19 results
6 - Healthcare
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 90-103
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Summary
Hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities are potential hotbeds for covert violence, if for no other reason than the fact that many, many people die there every year. After all, patients typically check into a hospital because of serious illness or injury, and nursing homes are intended for those who need round-the-clock care. Although most of the sick and injured who seek medical care in the United States and elsewhere are treated and then released on the road to recovery, many others die on the operating table or in their hospital bed. Death is very much part of life in healthcare facilities, which unfortunately also makes them places where a killer can operate unnoticed for long periods of time without being discovered.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), diseases, illnesses, and other naturally occurring medical conditions account for more than 90 percent of U.S. deaths each year, with a large proportion of those occurring in medical facilities (although at lower rates than in the past, as greater awareness of palliative care and concern for patient preferences have resulted in more people dying in their own homes; see Shmerling [2018]). Add to that U.S. deaths from accidents (the third-highest cause of U.S. deaths), assaults, and complications of medical and surgical care—many of which also occur in medical facilities—and the death toll seems staggering. With nearly three million total U.S. deaths a year (Xu et al., 2021) and more than 700,000 people dying annually in hospitals (Shmerling, 2018), it seems reasonable to estimate that at least one million deaths collectively occur in U.S. healthcare facilities each year.
The lack of clear data related to medical deaths is an enormous obstacle preventing better understanding of the covert violence that occurs in these settings. The CDC recorded 5,329 U.S. deaths in 2019 that were caused by “complications of medical and surgical care” (Xu et al., 2021). This category includes deaths from medical devices, adverse effects related to incorrect doses of therapeutic medications, and difficulties that arose during surgical or medical care. However, deaths from accidental overdoses of a drug or from drugs administered in error are excluded here, even when they occurred in a healthcare setting and/or the drugs were administered by a doctor or other healthcare professional.
About the Author
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Book:
- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp v-vi
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Frontmatter
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp i-ii
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Appendix: Case Summaries
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 131-147
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Summary
Using the Nexis database of newspapers and newswires across the United States, we collected the following 37 cases covering a three-year period (June 2017 to July 2020) in which a death that was originally classified as something other than homicide was subsequently reclassified as homicide.
David Schlachet (Vincent and Dorn, 2020)
In July 2018, the superintendent at 48-year-old Lara Prychodko’s Manhattan apartment building found her mangled body in the trash compactor after an apparent 27-flight fall down the garbage chute. Authorities said she had an abnormally high alcohol level in her system and ruled it a “fatal accident.” A year later, however, New York City former chief medical examiner Michael Baden agreed to take another look. Finding indications that Prychodko had been strangled to death before being placed into the chute, as well as seeing little bleeding from lacerations sustained in the fall, the doctor concluded that the manner of death was most likely homicide. Moreover, Baden said the fact that Prychodko’s body was found topless would be unusual in an accident scenario and might be evidence that a struggle took place. At the time of her death, Lara and her estranged husband were in the midst of a highly contentious divorce, even though 55-year-old David Schlachet’s construction company continued to struggle after a 2016 bankruptcy. He had also been ordered to pay alimony and attorney fees to Prychodko, who was favored to gain child custody and a percentage of their millions of dollars in assets.
Karl Karlsen (Flynn, 2020)
Karl Karlsen’s first wife, 30-year-old Christina, died in a January 1991 house fire in Murphys, California. When the fire broke out, she was trapped in a bathroom behind a boarded-up window and had no way to escape the conflagration. Firefighters ruled the blaze accidental, and Karl Karlsen collected $200,000 in life insurance that he had taken out on Christina shortly before her death. He then moved with his children across the country to Varick, New York and remarried. In November 2008, he killed his son by making a truck slip off its jack while the 23-year-old was underneath it, crushing him to death.
5 - Politics and Government
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 74-89
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Summary
Covert violence has always played an important role in supplementing conventional warfare. In 2016, for example, British special forces waged covert military operations in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya (Curtis and Kennard, 2019). However, two days after the U.K. Secretary of State for Defence stated that there were no plans to deploy troops to the Middle East, reports surfaced that British troops had secretly blown up an Islamic State vehicle carrying large amounts of explosives. Clandestine attacks by weaker operatives have also occurred, with devastating consequences in the United States, a country widely known for its military might. The most infamous examples include the December 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces and the September 11, 2001 attacks perpetrated by al-Qaeda terrorists; each resulted in the loss of thousands of American lives, many more injuries, and massive destruction of property.
Moreover, biological warfare has a centuries-long history around the world, as well as in the United States, such as the British colonists’ deliberate distribution of smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans in the 1760s (Frischknecht, 2003). In modern U.S. history, the worst bio-terrorism attack—in terms of number of victims—occurred nearly 40 years ago in Oregon under highly unusual circumstances. In the early 1980s, several hundred followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Indian spiritual leader who founded the Rajneesh movement, established a compound in northern Oregon, about an hour east of Portland. The Rajneeshees, as the followers were known, unnerved the residents of nearby Antelope (which has maintained a population under 100 since the 1940 Census). At first, it was because they all wore the same red clothing, participated in communal chanting and meditation, and demonstrated other odd forms of behavior. Later, it was because they began to outnumber the longtime residents and take over local politics. In fact, the city of Antelope was briefly renamed Rajneesh, Oregon, around this time.
When the Rajneeshees decided to aim even higher politically, they set their sights on the county seat of the city of The Dalles. The outnumbered group tried various strategies to sway the 1984 county election in their favor, including bussing in thousands of homeless people from around the United States who promised to vote for the Rajneeshee candidates—until that move was blocked by an emergency rule for suspected voter fraud.
Acknowledgments
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Book:
- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp vii-viii
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3 - Formal Education
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 47-61
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Summary
On a beautiful Monday afternoon in the late fall of 2008, two men arrived at the Houston, Texas, home of their friend, a philosophy professor at the nearby university. They looked forward to the weekly discussions that focused on the theoretical traditions known as “Continental philosophy” and planned to continue their engaging dialog on Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time from the week before. A quick glance at their friend’s empty carport told the pair that the popular professor must be running late—most likely lingering to entertain the seemingly endless questions of his eager-minded students—but waiting together in the warm Southern sun was no bother. Plus, it wasn’t unusual for their friend to be a little late for a meeting now and then; he carried a heavier teaching load than most other faculty members in the department and always prioritized his students’ needs above all else.
After more time had passed, the men decided to call their friend’s cellphone to check on him. It wasn’t until that call went unanswered that they started to worry. Despite the professor’s absent vehicle, they thought that he still could be home and mused at how silly they would feel if they had waited outside all that time for no good reason. One of the men tried the front door and found it unlocked. When he tried to push it open, however, something seemed to be in the way. After managing to open the door enough to squeeze by and step inside, the man who had just been chatting and laughing with one friend while waiting for another, who had planned to while away the evening in debate and deliberation, suddenly realized that nothing would ever be the same again. There, at the bottom of the staircase just inside the front door, was the body of his friend—the beloved professor—now with a bluish tint to the skin and blood trickling on the floor behind his head. The man yelled to his waiting companion to dial 911.
The 54-year-old scholar was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy revealed the cause to be trauma to the back of the head—presumably from a tumble down the stairs—and the medical examiner ruled it an accidental death.
7 - Mass Media
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Book:
- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 104-115
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Summary
When thinking about violence against members of the mass media, the cases that tend to come to mind are those with the most famous victims, the most brazen perpetrators, and the most bizarre details. These cases involve mostly overt methods that frequently begin with an innocent-seeming initial contact before escalating over time to stalking behaviors and eventually one or more attempted or completed physical attacks, perhaps with a firearm or a knife. Indeed, numerous entertainers have been subjected to potentially violent stalkers. Media personalities are at particular risk for being stalked partly because of their high profile, but also because their role—whether they happen to be an entertainer, news anchor, radio morning show host, or politician—requires them to pander to an audience and sustain public attention (Wilson et al., 2018).
Many people have sent fan mail to their favorite celebrities and/or reached out to them on social media, and some die-hard fans pay exorbitant sums of money for backstage passes and meet-and-greet events with A-list stars. Very few would ever attempt to get closer than that, and rarer still are the handful of deranged individuals out there who develop unhealthy obsessions with famous people that may lead to dangerous—and sometimes deadly—consequences. Among the most notorious of these incidents are the fatal shootings of singer John Lennon in 1980 by an angry Beatles fan, of actor and model Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989 by an obsessed devotee, and of singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez in 1995 by the former president of her fan club. Several laws and other practices changed in the 1990s (particularly in response to the death of Schaeffer, who was shot in the doorway of her home after the killer obtained her address via California Department of Motor Vehicles records) that have helped to prevent more of these incidents, though they certainly still occur.
In a recent example, up-and-coming singer Christina Grimmie (who finished in third place on season six of The Voice) was fatally shot in 2016 by an obsessed fan while the 22-year-old signed autographs after a concert in Orlando, Florida. Stalkers have broken into the homes of Sandra Bullock, Selena Gomez, and Jennifer Lopez; have trespassed on properties owned by Kendall Jenner, Madonna, and Taylor Swift; and have sent unwanted letters and gifts to numerous others.
List of Figures and Tables
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp iv-iv
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Contents
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp iii-iii
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Index
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 148-154
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2 - Family and Close Relationships
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 22-46
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Summary
One finding from our exploratory study of reclassified U.S. deaths (see Chapter 1) suggests that the perpetrators and victims in cases of covertly committed murder are disproportionately more likely to have shared a familial or other close relationship compared to those involved in overtly committed incidents. Indeed, an established relationship with a would-be victim—especially if that relationship includes the assumption of trust—would be an advantage for a covert perpetrator. That is because covert violence often requires the perpetrator to have close access to either the intended victim or to an item that they would not hesitate to ingest or have in close proximity. While most people would be suspicious of food or drink that was left on their porch by an unknown person, they would likely put no thought at all into accepting a cup of coffee from a friend or eating a meal prepared by their spouse.
Related to the apparently higher incidence of covert violence within families and friendships is another finding from our study: that women appear to commit covert acts of violence at far higher rates than is reported in official data on violent crime. This may be explained, in part, because of an inverse relationship between women’s access to power and their access to family members and friends. The family happens to be the one social institution in which U.S. women are disproportionately deficient relative to men in all three types of power that are relevant to covert violence (that is, physical, economic, and personal). Economically, women in paid work still earn less than men on average (Aragao, 2023), and mothers are more likely than fathers to head a single-parent household (Livingston, 2018). These facts combined help to account for women’s higher rate of poverty compared to men (Semega, 2019).
While it may be pure mythology to depict our cave-dwelling masculine ancestors as clubbing their female companions before dragging them off by the hair, the contemporary version of the mythical caveman has its counterpart in reality. It is clear, however, that men’s greater-on-average capacity to physically overpower women is exponentially more dangerous when combined with traditional gender roles that legitimate male aggression and encourage female submission, a dynamic that still exists in many American families today.
8 - Shining Light on the Shadows
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Book:
- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 116-130
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Preventing covert violence is perhaps even more difficult than preventing overt forms of criminal behavior. To a large degree, this is because the covert version is often harder to detect and/or is easily misunderstood as something else. Enough cases of presumed accidental deaths subsequently turn out to be murders that we can reasonably assume that many acts of covert violence are either never discovered or never identified as intentional.
Some incidents remain in an indefinite state of uncertainty within the minds of officials. The Pepsi and Tylenol cases in Chapter 4 are perfect examples, as each implicates customers and companies in plots that they may or may not have initiated. Similarly, the 2001 anthrax attacks in the aftermath of 9/11 continue to generate significantly divided opinions among experts and members of the public as to their origins, with some accusing prominent scientists or the 9/11 terrorists and others promoting conspiracy theories that involve images of a deep state within the U.S. federal government. If those infamous incidents were never officially solved, then it would not be surprising to find that many lower-profile cases are missed entirely.
Unlike unsolved cases, in which the action is recognized as malicious even if the identity of the perpetrator is unknown or ambiguous, undetected covert cases produce nothing that appears to need solving. Compared to maliciously inflicted injuries and deaths, those that are deemed accidental, due to natural causes, or self-inflicted generally require much less (if any) investigation and follow-up. And once an official classification has been made, there are virtually no mechanisms in place for routine reconsideration. It often takes years of persistence from a victim’s friend or family member to convince an authority figure to take another look, and frequently that suspicious person must uncover some kind of new evidence before they find anyone who will listen.
There are also practical reasons for not investigating a death when the manner and/or cause appears to be obvious. Determining the exact cause of a death requires available and sufficient funding, as well as other limited resources such as the time and expertise of physicians and/or other scientists.
4 - The Workplace
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Book:
- Covert Violence
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- Bristol University Press
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- 03 April 2024
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- 17 October 2023, pp 62-73
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Summary
On July 20, 2006, Adrienne Miranda, of Lutherville, Maryland, received the call that every parent dreads. On the line was her ex-husband, with whom she shared two sons, informing her that their 19-year-old son Joseph was dead. The only information known at that time was that the teenager had been found face down in the dirt after somehow being crushed under a Bobcat earth mover while working at his summer landscaping job. Joseph had recently graduated from high school and planned to attend college to become a landscape architect when his life was cut short. In the ensuing days after the tragedy, questions swirled around what exactly had happened to Joseph. One of the two witnesses at the scene—the Bobcat driver—seemed as confused as anyone, while the other told a shifting story about a supposedly freak accident.
What seems clear is that Joseph had been well liked by the other employees and was quickly climbing the workplace ladder, having already achieved a promotion to foreman at the time of his death. However, such success at a young age sometimes breeds resentment from others—especially those with more work experience or years with the company who have been denied the benefits and/or promotions to which they believe they are entitled—who feel the sting of powerlessness.
In any case, Adrienne never believed that her son’s death was an accident, even though this was the official ruling of every county authority that reviewed the case, including the prosecutor’s office in Carroll County (where the landscaping company was located), the prosecutor’s office and police in Baltimore County (where she and her son lived), and even prosecutors in nearby Frederick County. Nevertheless, the grieving mother vowed to fight as long as it would take to prove that her son was murdered—or to at least convince someone in authority to listen. It took more than five years, but she finally succeeded.
In August 2011, Joseph’s manner of death was officially changed from accident to homicide. Dr. Zubiullah Ali, the assistant medical examiner for Baltimore County who agreed to re-examine the autopsy report, found “no plausible explanation as to why [Joseph] was in a face down position while run over by the Bobcat” (Hermann, 2011), instead concluding that he had been pushed or knocked down into the path of the reversing machine.
1 - An Introduction to Covert Violence, Power, and Social Institutions
- Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, Julie B. Wiest, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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- Book:
- Covert Violence
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 03 April 2024
- Print publication:
- 17 October 2023, pp 1-21
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Summary
Violent crime and sadistic behavior are often featured prominently in Western news and entertainment media. Many of these consumers, particularly in the United States, have become accustomed to reports of deadly school shootings, mass killings in public places like cinemas and shopping malls, and racist attacks inside community centers and houses of worship. Every day in cities and towns around the world, brutal gang warfare and acts of domestic violence tear at the fabric of social life. These types of violence are explicit, shocking, and often sensationalized, spreading fear throughout a community. They have also received plenty of attention from academics, journalists, members of law enforcement, and members of the public with an interest in crime and violent behavior.
Covert violence, on the other hand, is a type of everyday violence that exists deep in the shadows of society. Until now, these acts of murder, mischief, and mayhem have been mostly overlooked in academic and mainstream studies of criminal behavior. They are generally unnoticed by would-be victims, too—that is, until it is too late. Indeed, inconspicuousness is a common feature of these violent acts, and the perpetrators rely on others’ inattention as they plot and prepare before striking surreptitiously and then slinking back under cover.
Most reported violence involves an overt act, or an explicit and aggressive encounter between offender(s) and victim(s). In contrast, property crimes tend to be covert acts in terms of the offenders’ efforts to avoid detection and contact with victims. Most home break-ins occur in unoccupied dwellings, for example, and acts of vandalism are rarely committed in broad daylight. The clandestine aspect of covert violence defies this crime pattern, but its damage is just as devastating and potentially deadly as any other violent event. These acts of violence are committed by perpetrators who avoid drawing attention to themselves by maintaining a low profile and staying far away from the public spotlight. Not unlike many property offenses, covert acts of violence typically remain subterranean. Unlike many school shooters and rampage killers, those who commit covert violence—even deadly violence—are not interested in seeing their name in the news or their picture on the cover of People magazine.
Covert Violence
- The Secret Weapon of the Powerless
- Jack Levin, Julie B. Wiest
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- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 03 April 2024
- Print publication:
- 17 October 2023
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Covert violence occurs in all social institutions and this compelling, much-needed book is for all those who seek to understand - and strive to prevent - violence in society. This book takes a new and engaging focus on the perpetrators of surreptitious violence on unsuspecting victims.
Series Editors’ Preface: Interpretive Lenses in Sociology – On the Multidimensional Foundations of Meaning in Social Life
- Edited by Thomas DeGloma, Hunter College, City University of New York, Janet Jacobs, University of Colorado Boulder
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- Book:
- Interpreting Contentious Memory
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 20 January 2024
- Print publication:
- 28 June 2023, pp vii-xi
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Summary
Sociology is an interpretive endeavor. Whatever the approach taken to study and explain an aspect of social life – qualitative or quantitative, micro or macro – sociologists work to interpret their data to reveal previously unseen, or to clarify previously misunderstood, social forces. However, within the broad field of sociology, and under the purview of its kindred disciplines, there are many scholars who work to unpack the deep structures and processes that underlie the meanings of social life. These interpretive scholars focus on the ways that social meanings constitute the core structures of self and identity, the ways that individuals negotiate meanings to define their shared situations, and the collective meanings that bind people together into communities while also setting any given group or context apart from others. From this perspective, meaning underscores social mindsets and personal orientations in the world, as well as the solidarities and divisions that define the dynamics and mark the boundaries of our social standpoints and relationships. Furthermore, such scholars are concerned not only with how the individuals and groups they study actively make and remake the definitions that are central to their lives, as well as how those understandings influence their behaviors, but also how they seek to impact the world with their meaning-making processes. In this regard, meaning is of paramount significance to both the extraordinary moments and the routine circumstances of our lives.
In their efforts to illuminate the deep social foundations of meaning, and to detail the very real social, political, and moral consequences that stem from the ways people define and know the world around them, interpretive scholars explore the semiotic significance of social actions and interactions, narratives and discourses, experiences and events. In contrast to those who take a positivist or realist perspective and see the world – or, more precisely, argue that the world can be known – in a more direct or literal light,3 they use various approaches and draw on different interpretive traditions to decipher their cases in order to better understand the deep social, cultural, and psychic foundations of the phenomena they study.
Series Editors’ Preface: Interpretive Lenses in Sociology—On the Multidimensional Foundations of Meaning in Social Life
- Edited by Andrea Cossu, Università degli Studi di Trento, Italy, Jorge Fontdevila, California State University, Fullerton
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- Book:
- Interpretive Sociology and the Semiotic Imagination
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 20 January 2024
- Print publication:
- 25 May 2023, pp vi-x
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Summary
Sociology is an interpretive endeavor. Whatever the approach taken to study and explain an aspect of social life— qualitative or quantitative, micro or macro— sociologists work to interpret their data to reveal previously unseen, or to clarify previously misunderstood, social forces. However, within the broad field of sociology, and under the purview of its kindred disciplines, there are many scholars who work to unpack the deep structures and processes that underlie the meanings of social life. These interpretive scholars focus on the ways that social meanings constitute the core structures of self and identity, the ways that individuals negotiate meanings to define their shared situations, and the collective meanings that bind people together into communities while also setting any given group or context apart from others. From this perspective, meaning underscores social mindsets and personal orientations in the world, as well as the solidarities and divisions that define the dynamics and mark the boundaries of our social standpoints and relationships. Furthermore, such scholars are concerned not only with how the individuals and groups they study actively make and remake the definitions that are central to their lives, as well as how those understandings influence their behaviors, but also how they seek to impact the world with their meaning-making processes. In this regard, meaning is of paramount significance to both the extraordinary moments and the routine circumstances of our lives.
In their efforts to illuminate the deep social foundations of meaning, and to detail the very real social, political, and moral consequences that stem from the ways people define and know the world around them, interpretive scholars explore the semiotic significance of social actions and interactions, narratives and discourses, experiences and events. In contrast to those who take a positivist or realist perspective and see the world— or, more precisely, argue that the world can be known— in a more direct or literal light, they use various approaches and draw on different interpretive traditions to decipher their cases in order to better understand the deep social, cultural, and psychic foundations of the phenomena they study. From such interpretive perspectives, a fundamental part of any social phenomenon is not directly evident or visible. Rather, the core foundations of meaning underlying the cases scholars study need to be unpacked, analyzed, and interpreted— and then rearticulated— to comprehend their deeper essences.
Series Editors’ Preface: Interpretive Lenses in Sociology – On the Multidimensional Foundations of Meaning in Social Life
- Edited by Erin Johnston, Stanford University, California, Vikash Singh
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- Book:
- Interpreting Religion
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 13 October 2022
- Print publication:
- 31 May 2022, pp xiii-xviii
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Summary
Sociology is an interpretive endeavor. Whatever the approach taken to study and explain an aspect of social life – qualitative or quantitative, micro or macro – sociologists work to interpret their data to reveal previously unseen, or to clarify previously misunderstood, social forces. However, within the broad field of sociology, and under the purview of its kindred disciplines, there are many scholars who work to unpack the deep structures and processes that underlie the meanings of social life. These interpretive scholars focus on the ways that social meanings constitute the core structures of self and identity, the ways that individuals negotiate meanings to define their shared situations, and the collective meanings that bind people together into communities while also setting any given group or context apart from others. From this perspective, meaning underscores social mindsets and personal orientations in the world, as well as the solidarities and divisions that define the dynamics and mark the boundaries of our social standpoints and relationships. Furthermore, such scholars are concerned not only with how the individuals and groups they study actively make and remake the definitions that are central to their lives, as well as how those understandings influence their behaviors, but also how they seek to impact the world with their meaning-making processes. In this regard, meaning is of paramount significance to both the extraordinary moments and the routine circumstances of our lives.
In their efforts to illuminate the deep social foundations of meaning, and to detail the very real social, political, and moral consequences that stem from the ways people define and know the world around them, interpretive scholars explore the semiotic significance of social actions and interactions, narratives and discourses, experiences and events. In contrast to those who take a positivist or realist perspective and see the world – or, more precisely, argue that the world can be known – in a more direct or literal light, they use various approaches and draw on different interpretive traditions to decipher their cases in order to better understand the deep social, cultural, and psychic foundations of the phenomena they study. From such interpretive perspectives, a fundamental part of any social phenomenon is not directly evident or visible. Rather, the core foundations of meaning underlying the cases scholars study need to be unpacked, analyzed, and interpreted – and then rearticulated – to comprehend their deeper essences.