-maintained lawns and not many front yard fences.
*Courts have passed gang injunctions.
*Unlike nearby areas, VK has formed an influential advocacy group, the Community Coalition, to organize themselves.
* VK uses extensive outreach programs including church sponsored activities.
* VK has older and more long-term residents, more owner-occupied single homes, and folks with roots.


Notice police and courts play only a limited role, such as selected gang enforcement and a community police station.

Notice also the broader agenda carried on by investors, a community-group, a church, and neighbors themselves.

Ben Adler says it best in his Next American City article "Crime's Bottom Line".

...while crime has continued dropping in New York, it has begun to level off in many cities, including D.C., that have employed the same police tactics [Broken Windows]. In D.C. murders rose slightly in 2007 and 2008, and crime in general remains persistent...while infinitely better than when the city had 482 murders (compared to 186 in 2008), is still surprisingly high for a city that has experienced a recent boom in residential demand and commercial activity.

D.C.’s experience demonstrates the limits of police-based approaches to crime prevention…Police tactics may get the crime rate down from epidemic proportions, but they won’t fix the root problems.