by Jane Gilgun
Part of a group who are preoccupied with violence
____The group has violent initiation rites
____The group has one or more leader who advocates violence
____The group has a set of core beliefs that bind members together; most of these beliefs advocate violence to further the mission of the group
____Violence within the group is a means of showing that you've got guts
____Leaders of the group manipulate one or more members; the members must susceptible to manipulation may be at highest risk to act out in violent ways.
History of violence in the families of origin
This violence includes wife beating and rape, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and witnessing or being the target of such violence. Family practices can normalize violent behaviors so that it is natural for children growing up in these families.
Patterns of glorifying violence
Many people glorify violence as a mark of manhood. Glorifying means that members of peer groups or families congratulate the violent persons and give them respect and honor. Violence-prone persons may actively seek to spend time with others who also glorify violence.
Entitlement
Some people believe they are entitled to get what they want when they want. They push this belief to such an extent that they are willing to use whatever it takes, including violence, to get what they want.
The more of these factors persons have, the more serious is the potential for violence.
Indirect Indicators:
Signs of Cumulative Stress
Indirect indicators increase the likelihood of persons acting out violently, but by themselves they are indicators of serious issues that indicate the persons need intervention. If direct communication discussed earlier is not present, the likelihood of violence is diminished. If direct communication of violence and these signs of cumulative stress are present, then the likelihood of violence is increased.
Emotionally closed
An inability to share personal and private hurts, rejections, abandonments, and a sense of failure can increase risk for violence in persons who have other risks. Often persons who are emotionally closed have distanced themselves from their emotions and are unaware of how their inner states may be affecting them.
Shame and feeling defective
A sense of self as powerless and unworthy can lead to a sense of shame and feeling defective.
Unshared anger and grief
Unshared anger and grief may lead to a sense of the self as bad and deserving of bad things. The root meaning of anger is grief.
Anti-social behaviors
These behaviors include vandalism, shoplifting, stealing, and beating others up.
Often related to psychological stress and vulnerability, sometimes these crimes could result from a sense of entitlement, meaning these persons are destructive because they can get away with it and feel they have a right to behave in these ways.
Chemical abuse
Risks for violence include misuse of alcohol, drug use, use of inhalants, and sniffing glue. These behaviors could substitute for emotional expressiveness; that is, emotional expressiveness is a great release, but if individuals do not have capacities to express their emotions appropriately, they may use chemicals as a way of providing emotional release and comfort.
Self-injurious behaviors
These behaviors include cutting, eating problems, suicide attempts, talk of suicide.
Other Signs of Cumulative Stress
There are many signs of cumulative stress that merit attention, such as chronic behavioral maladaption, conduct disorders, chronic angry outbursts, psychosomatic disorders, dissociative reactions, phobias, depressive/suicidal thinking, social isolation, sleep disorders, night terrors, and sleep walking.
Many persons have these signs of cumulative stress but are not at risk to act out violently. They do not show patterns of making direct and indirect statements about their intentions to commit violence. They do not believe that they can do whatever they want, and they do not dream about hurting others to make themselves feel better.
Indicators of Lowered Risk
The following factors diminish the likelihood that individuals will act out verbal threats. The more negative factors that a person has, however, and the fewer positive factors, such as those listed below, the more likely it is that violence will take place.
Emotional expressiveness
This is the most important indicator of emotional health. Persons with lowered risk for violence share personal, painful experiences and express a wide range of emotions with at least one other person and finds that doing so helps them to feel better and to approach challenges in new ways, ways that do not harm themselves or others.
Automatic rejection of violent thoughts
Persons with lowered risk for violence may have violent thoughts from time to time, but when these thoughts arise they immediately think of the damage that such behaviors would cause. They immediately realize that others would be hurt, and, in the long run, they would be hurt by their own guilt and remorse and then hurt by other consequences such as public shame, arrests, court appearances, and possible jail time or prison.
Management of stress prosocially
Persons with lowered risks for violence choose prosocial ways of dealing with anger, range, frustration, and other negative emotions. They may talk to others about these strong feelings, or use other prosocial means, such as journaling, self-talk, meditation, yoga, vigorous exercise, and seek out prosocial, positive person.
Empathy for others
Connecting to others on both emotional and cognitive levels and having respect for others is an important indicator of emotional health. Sometimes persons with lowered risk for violence may not feel much empathy for others, but they also do nothing that would harm others.
Good interpersonal skills
Individuals with good interpersonal skills have lowered risks for violence. These skills include sharing personal issues with others, negotiating for what they want, knowing how to admit wrong-doing, taking responsibility for hurtful behaviors, and making amends for hurtful behaviors.
Spends time with friends who are pro-social
Admiring and emulating pro-social friends is a hopeful sign that persons are functioning well. Feeling accepted by pro-social friends with whom they've shared their most personal secrets is a strong indicator of emotional health.
Sense of humor
A sense of humor indicate abilities to take a "long" view of present difficulties and to find humor in difficult situations. The humor, however, cannot be sadistic, at the expense of others.
Optimistic about the future
Persons with low risk for violence have clear plans for achieving dreams for the future, have abilities that match plans, learn about possibilities for the future from successful people, and show persistence when circumstances seem to block plans for future. Adults, too, show an optimism about their work, their leisure, and their personal relationships.
Capacities for emotional expressiveness
Individuals with lowered risks for violence know what they are feeling, express these feelings in ways that do not harm self or others, and understand and respect how others feel. When they are confused, hurt, or angry, for example, they know this. They also know they need to do something about these emotions. Typically they talk to others about their feelings and feel better afterward. Sometimes they will do other things to help themselves feel better, such as meditate, go for a run or walk, listen to soothing music, or do something enjoyable and affirming.
They do not get drunk, beat someone up, or cut themselves. Beating someone else is obviously a violent act and could be a factor in even more dangerous forms of violence. Getting drunk or self-harm are not in themselves risks for violence toward others, but they could be factors, along with other factors, associated with potential for violence toward others.
Has a close relatio
nship with at least one parent
While a child and adolescent, having a pro-social parent, grandparent, sibling, or other family member to whom the person is close is important. Indicators of closeness include sharing personal, private, and painful life events with the adult and finding that this helps; parental interest in the person's activities and encouragement in several areas, such as emotional expressiveness, school work if in school, planning for the future, and work life, if an adult.
Close relationships with adults other than parents
Sometimes relationships within families are not very good, but during childhood and adolescence, individuals can have good relationships with adults outside of the family that are characterized by qualities described in the previous section on “close personal relationships with at least one parent.” Having good relationships within families and with persons outside of families is the best possible combination.
Whether child, teen, or adult, persons with close personal relationships characterized by the sharing personal and private experiences and emotions have a lowered risk for acting out violently. These relationships are associated with lowered risk for violence when they are long-term, and not involving sporadic contact with a variety of persons, as can often be the case when children and youth are in out-of-home care.
Willingness to negotiate
Well functioning persons negotiate for what they want. They don't feel entitled. They don't just take what they want regardless of what affected others might want. They negotiate and work for what they want.
Rejection of ideologies of entitlement
Children and adults at lower risk for acting in violent ways have pro-social beliefs and do not believe that they are entitled to force, bully, or harm others to get what they believe they are supposed to have. If other people belittle them or do not like them, they may feel hurt and angry, but they deal with their hurt and anger in ways that do not hurt others. They do not believe that in order to assert their dignity and worth they have to get back at others by hurting them.
Summary
In detecting the potential for violence, positive factors must be looked for as well as the negative factors. When the negatives outweigh the positives, the situation is serious. One or two negative factors in combination with many positives might indicate individuals who are blowing off steam and are not threats. Beliefs about entitlement and the rightness of taking what you want or redressing perceived wrongs through violent means are major red flags that can over-ride many seemingly positive factors in individual lives.
Violence is not an isolated incident. It arises from uncaring non-responsive environments that espouse violence as means to ends. Each act of violence inflicts life-long harm on survivors and on the fabric of families and communities. Dealing forthrightly with individuals who have potential for violence will go a long way toward promoting personal, familial, and community safety. In many cases, persons with potential for violence want to stopped.
They would trade in their violent fantasies for a secure place in social groups and to feel part of loving and accepting families and communities. Some others are hardened into their beliefs that violence solves their problems and asserts their place in the world as in charge and entitled to their ideas of respect and deference.
Social workers have major roles to play in detecting the potential for violence. We often are the first professionals called upon when danger is present. We can also contribute to prevention efforts through psychoeducation and through helping to develop policies and procedures that can distinguish between persons with a high risk for violence and those with lowered risks.
The social work value of social justice commits us to promote family and community safety by containing persons who are at serious risk and to deal fairly with persons who may have a single “risk” for violence but who also have substantial indicators that they have lowered risks.
The implications of social justice directs social workers and other human service professionals to find the strengths in at-risk children, youth, and adults and to develop guidelines for “reclaiming” them and helping them find places in loving and accepting families and communities where they can contain their violent thoughts and learn constructive ways of dealing with major stressors (Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Brockern, 1990; Gilgun, 2002).
Note: Parts of this article were published in a social work journal. This is the citation.
Gilgun, Jane F. (2002). Social work and the assessment of the potential for violence. In Tan Ngoh Tiong & Imelda Dodds (Eds.), Social work around the world II (pp. 58-74). Berne, Switzerland: International Federation of Social Workers.
About the Author
Jane F. Gilgun, Ph.D., LICSW, is professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. She does research on the meanings of violence to perpetrators, the development of violent behaviors, and how persons overcome risks for violence and other adversities.
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