What should we do about the growing trends toward more violence and antisocial behavior?

Hi Stacy,

It can be argued that the premise of your question is wrong and that there isn't, in fact, more violence and antisocial behavior out there. Popular media seem to over-report cases of violence which may cause some to assume that it's been increasing. In any case, let's assume for the sake of argument, that you're right and that there is such an increase.

Rather then racial and ethnic characteristics causing such increases a more plausible explanation could be one involving social class and the impact of poverty on family and community social structures. Poor people, of whom a large percentage are minorities, tend because of poverty to have a greater likelihood of family and community dysfunction. Stable families are a major source of effective social control. Likewise, poverty has a negative effect on community stability. One outgrowth of that is the emergence of gangs, which may provide an alternative place for people to belong. Gangs, drugs, alcoholism, and other antisocial patterns are at least partly an outcome of poverty. So to address violence we might do well to address the often great inequalities that exist across the social classes in the U.S. While the poor and minorities are most often the victims of violence and antisocial behavior, those in the more affluent classes could also benefit from addressing these issues, if only to avoid being victims of such violence themselves. Regards.

What I think we should do is stop letting rap music that has a lot of cussing change the way we think and approach things.Meaning that when rappers talk about shooting their rivals,and rappers calling women bitches and hoes.Children will listen to that so much that some of the explict lauguage will get into their head and react all those words they said said on that song.That's why parents don't want their childern listening to rap because when they get older they will think that killing people is ok when it's not.Yes I think the violence in the media leads to increased aggression in children and adolescents.The reason why is because like I said before,kids tend to interact all the violent things they see on tv or anywhere else.Then they are either dead or in jail for imitating those things.

The answer is in the demographics. Video games and violent films are irrelevant.

America is growing more diverse, which is the PC word more black and Mexican. Blacks and Mexicans, who now comprise half the population in America 5 years of age and younger, are more prone towards violence and anti-social behavior. So if you want to reduce violence and anti-social behavior, you need to reduce the amount of black and Mexican youths in America, which can be done by simply changing our immigration laws to favor Europeans instead of non-Western people and taking away incentives, such as welfare, that encourage minorities to breed at excessively high rates.

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Georgie,

Are you aware of the fact that Jews were once confined to ghettos in Europe, being socially deprived of many things? Yet these people hardly caused much crime.

Are you aware of the fact that Chinese-Americans, who arrived primarily in San Francisco, were widely discriminated against and were basically labor-slaves who got paid next to nothing working on the rail-roads, yet they caused the least amount of crime of any ethnic group?

Your excuses for black and Mexican crime are absolutely pathetic. Poverty does not cause crime.

violence leads only to more violence.

hate doesn't lead to love and violence is the same.

It could be a dominant factor.