Inequality, Culture, and Interpersonal Violence

Prologue: Within a society that is arguably one of the most violent in the world, rates of violence are even higher among some socioeconomic and ethnic groups in the United States. Studies have sought to establish links between culture, race, inequality, and violence, beginning with early immigrant populations to this country and focusing more recently on violence among urban populations of varied ethnic origin. While this may be relatively new ground for public health researchers, social scientists have been wrestling with various theories for decades. In this paper Darnell Hawkins examines the relevance of these theories for the current effort to shape public policy on violence. He argues that “neither extant notions of cultural difference nor socioeconomic inequality offer fully satisfactory explanations for the group differences in rates of violence observed in modern America.” His observation is that “cultural differences, as opposed to poverty and socioeconomic inequality, appear to be the choice of many current social analysts [and] … nonscholarly commentators and observers, including the media and many public officials.” By way of explanation, Hawkins notes that “there appears to be a preference for social policies that minimize the need for structural change or major governmental initiatives as a means of solving America's social problems.” He suggests that strategies be implemented that take into account the effects of social inequality. Hawkins is on the faculty of the departments of African American studies and sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received a doctorate in sociology from the University of Michigan and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as a visiting scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention s Division of Injury Control during the spring of 1992 and is the editor of Ethnicity, Race, and Crime: Perspectives across Time and Place (University of New York Press, forthcoming). Abstract: Policymakers often are at odds over what strategies will be most effective at reducing the incidence of violent behavior in high-risk populations. Beginning with the position that social theory and public policy are inextricably linked, the author examines the policy implications of the long-standing debate in the social sciences over the relative contributions of socioeconomic inequality versus cultural differences as causes of violence. While the weight of the scholarly evidence favors neither of these explanations, existing and proposed policies often reflect a preference for the importance of culture. This paper discusses the limitations of that choice and advocates alternative policies that consider the importance of both sets of etiological factors.