> sokol at jhu.edu writes:
>
> you are absolutely right. The criminologist Dane Archer (_Violence and
> Crime in Cross-National Perspective_, New Haven: Yale U Press, 1984) notes
> upsurges of violent crimes in the aftermath of wars and armed conflits
> among nations. That tendencey is especially pronounced in victorious
> nations. He explains that government use of violence legitimizes it, in
> eyes of citizens, as a means of conflict resolutions.
The empirical facts are exactly correct. I have seen them elsewhere. But they do not explain themselves. It is an inference, and not a self-evident one, that there is a direct causal relationship between war and personal violence. They occur at the same time (the violence if I remember goes up after rather than during the war?), but the causal relation to each other or to some third (4th/5th?) cause(s) is less clear.
The empirical fact is nevertheless of greatest important in refuting "war- on-crime" hysteria, etc.
Carrol