The Decline of Violence

[James Hannam]

As I've blogged in the past (e.g. bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/04/noble-savages.html) violence in human affairs has been decreasing. I'm very pleased to note that Steven Pinker's new book will be on this subject (http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2008%20SEED%20On%20My%20Mind%20piece.jpg). As the chapter on violence in the Blank Slate was one of the poorest (although not as bad as the one on art), it will be good to see how his thinking has developed.

Best wishes

James

[humphreyclarke]

Hmm interesting one. By way of illustration I did a search for murder through the East Anglia local newspaper archive my father set up ( www.foxearth.org.uk/1759-1772IpswichJournal.html ) and it turned up quite a bit of violence. Here is a selection from March and April 1763....

March 19th 1763

At Bury Assizes-Margery Beddingfield, widow and R. Ringe, husbandman were found guilty of the murder of John Beddingfield of Sternfield. The woman was sentenced to be burnt and the man to be hung and anatomised. John Culling received the sentence of death for committing sodomy on the body of John Chattin, a boy of 11 years. Mones Dorling (an old convict) to be transported for life. Four other persons were acquitted.

April 2nd 1763

We hear that the execution of Richard Ringe and Margery Beddingfield is deferred till Friday next when they are to suffer here at Bury, he has confessed that he murdered John Beddingfield, his master, by strangling him while he was asleep after the family was in bed, he was opportuned by his mistress who promised him marriage as soon as he destroyed her husband. John Culling who was capitally convicted of sodomy lies dangerously ill with small pox at Bury.

April 9th 1763

This day Margery Beddingfield and Richard Ringe were drawn on a sledge to the place of execution (Rushmere) where she was strangled and burnt and he was hanged, they died penitent.

April 9th 1763

Last Monday Daniel Lobley was conveyed to Stratford to stand on the pillory there (for attempting to commit sodomy) according to his sentence at the last Assizes, before he had stood half the time he was killed by the mob. At the inquest there was a verdict of wilful murder, one person is in custody and a warrant issued for several other persons.

Clearly a bad idea to try to commit sodomy!.

I think in general terms the crime rate in the UK was very high in the early 19th century, then it steadily dropped to a fraction of what it was. In the 20th century crime fluctuated. I think it was pretty low in the 1950s, but rocked post 1960s due to de-industrialisation, drugs etc, before dropping in the late 90s/early 00s and beginning to rise again. Be interesting to see what the data in Pinker's book says.

If you do a comparison between my local town where I grew up, Bury St Edmunds in the present day and medieval times; these days there are little or no murders or serious violence, in the 11th-12th century it had a murder rate about the same as Texas does today.

I think where Pinker's thesis is in trouble is when you look at the 20th century. Communist regimes managed to murder/starve about 100 million people and we had the two most destructive wars in human history. If we hadn't had nuclear weapons we almost certainly would have had a third world war. Mutually Assured Destruction has been far more important in keeping the peace than any stirrings in our pre-frontal cortex, but to be fair Pinker is really talking about homicide rates and here I am broadly in agreement.

EDIT

He has a talk on it here

uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk

www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html

Again, his general thesis makes me a bit uneasy. Haven't put my finger on why though. I think its a bit too much like a long interrupted line of progress for my liking, with the usual stereotypes of poor benighted medievals etc..

Very interesting article on the subject here:

www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/stille/Politics%20Fall%202007/Readings%20--%20Weeks%201-5/Stille,%20NYTimes,%20Did%20Knives%20and%20Forks%20Cut%20Murders.htm

[humphreyclarke]

Some interesting stats in here

books.google.co.uk/books?id=jdmG4duewiQC&dq=The+Civilization+of+Crime&pg=PP1&ots=Yt5_0DV6cO&source=bn&sig=LTp9UVRnQ-FYtZTLdSis9weedX4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA23,M1

‘We have a number of samples for homicide rates from the Middle Ages. These show massive variations in homicide rates (it should be noted that our estimates for medieval populations are only approximate, which makes the construction of crime rates an imperfect science) from 5 per 100,000 population in 13th century Bristol, to 110 per 100,00 in fourteenth century Oxford. A cluster of samples, however, suggests a typical 13th century rate of around 18 to 23 per 100,000. We then have more samples to suggest that the rate dropped a little, perhaps to 15 per 100,000 in 1600 and then fell dramatically over the middle of the 17th century. This drop remains inexplicable.

This article goes some way towards explaining it www.wehaitians.com/did%20knives%20and%20forks%20cut%20murders.html

The main points seem to be

1) Change in community tolerance
2) Increase in state control - political stability and political legitimacy
3) Reformation - Both the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation put a lot of emphasis on individual conscience

‘In the period 1660-79, homicide indictments were running at 8.1 per 100,000 in urban Surrey (essentially Southwark, a large built up area directly south of the Thames), 4.3 in rural Surrey and 2.3 in Sussex. By the period 1780-1802 the rates had fallen in all three areas to 0.9 per 100,000, at which level it was to stay nationally over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ‘

[eckadimmock]

I'm only guessing, but I would imagine that the figures for earlier times would tend to be underestimates. Particularly in places such as my ancestral home, the Scottish Highlands. Even genealogy there is confused because the records were often kept by supercilious English, not Gaelic, speakers, and spellings are inconsistent. Whether they bothered to keep note of the internecine battles and body count is dubious.

[David Taussig]

Although the homicide rate may be less today than in earlier times there is a consistent increase in England and Wales over the last 50 years. pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/43/20/9
The cited article is on homicide related to mental illness but gives an overall rate of homicide.

[humphreyclarke]

I don't want to get all Rodney Stark, but I am guessing that the heightened religiosity of the Reformation period may have had something to do with the major drop in homicide during the 17th century. Of course a cynic might point out out that the heightened religiosity of the period might have had something to do with the large number of religious wars during the period although these conflicts led to religious toleration and representative democracy. I'm guessing Pinker's book won't mention the R word; instead we will get some philosophical mumbo-jumbo about human beings extending their empathy nets to an ever more extensive segment of the population, without any discussion of the kinds of mass motivating forces that might play a role in developing this.