Why Are Homicide Rates Up In America?

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 27th Dec 2021

Over the past 18 months, homicides and incidents of aggravated assault have increased sharply in the US (this has not been the case in the UK or Europe) e.g., around 33 000 deaths due to violence, 8400 more than in 2019. Overall, this is a significant increase, made more significant by the fact that many other types of offenses, such as property crimes, fell (by 7.9%). However, it is worth noting that from a historical perspective violent crime – including homicide – is relatively low i.e., at the moment this 18-month period represents a “spike” in a rate that has...Click To Read More

Street Robberies - A Research Based Perspective

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 20th Dec 2021

The practicing of self-defense techniques outside of the contexts, within which they are designed to be used, can never be categorized, or defined as being reality-based. Practicing a gun disarm, or a solution to knife attack from the perspective of, if somebody points a gun to your head, so you do this, or when somebody threatens you with a knife, you use this technique etc., is only applicable for threats and attacks that take place within your school/training space, as this is the context within which you are practicing them. If you want to make the training relevant, the correct...Click To Read More

Socially Sanctioned Violence

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 13th Dec 2021

There are times when otherwise “peaceful” people who believe in the rule-of-law, will act violently because they believe that they have been socially sanctioned to do so i.e., the group they belong to, and/or identify with has given them permission to do so. Sometimes, this position is “formal”, where a leader(s), directly instructs members of the group to act and behave in a certain way, and sometimes it is informal, when individuals take cues from each other as to how they should act e.g., whilst a faction of a crowd may be violently attacking another person, bystanders who are not...Click To Read More

Effects of Emotions on Social Information Processing

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 6th Dec 2021

In last week’s article I looked at the cognitive processes that people use in spontaneously violent incidents. Before looking at how emotions and feelings are involved and influence these processes, I want to look at some of the characteristics of Spontaneous Incidents (in comparison to premeditated ones), so that we can better understand how and why emotions effect our responses. As a quick reminder, Premeditated acts of aggression are those that have some degree of planning and premeditation to them, such as muggings and street robberies, whereas Spontaneous Incidents are caused by some external event happening that causes the person...Click To Read More