Ep. 4: Violentization (part 2)

The root cause of violentization is trauma from chronic exposure to violence, usually beginning in childhood or adolescence. Victims of violence become victimizers. Why? Because at some point the victim of chronic violence makes the decision that this is a violent, dog-eat-dog world and that to avoid being a victim of violence one must become more violent and dangerous than potential abusers or attackers – to essentially fight fire with fire. In part 1 of this episode, we explored the five-stage adaptive process of violentization described by criminologist researcher Lonnie Athens. In this part 2 we turn to the all-important […]