[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 63 (Thursday, May 19, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                REMARKS MADE BY HON. HECTOR LUIS ACEVEDO

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, Hector Luis Acevedo, the mayor of 
San Juan and the chairman of the National League of Cities [NLC] Task 
Force on Violence gave an outstanding speech entitled ``Ten 
Considerations on Violence'' at the NLC Congressional City Conference 
in March. Many of the areas he points to as serious concerns--the 
negative impact of television violence on our society, the 
interrelationship of poverty and violence, and the importance of 
measures to control the proliferation of gun violence in our country--
are issues I have worked on for years. I share these concerns and 
commend him for bringing them to the Nation's attention.
  I urge my colleagues to consider the important issues Mayor Acevedo 
raises and the suggestions he offers in his speech. I ask that the text 
of his speech be entered into the Record.
  The remarks follow:

                     Ten Considerations on Violence


                              introduction

       Normally when we are going to speak about crime, we call 
     the police. This time we are calling the doctor. As elected 
     officers we have to look for alternatives to solve the 
     problems of our people. Regarding violence in our society in 
     the past we have concentrated our focus in reacting to 
     violence through the criminal justice system, neglecting 
     strategies of violence prevention through the public health 
     sector.\1\
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     Footnotes at the end of article.
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       Let's reflect on some vital considerations regarding 
     violence.

                          1. Learned behavior

       ``We must understand that violence is not inevitable.''\2\
       We know that violence is a learned behavior. Most 
     contemporary psychologists agree that aggression is a learned 
     behavior, and thus behavior that can be unlearned.
       There is a scientific consensus that aggressive and violent 
     behaviors are learned responses to frustration, that violence 
     can also be learned as an instrument for achieving goals, and 
     that such learning occurs through observation--whether in the 
     family, among peers, somewhere in the neighborhood, or 
     through mass media.\3\
       Research on the cycle of violence within the family have 
     shown that children who are physically abused or neglected 
     are more likely than others to abuse their own children, and 
     that children who witness parental violence also are more 
     likely to use physical violence against others.
       Because violence is a learned behavior, exposure to 
     violence in the family is a determinant factor on the 
     transmission of violence, whether across generations or 
     within community perimeters.

                   2. Violence is an American problem

       A fundamental starting point in our analytical endeavors 
     must be the recognition that violence is, truly, an American 
     problem, not an international problem. The statistics are 
     relentless, and the tendency is regrettably crystal-clear:
       1980, U.N. World Health Organization statistics--the 
     American homicide rate was topped only by that of Guatemala, 
     Thailand, and my own homeland, Puerto Rico--which is a 
     Commonwealth of the United States.
       1985, Same source places Puerto Rico first, with a homicide 
     rate of 30.6 per 100,000 for males of all ages, followed by 
     Paraguay with 13.6, and mainland U.S.A. with 12.7.
       1986, American Medical Association--comparing homicide 
     rates for young men in developed nations, the U.S. rate of 
     21.9 per 100,000 young males was between four (4) and seventy 
     three (73) times higher than the homicide rates for young 
     males in any other industrialized nation.
       1988, Interpol--The American homicide rate for all races 
     and every age group was 8.4 per 100,000 as compared to 
     slightly over 2.0 per 100,000 in Spain and slightly less than 
     2.0 per 100,000 in England.
       The latest international statistics from the National 
     Center for Health Statistics 1990, and World Health 
     Organization Statistics Annuals 1990 and 1991, are much 
     bleaker--and, a picture being sometimes more eloquent than 
     words, this graph dramatically displays violence as a grave 
     American problem when compared to the rest of the world.

                 3. Poverty concentration and violence

       While undoubtedly, violence is learned behavior, we cannot, 
     must not, lose sight of the structural dimensions of 
     violence. However we might try--and we must try, to re-
     educate, and to unlearn violent behavior--no long-term 
     changes in values or culture can occur without broad, deep, 
     institutional changes to truly reduce societal 
     inequality.\4\
       There are numerous dimensions of poverty related to high 
     rates of violence, including the concentration of poverty, 
     instability in resident population, overcrowding, few or weak 
     neighborhood ties, and family disruption\5\--aggravated, 
     unfortunately yet almost invariably, by a parallel illegal 
     economic system of drug traffic and drug availability . . . 
     what, in a nutshell, Deborah Prothrow-Stith calls the 
     ``concentration effects'' of living in a neighborhood that is 
     overwhelmingly impoverished.
       The poor and minorities are doubly chastised--by poverty 
     itself, with all its inherent harshness, and by the sequence 
     of violence that poverty undoubtedly entails. The Centers for 
     Disease Control--after systematic review of data and research 
     on violence--so concludes, in no uncertain terms, and I 
     quote: ``The evidence is consistent and compelling that poor 
     people bear a disproportionate share of . . . violence in our 
     society. Homicide victimization rates consistently have been 
     found to be highest in those parts of cities where poverty is 
     most prevalent. In 1991 the risk of becoming a victim of a 
     non-fatal violent assault in the United States was three 
     times greater for persons from families with incomes below 
     $7,500 than for those with family incomes above $50,000''.
       Large cities, meaning cities that include ``those parts 
     where poverty is most prevalent'', together with high 
     population density, high population turnover, and physical 
     characteristics that propitiate criminal activity are, 
     demonstrably, more vulnerable to violence, as shown in graphs 
     relating violence rates by city size.
       Poverty, race, ethnicity, and violence, are statistics that 
     are tragically intermeshed:
       The lifetime probability of murder victimization was 1 out 
     of 153 for the average American, and 1 out of 28 for a black 
     American--and if a young black man dies, the odds are 1 out 
     of 3 that his death will be due to homicide.
       Ethnicity is also an important determinant as shown by 
     mortality data where the overall homicide rate for Hispanic 
     men more than triples the rate for white men--and in younger 
     male groups almost 5 times that of white males.
       ``The UCR Supplementary Homicide Report discloses that most 
     victims in single offender-single victim homicides are slain 
     by an offender of the same ethnic status.''\6\
       These sad statistics are summarized in graphs and table 
     accompanying my presentation. However, beware of blind 
     comparisons between white versus black or minority violence, 
     which so often mirror racial politics instead of providing 
     valuable insights.
       These comparisons, as has been scientifically demonstrated, 
     do not reflect genetic inferiority or cultural aberrations, 
     but rather the impact of sheer poverty.
       As we take up the mission of controlling violence, we must 
     be fully cognizant and powerfully determined to address the 
     many social and economic problems that are yet to be 
     addressed in our country: poverty and its concomitants--poor 
     housing, poor education, joblessness, and a sense of 
     isolation and powerlessness about the future.

             4. Gun control, or preventing firearm injuries

       We must succeed in reducing violent uses of at least some 
     types of guns, and make sure that those not be replaced with 
     more lethal weapons. We must be aware of the reduced margin 
     of effectiveness of laws regarding guns like the Brady Bill. 
     Over 80 percent of the firearms used in crimes are obtained 
     by theft, or illegal, or unregulated transactions, which 
     means we must disrupt illegal gun markets, block juvenile 
     access to firearms, and progressively persuade society to 
     become less dependent on individual gun ownership.

             5. Strategy to jail has not been the solution

       Clearly, jails have not been a sufficient response. Today 
     we have more people in prison than ever before--average 
     prison time served per violent crime roughly tripled between 
     1985 and 1989--and if that punishment were sufficient 
     deterrent, criminal incidence should be declining, yet FBI 
     statistics indicate the opposite.\8\
       Preeminent in this urgent search for new analytical tools 
     and strategies is the public health approach to preventing 
     violence. Its primary conviction, based both on previous 
     successful initiatives and on time-series analysis of 
     violence, is that violence is not inevitable, that it can be 
     prevented. With prevention of violence as its target, the 
     public health strategy relies and expounds a renewed 
     determination to apply the scientific method to the solution 
     of social problems, to do so in a multi-disciplinary manner, 
     to interlock diverse government and private entities, and to 
     enlist communities in truly strong grass-roots movements.

                   6. Public policy in public housing

       When the better role models in high-risk communities are 
     penalized with higher-rentals--such as 30% of family income 
     the community becomes destabilized. This policy exacerbates 
     the ``concentration effects'' of ghetto poverty, provoking an 
     exodus of poor working class families, whose departure 
     removes important role models and important social buffers.
       As more affluent and stable populations move out of poverty 
     areas, the communities left behind have lost their most 
     effective role models and institutional leaders. Those 
     remaining behind find themselves ignored or threatened, and 
     younger, ``glamorous'', and at least temporarily successful, 
     drug dealers, take over and appeal to the very young.
       A maximum fixed rent for public housing residents is an 
     urgent, practical, and direct public policy that should be 
     adopted immediately.

                       7. Role of violence idols

       Violence being a learned behavior, children imitate 
     aggressive conduct that they have seen others use to their 
     advantage, whether the observed is seen on TV or in person. 
     TV shows many times project the inhuman traits of violent 
     people--who never change, who never learn their lesson, who 
     never evolve to pro-social attitudes. ``It has been reported 
     that in the movie Total Recall we saw 74 deaths, in RoboCop 
     81, 106 in Rambo III, and 264 dead in Diehard II.''\9\
       And beyond the influence of the TV violence strategist, and 
     the violent father, stepfather, or transient male figure, and 
     the success and glamour of the neighborhood drug-dealer, are 
     the roles of violence idols. We should have a media campaign 
     on TV and movie theaters neutralizing the romantic view of 
     violence and promoting non-violent values.

             8-9. Early intervention and education for life

       Because violent behavior is learned early, a key consensus 
     upon which to build violence prevention strategies is early 
     intervention. Whatever scholarly or ideological differences 
     may prevail concerning the causes of violence, or regarding 
     control strategies and dollar investments, there is no 
     dispute regarding the critical character of early 
     intervention. Attorney General Janet Reno has stated ``The 
     most formative time of a person's life is in the ages of 0 to 
     3 when they learn the concept of reward and develop the sense 
     of a conscience and punishment''. Within the public health 
     approach, early interventions are considered the most 
     effective interventions in the long run because they shape 
     attitudes, knowledge, and behavior while the subjects are 
     still open to positive influences. A major conclusion of a 
     ten-year study by the Harvard School of Public Health 
     examining what steers inner-city children towards crime, 
     relates to early intervention: ``Our rationale for the focus 
     on early childhood is not that we believe that interventions 
     in this period offer a panacea to control violence but rather 
     that it is a period during which the central nervous system 
     changes rapidly and profoundly and during which the attitudes 
     and habits of children are formed''.
       However, one must be aware that early intervention is not a 
     lifelong vaccine against violence, because of the wide 
     variety of influences that over a lifetime affect every 
     person, thus requiring sustained and reinforced efforts to 
     promote pro-social attitudes and behavior.
       It has been demonstrated that violent behavior results from 
     a complex interplay of multiple factors, and progressively 
     there is a conviction that violent behavior may be triggered 
     over multiple points in a life span. Hence, evidence suggests 
     that early intervention must be followed by ``boosters'' to 
     maintain positive pathways in social conduct. We are, then, 
     speaking of education for life.
       We should include integrated conflict-resolution 
     educational programs in schools and communities. We educate 
     for math, reading and writing, we should educate ourselves to 
     solve problems, to confront our anger, peer pressure, and 
     other situations of real life.

                         10. We need the police

       Police, courts, jails, drug treatment on demand, are 
     indispensable tools for combatting violence. A competent 
     criminal investigation system and efficient prosecution of 
     criminals are vital strategies. Community policing goes in 
     the right direction.\10\ The certainty or probability of 
     catching a criminal is more important than the amount of time 
     he serves in jail.\11\


               Prevention Strategies and Recommendations

       Violence, in many of our cities, is the foremost fear, and 
     in those cities--and nationwide--it is the foremost concern 
     and top programmatic priority.
       Nationwide, the most systematic and comprehensive efforts 
     to understand and control violence, at this most difficult 
     and complex juncture, are those conducted by the Centers for 
     Disease Control, specifically its Injury Control Division 
     headed by Dr. Mark Rosenberg; the encyclopedic examination of 
     violence conducted by the National Research Council; and 
     President Clinton's inter-agency work group on violence 
     prevention chaired by Peter Edelman, counselor to the Health 
     and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.
       Panoramically, the key strategies advocated by these most 
     authorized sources include: recommendations for social and 
     cultural changes, innovations and strengthening of health and 
     social services, upgrading the effectiveness of the criminal 
     justice system, and changes in the environment and other 
     physical circumstances that either facilitate or discourage 
     violent acts.
       In closing, I wish to underline one additional very strong 
     point of consensus regarding strategies for the control of 
     violence. The complexity of violent behavior, compounded with 
     each community's unique conditions and perceptions, precludes 
     generic prescriptions or uniform formulas. Each city, indeed, 
     each community, must conduct its own fact-finding and 
     analysis to determine which interventions are most promising 
     in their particular setting--and be willing to test, revise, 
     and persevere in this most crucial social responsibility.
       We as elected officers have a historic role in promoting 
     the quality of life of our people. Let's go for it.


              APPENDIX: OVERVIEW OF POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

                      Centers for Disease Control

       Decrease the cultural acceptance of violence.
       Reduce racial discrimination and the effects of racism.
       Reduce gender inequality and support more flexible male 
     role models.
       Reduce the consumption of alcohol and other drugs
       Teach conflict-resolution skills.
       Increase education for family life, family planning and 
     child rearing.
       Support families through community-based services.
       Remedy problems in the medical recognition of violence, and 
     decrease disincentives for medical personnel to become 
     involved.
       Improve treatment for victims of violence--including 
     consequences other than injuries--and decrease financial 
     barriers to care for victims.
       Improve the health care system's capacity for identifying 
     the perpetrators of violence, reporting victims of 
     interpersonal violence, and improving cooperation between the 
     health care systems, police departments, and schools.
       Focus on prevention and treatment of conditions related to 
     alcohol and drug abuse, and train high risk adolescents, 
     making jobs available for them.
       Treat physical assaults among family, intimates, and 
     acquaintances as criminal behavior, and train police and 
     citizen intervention teams to mediate in such disputes.
       Improve linkages in police and social services responses to 
     violence.
       Establish citizen surveillance and silent-witness programs, 
     facilitate victims' access to legal services, and establish 
     assistance programs for victims and witnesses.
       Implement strategies to change environmental factors, 
     including reduction of access to firearms, ``defensible space 
     construction'', and physical protection or barriers in high 
     risk settings and occupations.

                       National Research Council

       Problem-Solving Initiatives--sustained in 6 specific areas:
       Intervening in the biological and psychosocial development 
     of individuals' potentials for violent behavior.
       Modifying places, routine activities, and situations that 
     promote violence, with special attention to commercial 
     robberies and high risk situations for sexual violence.
       Maximizing the violence reduction effects of police 
     interventions in illegal drug and firearm markets.
       Modifying the role of commodities, such as firearms, 
     alcohol and other drugs, in promoting or inhibiting violent 
     events.
       Intervening to reduce potentials for violence in bias 
     crimes, gang activities, and community transitions.
       Implementing a comprehensive initiative to reduce partner 
     assault.
       Improved Statistical Information Systems
       Research in Neglected Areas
       Multicommunity Longitudinal Studies

                     White House Inter-Agency Group

       Improved anti-violence curricula and mediation training in 
     schools.
       Create youth development initiative that connect 
     adolescents to adult mentors and role models, the job market, 
     and year-round academic and recreational opportunities.
       Improve intervention and alternative sentencing mechanisms 
     for youth on the brink of serious trouble.
       Support community-based efforts to heal racial and cultural 
     divisions and prevent hate crimes.
       Strengthen family preservation to prevent family violence.
       Support sensible strategies to reduce gun violence.
       Enlist news and entertainment media to reexamine, and to 
     deliver anti-violence messages.
       Examine more closely the connection between substance abuse 
     and violence.
       Develop research to determine which violence prevention 
     strategies work best in which settings.
       Assist local law enforcement efforts to protect communities 
     and citizens in their everyday life.


                               footnotes

     \1\See Koop and Lundberg, Violence in America: A Public 
     Health Emergency, JAMA, June 10, 1992, page 3,075.
     Mercy, Rosenberg et al, ``Public Health Policy for Preventing 
     Violence'', Health Affairs, Winter 1993.
     Rosenberg, O'Carroll, and Powell, ``Violence is a Public 
     Health Problem'', JAMA, June 10, 1992, page 3,071.
     Deborah Prothrow-Stith, ``The Epidemic Of Violence and its 
     Impact on the Health Care System'', Henry Ford Hospital 
     Medical Journal, Vol. 38, Nos. 2 & 3, 1990.
     \2\Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Deadly Consequences, New York: 
     Harper Perennial, 1991, p. 185.
     \3\Albert J. Reiss, Jr. and Jeffrey A. Roth, eds., 
     Understanding and Preventing Violence, Washington, D.C.: 
     National Academy Press, 1993, p. 7.
     \4\``Numerous studies point to the fact that it is poverty 
     rather than race that makes victims vulnerable to homicide . 
     . . Homicide rates soar in neighborhoods where men have no 
     jobs or job prospects, children are raised without fathers, 
     and social institutions are in disarray.'' See Prothrow-
     Smith, p. 17.
     \5\``In studies of neighborhood rates of violent crime, 
     measures of the density of multi-unit housing, residential 
     mobility, and the prevalence of disrupted family structures 
     generally accounted for more variation than did measures of 
     poverty and income inequality.'' See Reiss and Roth, p. 133.
     \6\Reiss and Roth, p. 64.
     \7\Reiss and Roth, p. 18-19.
     \8\Reiss and Roth, p. 6.
     \9\Prothrow-Stith, p. 30.
     \10\Reiss and Roth, p. 19.
     \11\Reiss and Roth, p. 19.

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