Treating violence like a contagious disease

That violence is still a factor in the lives of humans is a blight on our intellect and benevolence and our race.

With the knowledge at our disposal, we should have conquered the problem of violence.

Doctor Gary Slutkin who has worked with contagious and infectious diseases and pandemics around the world for decades was brought to the conclusion that we should use the knowledge gleaned from this kind of experience to address the problems of violence in modern society.

I feel that an opportunity to bring attention to this information is not to be missed and offer this overview of a presentation by Dr Slutkin.

Just as the world in times past, believed in now ridiculous causes for such diseases as TB, Plague and Cholera, like bad people or curses, because of a lack of understanding of the science and biology involved, our understanding of the proliferation of violent behavior is equally misunderstood and can be addressed with a similar approach.

An example of this misunderstanding is our reliance on punishment as a primary method in tackling the problem of violence. Punishment has been shown to be anything but a primary influence in behavior or behavior modification and even to exacerbate the problem.

Dr. Slutkin realized that this field of endeavor had stagnated like many other and was in need of a new approach, involving behavioral change and education.

He began to examine the incidence of violence and studied maps which indicated that violence occurs in clusters, just as it does in the spread of contagious and infectious disease. All the examined data correlated with the data available in relation to to spread of diseases.

He further noted that one can predict violence based on the incidence of violence or in other words, exposure to violence is like exposure to an contagious disease and is what causes the spread of violent behavior.

As in combating the spread of disease, a essential first step is to interrupt the transmission of violence and this is done in stages.

Detecting and finding a primary cause, or in disease terminology this would be a patient zero. This requires training people in identifying behavior and evidence of violence and locating victims and perpetrators.

Preventing further exposure. This means determining the extent of exposure so that education and care can be given to those influenced by the exposure, who might spread the disease of the violence at a later stage.

Shifting the norms. This requires changes in the way the community operates in educating and nurturing better the new approach, which results in group immunity.

These are the primary methods used in the program used in successfully dealing with the AIDS epidemic in Uganda, for example.

So this is the program implemented through hiring and training Violence interrupters in people skills designed to quell violence and placate people, and outreach personnel to keep people in therapy for 6 - 24 months as with diseases, through which credibility and trust were created and access was provided to the community along with activities designed to change norms.

Attribution

The first experiment produced a 67% drop in gun violence in a Chicago neighborhood.

45 % was achieved in 20 more experiments with 3 evaluations supported by the Justice Department, Johns Hopkins and and CDC.

A New York Times cover story on the subject, a piece in The Economist and a movie followed.

Many opponents came out of the woodwork who objected to many various aspects of the approach.

Many cities are now running these programs.

International efforts around the world have proved the concepts and verified a sound new approach to the control of violence with tremendous impact on cost in lives, health, mental health along with financial costs in incarceration, trauma and other medical costs and proved that the adoption of new knowledge in this field can make a world of difference.

"Currently, Cure Violence has been endorsed by a resolution from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, while the program’s underlying theory has been promoted by the Institute of Medicine. The public health method is being replicated in more than 50 sites in 15 U.S. cities and seven countries abroad. Dr. Slutkin’s work was featured in Studs Terkel’s Will the Circle be Unbroken, profiled in Blocking the Transmission, a New York Magazine cover story by bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz, and represented in the award-winning documentary The Interrupters. " Attributio

Unrelated work has been done in proving that appropriate education and care can eliminate criminal intent and the need for incarceration.

This work demonstrates to me that the teachings of ancient wisdom on the nature of man and the attributes to develop and embrace in our effort to improve our lives, our communities and the legacy we leave our children were and are still the best course to follow and if we were to love one another and seek the well-being of all, we would move forward in leaps and bounds in addressing the problems of our existence.

Attribution

Attribution : In-Line, Unsplash, Google Images(Labelled for reuse), Yandex