ABSTRACT
Concern about random senseless violence has become a central theme in contemporary culture. This chapter argues that such recent episodes of intense concern are a part of the broader, more general contemporary concern with random violence. Reports of terrible crimes committed by strangers are disturbing, but they do not justify broad generalizations about violence being random. The notion of random violence refers to the risk that anyone might be attacked for no good reason. Likewise, from the perspective of offenders, most violence is done for a "good reason". The implications of describing violence as random suggest that the turnover in terms used to talk about crime and other social problems reflects more than a faddish attraction to novel language. It is easy to see the appeal of framing issues in terms of random violence but it is less clear that this is an effective way to think about crime problems.
