ABSTRACT
The differences between the causal models of crime and the situational ones have already been highlighted by Sutherland and Cressey:
The present chapter highlights the interactional model of situational vio lence, examines how violence may be predicted and discusses possible modes of its prevention. There is indeed a link between predisposing factors on the biological, personal and social levels and the situational interaction, but the predisposition and situational aspects express themselves in different dynamics. Predisposition to violence, as gleaned from various studies, may eventu
ally be expressed as probability profiles, which would estimate the likeli hood of an individual, displaying a given set of characteristics, to commit a violent act. However, the actual sequence of events precipitating the vio lence would in some cases take the form of a causal chain of interaction
between criminal and victim. This sequential pattern could be ignited on the spot by exposure to a compromising situation, such as the ever-loving wife and her lover in the husband’s nuptial bed. Words hurled with obvious intent to offend would have the effect of switching Ego action (Ego being defined as the acting individual, plus his or her cognitive perceptions, and Alter as how the other in the dyadic interaction is perceived by Ego) to a different cognitive level; that is, he would ‘see red’. Other expressions may have this triggering effect on Ego because he or she defines them subjectively as humiliating, owing to peculiarities of his or her own personality. The word ‘bugger’ thrown at a latent homosexual, or an expression questioning the virility of a man who has anxieties about his potency, may have the same effect. The conventional form of an offensive gesture, such as the twisting of a moustache and the emission of a snore in the presence of a devout Mos lem, may have an even stronger escalatory effect. Such an exchange of words and gestures would not trigger immediate arousal to another cogni tive level, but, depending on the reaction, may gradually lead to the point of no return, the threshold of violence. The interaction between the perpetrator of violence and the victim operates
as sequential cycles, with each situational cycle limiting the rational choice of each actor, so that, in the end, the violent act erupts as an almost indeterministic sequence with very little rational choice. This, of course, assumes that each actor in the dyadic interaction picks up the cue which leads him to another limitation of rational choice and of violence-precipitating action. As we shall show, there could be a non-violence-precipitating decision effected by the rational choice of one of the actors so that the danse macabre situational sequence would be pushed away from the violent eruption.
