Violence and Its Control 579the form of police violence in the streets or violence within
prisons in the form of torture or cruel and unusual punish-
ment. In the United States the reported instances of death
from police violence are relatively low, about 300 deaths per
year. It seems evident that laws and strong civilian control
must demand a professional force that minimizes the use of
violence and that excellent training is crucial. Toch, Grant,
and Galvin (1974) argued that the best way to achieve control
over unacceptable police violence is to have peer review pan-
els who review all arrest reports, tally deployed violence, and
work with those officers who exceed a predefined number of
incidents. Such officers are helped to understand their behav-
ior and create alternative approaches to handling the situa-
tions that provoked their violence. When their incidents
decrease, they themselves are enlisted to become members of
the panel.
In the United States an increasing number of persons are
being imprisoned: The prison population in maximum-
security prisons more than doubled from 1987 to 1997. There
are now over 1.6 million persons in federal and state prisons,
and inmates outnumber guards 38 to 1 (U.S. Department of
Justice, 1999). Note that this figure does not include persons
in county and city jails. Much of this increase is due to non-
violent drug offenders and targets African American and
Black men. As Haney and Zimbardo (1998) pointed out, the
increased use of imprisonment reflects a policy choice to im-
prison individual lawbreakers rather than to correct the social
conditions that contribute to crime. There are troubling indi-
cations that the increased privatization of prisons is leading to
abusive practices such as the increased use of stun belts and
solitary confinement. Further, there is every indication that
prisons are failing to rehabilitate a majority of those who are
incarcerated. Thus, Beck and Shipley (1997) reported that an
estimated 62.5% of the prisoners released from 11 state pris-
ons were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor
within three years of their release and that 41.4% were re-
turned to prison or jail. Many prisons appear to be dominated
by gangs (Lerner, 1984), and violence and domination occur
between inmates and are often used by guards. It is evident
that most prisons are providing an environment that encour-
ages learning violence rather than responsibility (Haney &
Zimbardo, 1998).
There are managerial approaches that reduce violence
(Reisig, 1998), vocational programs that offer structure and
reduce assault rates (McCorkle, Miethe, & Drass, 1995), and
educational programs that reduce violence and recidivism
(Matthews & Pitts, 1998). However, neither governmental
officials nor the American public seems willing to spend
money on what is often seen as coddling prisoners. There ap-
pears to be a general attitude that favors punishment over re-
habilitation, a general failure to distinguish between what
might help different types of prisoners, and a general lack of
compassion for those who find themselves in prison.
Torture is the most troublesome form of police violence,
and it often leaves its victims crippled both physically and
psychologically. This is particularly true when, as is often the
case, the aim of the torture was not to obtain information but
to intimidate and destroy a person so that he or she could no
longer function as a leader of resistance to those in authority.
While victims differ widely in their posttorture symptoms
and some have demonstrated an incredible capacity to for-
give and heal, many need both physical and psychological
treatment. Elsass (1997) has described effective treatment
methods, and the journal Tortureis devoted to the prevention
of torture and the rehabilitation of its victims.
As defined in the 1984 United Nations Convention
Against Torture, torture involves the intentional infliction of
severe pain or suffering, by or with the agreement of a public
official, in order to obtain information or a confession, or to
punish, intimidate, or coerce. Perhaps the most evident indi-
cation of the extent of the problem is that by the year 2000
only 119 of the 188 member states had endorsed the rules
against torture promulgated by the UN convention.
Amnesty International (2000) enumerated a 12-point pro-
gram to eliminate torture. These include calling for every
nation to officially condemn and enact laws against torture,
refuse evidence obtained under torture, make the location of
all prisoners known, allow prisoners to communicate, have
all allegations of torture investigated by an authority inde-
pendent of the prison system, have authorities clearly state
their opposition to the use of torture, punish torturers, and
compensate victims.Societal ViolenceAlthough community violence often reflects what is happen-
ing within a society, there are forms of violence that occur
throughout the society in which communities are embedded.
This include the violence in its media and the violence that
occurs when a society engages in war, is subjected to civil war,
ethnic violence, and genocide, or must deal with terrorism.Media ViolenceWe saw how aggressive behavior can be learned by following
the models provided on film and TV. Hence, it is troubling to
note that Hepburn (1997) reported that 57% of the TV pro-
grams monitored at four different locations in the United
States contained some sort of violence, whereas only 4% pre-
sented an antiviolence theme. American children are exposed