Changing Age Distributions of Lethal Violence: A Look at the Intermountain West
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Date
2003-04
Authors
Stockard, Jean
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Abstract
Today I want to tell you about work that I, and my colleague Robert O’Brien, have done
on lethal violence. We have focused on violence directed toward others, homicide, and
violence directed toward one’s self, suicide. At first glance, they may seem str
ikingly different.
We often think of violence directed toward others as involving impetuous, unbridled anger and
aggression, while we think of suicide as stemming from deep despair, depression and
hopelessness. Yet, we have found that these two forms of
lethal violence are similar in two very
important ways. First, the age distribution of both phenomena has changed in recent years,
with younger people becoming relatively more at risk for both types of behavior. Second, the
explanations for this changing
age distribution are the same for both suicide and for homicide.
[slide
2
–
outline] In the moments to come I want to first just talk a little bit about the
nature of cohorts and cohort theory and then describe the nature of cohort differences in lethal
violence that we have found using national data. Third, I will show you d
ata on regional
differences in lethal violence, using a data set that we have not yet published on and focusing
primarily on rates among teens. After that I will tell you about explanations that we have found
for these cohort variations. Finally, I’ll st
ep back from these analyses and reflect upon the
implications of our work for social policy. I want to stress that some of what I will show you is
preliminary in nature. We haven’t yet submitted our findings about regional differences for
publication or fi
nalized our analyses. In fact, you are the first people to hear about them. Thus,
I will be especially interested in any comments or suggestions that you might have for our future
explorations.
Description
44 pages. Presented as Keynote Address at the OASIS Conference at the University of Wyoming in April of 2003.
Keywords
birth cohort, lethal violence, Wyoming, Intermountain region