UB Criminologist: 'How Can We Learn Not to Resort to Violence?'
September 23, 2013
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
In an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun, Jeffrey Ian Ross, criminologist in the University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs and a noted commentator and author on trends in crime and criminal justice, says that the latest mass murder, this time at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., may not prompt an effective response, unless the public is willing to look deeper at the issue of gun violence and access to deadly weapons in search of something beyond more gun laws.
"When it comes to curbing violence, and saying no more to mass shootings, it's not about more laws, better laws or heightened law enforcement," Ross writes in the Sept. 22 piece. "It's a matter of figuring out how to establish a culture that does not resort to violence, whether it's to settle our differences or to satisfy some bizarre fantasy. We've figured out the real consequences of violence, and we're working on the social, psychological and cultural questions that will allow us to do better."
Read the op-ed.
Learn more about Prof. Ross.