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Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 06:16:02 MST
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Subject: PSN digest 1199
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Subject: Barbara Chasin: A Review of her Work FROM THE LEFT
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Those of you who teach or research in violence and/or
inequality will find Chasin's new book:
Inequality and Violence in the United States:
Casualties of Capitalism, HUMANITIES PRESS, 191 pp.
a most valuable resource.
In Chapter 1, Chasin provides both anecdotal and systematic
evidence of the growing violence in America.
Table 1.2 compares interpersonal violence in
Advanced Capitalist nations..
As you might expect, the USA is No. 1!
3 times as much homicide as Finland
4 times as much as Canada
6 times as much as Sweden
12 times as much as Switzerland, Japan, Denmark
Germany or France
Table 1.3 is most valuable; it compares STRUCTURAL violence
between the same countries:
The USA is No. 1 in INFANT MORTALITY RATES
These rates are better than the Dow-Jones Stock
market average as index to quality of life
in the USA
The USA is No. 1 in AIDs Rate
The USA is No. 1 in use of pesticides
The USA is No. 1 in Road Accident rates
The USA is No. 1 in Sulfur/Nitrogen Emissions..
Alas Canada has beaten us out...poor Canada.
The USA regains No. 1 position in Hazardous Waste
Production.
Chapter 2. Surveys rates and trends of Class inequality:
Bad News...
10% of the population own 80%+ of the wealth
Table 2.3 reports on trends: inequality increases from 1973
to 1993
A special section on BUREAUCRACY AND VIOLENCE is of special
interest
Chapter 3. Looks at Street Crime from gangs and drugs to speeding cars that
run down kids.
Chasin makes the most important point that it is not
Blackness and Violence
which go together in street crime; it is blackness,
violence in
a racist society with segregated job markets,
segregated schools
and segregated communities which account for
difference in arrest
and imprisonment rates...
Chasin makes the point that joblessness and street crime go
together; not
race and street crime.
[Note: if we count corporate, white collar and political
crime in our
analysis of crime rates, the connection between race
and crime
reverses...corporate crime is committed mostly by
whites as is
white collar crime and political crime...
Again, it is class inequality which accounts for the
tight
correlation between whiteness and crime...if Blacks
were at the
top of the class structure, they too would be No.
1...TRYoung]
Chapter 4. Looks at Racial and Gender Violence.
Table 4.1 tells us that class inequality drives up domestic
violence;
if we want a lot of domestic violence, we can
increase the number
of poor families...the rate is 6 times that of lower
middle class
families.
Table 4.2 tells us that we can increase rates of rape by
increasing poverty
among women...
Barbara counts the violence done by Hate Groups and by
Police as street
violence...
...most crim books do not.
Chapter 5. Developes the concept of Structural Violence done to workers and
the Unemployed.
[I use the concept of the 'Disemployed' rather than
'Unemployed.' TRY]
Chapter 6. Examines Structural Violence in the Health Care [sic] System.
Chapter 7. Connects the Circle between Interpersonal and Structural Violence
with Militarism
a central catalyst.
[Others supplement her analysis with comment on modelling
violence on TV, in
sports and in News Reportage.]
Chapter 8. Offers some ideas on Reducing the Casualties.
Chasin calls for class struggle, affirmative action in race
and gender.
This is a great starting point for Marxist, Feminist,
Progressive, Humanist and/or
Postmodern Criminologists...
And...for development of Chasin's Call, see:
Beyond Crime and Punishment on-line:
http://www.tryoung.com/beyond.html
Well done, Barbara!!
TR Young, Editor
FROM THE LEFT
TR Young
The Red Feather Institute
8085 Essex, Weidman, Mi.,
48893--ph: [517] 644 3089
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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