Radical
Statistics
Class biases in violence data in the
United States
Barbara H. Chasin
Politicians, television and the print media sound the alarm in the United States, telling us how dangerous life is. The United States does have the highest levels of violence of any advanced capitalist country. But the violence that is being discussed is only a part, and the lesser part at that, of the dangers to well-being that exist in the U.S.A.
In order to discuss the levels of violence in a society it makes sense to distinguish two types: interpersonal violence and structural violence. Interpersonal violence is what most people think of when they think of violence; identifiable persons injure others and are usually aware that they have done so. Interpersonal violence occurs most often among people of the same economic group and often between members of the same community or household. This is the violence the media emphasizes. It is also the violence which politicians turn into campaign issues, promising to protect the public if they are elected.
Structural violence, on the other hand, is a consequence of the routine workings of a society, and especially of its stratification system (Chasin, 1997). This violence is a direct or indirect result of decisions made at the elite level of society. The victims come from the groups over which that elite has power. Especially important are the decisions made by those who own and control the major corporations, i.e. the capitalists. Their policies directly impact on the health and safety of workers and consumers. Some of the actions of the capitalists are actually illegal. Because of their ability to affect the legislative process, however, their actions are not always technically criminal.
In the United States, corporate conduct leads to more deaths and injuries than does interpersonal violence. For example, in 1995 there were 21,230 homicides, the major form of interpersonal violence. In that same year there were 5,200 non-homicide workplace fatalities. At least another 50,000 people died as a result of illnesses or injuries they had incurred at some point in their occupational careers. We thus have 21,230 homicides and at least 55,200 work-related deaths. In addition to deaths caused by work there are over a million serious injuries (Freund and McGuire, 1998). In Great Britain also there are more deaths caused in the workplace than by direct assault, and there is a similar de-emphasis on corporate linked violence (Pantazis, 1998).
In spite of its seriousness, specific data on corporate-caused violence is more difficult to obtain than data on interpersonal violence. The need to use the phrases above, ‘at least’ or ‘over a million’ instead of being more precise illustrates the problem being discussed. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation compiles crime statistics from monthly reports submitted by law enforcement agencies. These figures are categorized into violent crimes and property crimes, which in turn are subdivided into several categories. The Bureau of Justice, an agency within the United States Department of Justice, publishes detailed statistics on these crimes and even has a toll-free telephone number where interested persons can get the very last figures. The data are broken down by race, age, gender, and so on. It is also possible to find out arrest rates and outcomes of these arrests. There are detailed data on the prison population.
Getting statistics on deaths, injuries and illnesses resulting from a victim's occupation is much more difficult. The level of detail available for victims of interpersonal violence is lacking for structural violence. It is not easy to find racial comparisons for example, and it is extremely difficult to find out what legal actions were taken against specific corporate law-breaking in the areas of health and safety. There are news reports from time to time on specific instances but there is no systematic collection and presentation of this information by government agencies.
There has been some small improvement in this situation. Since 1992, the United States Department of Labor has been publishing data on fatal workplace injuries. Researchers can now find out how many people die in a specific industry in a given year and what the immediate cause of death was, a vehicular accident, say, or a fall. The Bureau of Labor Statistics itself, however, admits that ‘the significant number of job-related fatalities each year, ... are a very small proportion of all workplace injuries and illnesses’ (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1998).
In 1970, as a result of pressure from unions, environmental groups, health professionals and others, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was established with a mandate to ensure a safe and healthy workplace. Business has consistently acted to undermine OSHA's effectiveness and this includes its data collection. In the past, employers were supposed to report injuries and deaths and statistics were gathered from the workers' compensation system. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recognizes a need for better information. The Bureau itself admits that ‘budgetary conditions’ and ‘available information resources’ are likely to limit their future gathering of statistics. The decisions about what research to fund and what information to collect and disseminate are clearly political ones. As long as the corporations have a powerful influence over the U.S. political system, finding reliable and detailed data on the structural violence affecting health and safety of the American working class will pose a challenge to workers’ organizations and to researchers.
REFERENCES
Bureau of Labor Statistics (June, 1998), Fatal Workplace Injuries in 1996: A Collection of Data and Analysis, Report 922, U.S Department of Labor: Washington D.C.
Chasin, B. (1997), Inequality and Violence in the United States: Casualties of Capitalism, Humanities Press: Atlantic Highlands NJ
Freund, P.S. and McGuire, M. B. (1998), Health, Illness and the Social Body, 3rd edition, Prentice-Hall: Upper Saddle River NJ
Pantazis, C. (1998), ‘Inequalities in crime and criminal justice’, Radical Statistics, 68, pp.54-63
Barbara
H. Chasin
Department
of Sociology
Montclair
State University
Upper
Montclair, NJ 07043
U.S.A.
CHASINB@saturn.montclair.edu
