Active Listening

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 26th Apr 2021

In many potentially violent situations, where de-escalation is appropriate, the incident needs to be brought under control quickly i.e., there isn’t the time for a protracted discussion on the rights and wrongs of what has happened etc. If somebody is highly emotional and in a volatile state, this needs to be addressed immediately, however not everybody reaches a state where they are prepared to use violence right away; many people need some time to both reach a decision and get themselves psychologically/emotionally ready to act physically etc. I’ve walked people out of bars and clubs, where they’ve seemed in a...Click To Read More

Characterological Versus Situational Perspectives of Violence

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 19th Apr 2021

Whilst I was doing my master’s in criminology, one of my professors/lecturers asked me if I remembered the 1980’s. When I said I did, he sighed, and said, “it was a bleak and rough time for crime”, which looking back, was pretty much the case. The 1980’s saw both a rise in “street crime”, and drug use; the two often being related. In the UK, we had a heroin “epidemic”, whilst in the US, it was crack cocaine. It’s interesting to note that the results of almost all crime surveys, show that members of the public never feel that criminals,...Click To Read More

Try Me - The Confusion Between Empowerment And Safety

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 12th Apr 2021

I recently saw a t-shirt/top, aimed at women, that had emblazoned on it, “Want to See My Pepper Spray?” I’m sure the purpose/intention – other than to sell clothing – was that this was tied to a notion of empowerment, and this is where there is a great deal of confusion between empowerment and safety. Empowerment should not involve publicly drawing lines in the sand that people may choose to challenge; this is the opposite of empowerment. I am a great believer in empowering people, however we have to be clear about what we are empowering people for, and to...Click To Read More

Repeat & Near-Repeat Victimization in Burglaries

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 5th Apr 2021

I have written about repeat victimization before, however in this article I want to revisit the subject, along with near-repeat victimization, in relation to burglary. One of the reasons that crime hotspots occur is due to repeat victimization e.g., the same house is repeatedly broken into over the course of a year, and so the crime statistics – if reported at the neighborhood, or higher, level – make it look as if a particular locale suffers from a high burglary rate, rather than it simply being a few properties that are skewing the data. The same effect can also be...Click To Read More