Understanding Violence: The Role of Trauma in Society

As most people with access to social media know, there have been some major events happening this week. Tragically, lives were lost to brutal gun violence, leaving many people asking: How did we end up here? America is no longer the country I grew up knowing. Many people are scared, emotional, and fearful as these uncertain times point to a darker future than what we would have hoped.

Unfortunately, we live in a violent society. Humans throughout history have struggled and failed to maintain peace consistently. You’d think with the advancements in technology and quality of life, we’d be making more progress than going backwards. As a species, though, the secret behind our behavior isn’t quite as complicated as people may think.

Our brains focus on survival as our primary motive. That said, my personal belief, is that one thing is a fairly consistent motivator of repeated, unnecessary violent behavior that we see today: trauma.

To unpack this, let’s first start with a definition from SAMHSA (Substance and Mental Health Services Administration):

“SAMHSA describes individual trauma as an event or circumstance resulting in: physical harm, emotional harm, and/or life-threatening harm.”

I took this quote from their article “Trauma and Violence” here, which I recommend reading for more context on my post.

When an act of violence, such as an assault, occurs between two parties, society is expected to have consequences to deter such behavior. Most people with a rational mind are not behaving violently every day, and even individuals we deem abusive aren’t always likely to be chronically violent. Many violent individuals, in fact, can control their tendencies to a degree which is often how society separates actions born from ill intent. Those who we deem incapable of controlling their behavior are categorized with a different set of rules and expectations than the later.

The purpose of having governments is to help organize society into a structure that supports not only community survival, but culture, livelihood, access to resources, education, and so on. Part of supporting community survival is the prevention of crime and the enforcement of laws as a consequence of behaviors that harm others and sustain order.

That said, it’s statistically proven that a person’s exposure to traumatic experiences early in life impacts their relationship to violent behavior in the future.

To quote Urban.org, “Research shows around 61 percent of the general population has had at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE), a potentially traumatic event that occurs to people younger than 17, and that number is closer to 97 percent for people in prison.”

That’s a pretty high statistic and clearly shows a correlation between trauma in childhood to crime. You can probably imagine that the ACE’s scores for violent & abusive individuals show similar results for folks not convicted. (Which, btw, check out your ACE score here.)

So how does this apply to the big picture?

Government plays a significant role in societal well-being by how it operates. Governments that support efforts to reduce ACE, such as giving communities better access to resources they need, thereby inherently prevent crime overall. While a country is mainly responsible for the quality of its own citizens, it’s safe to say that a population that’s taken care of is less likely to go to war and have better relationships with other groups of humanity. This is why social workers are so crucial to society: they are the front line to providing support to the disadvantaged, among many other organizations as well.

When politicians leverage power in ways that impact individuals’ ability to provide for themselves and their communities, the outcome can lead to more ACEs and thus more crime and acts of violence. Furthermore, advocating for violent behavior leads to, you guessed it, more violent behavior. While the whole “beating up the bad guy saves the day” mentality can make us feel good, the reality is, the person who’s beating up other people was likely already getting beaten or worse. So how does the cycle of harm change?

The cycle of abuse changes when we step out of fear and into a higher perspective, which is our true power.

Witnessing violent and threatening behavior can cause emotional reactions. After all, seeing things that can be potentially harmful will cause us to want to act to stop the activity from occurring. That said, not all emotional reactions lead to outcomes that we want. Taking actions from a place of pain and fear can lead to us into areas that can be just as harmful as the perceived threat itself.

We cannot control other people’s behaviors. While violence can be used as a protective act, to repeatedly engage with it as a tool to control others’ behavior indicates a lack of control in oneself in how to respond to conflicts with others and can lead to more violent outcomes. Sure, there’s always going to be exceptions, but if we have already found a reliable root cause of these problems, why wouldn’t we focus on solutions that address them?

You may not be able to always control your body or mental health, but your actions are still yours to own and control.

Being strategic with how we choose to handle situations where we must defend ourselves should come from places of understanding the consequences of our actions and seeking repair if possible, not compliance in our will. When we try to control others, we are actually attempting to seek that which we can’t do on our own and find safety in those externalized dynamics.

So when you feel the urge to hurt someone else after what they’ve done, remind yourself of what you do have control of and why you desire to seek change in the situation. There’s a huge difference between taking action to prevent harm and heal than seek justice. Justice is rooted in balance and seeks change to offset. Creating change with clear judgment and intentions will go much farther than fear and will restore control.

This is how we heal.

If you want to start making changes to societal violence, get involved in your communities. Unpack your own unhealed traumas and relationship to violence. Learn about how your government supports its communities and what resources are available to the vulnerable populations. Volunteer. Research topics you’re passionate about. There are plenty of opportunities and organizations out there who are looking to work with you.

And most importantly, now more than ever, dare to spread love to others.