Final Assessment
Question: How far ‘upstream’ do we need to go to discover the sources of violence?
The impact of violence cannot be quantifies, but it has long-lasting physical, economical, psychological, and social consequences. Violence occurs in various ways, including interpersonal violence, child neglect and abuse, sexual violence, community violence, and self-directed violence. This is a sensitive problem that needs a long-lasting commitment and collaboration of several sectors and partners. There is a proven relationship between domestic violence and poverty, although they may function independently, the impacts are similar on all communities and individuals. Poverty may not cause physical violence directly, but in a human right view, it is a type of violence that happens due to economic situations rather than physical ones. Poverty originates from social injustices that arise from educational deprivations and other parallels, these injustices cause as much harm as domestic violence can.
Being in violence or poverty can lead to the other, because both are prone to cause human suffering and dehumanizing individuals. Sometimes it is not easy escaping poverty while still being abused. At times, leaving violent relationships may lead to further poverty and more exposure to abuse. When in poverty an individual has few options and when combined with violence weakens basic security for anyone related to them and the larger community. Dealing with violence and poverty means recognizing the link between the two and centering on human rights to solve them. When violence and poverty are viewed as a threat to human rights, their primary causes and possible solutions can be identified. By ensuring that there is security and safety in all violence parallels, everyone will be secure and human rights will be upheld. In response to increased community violence, communities need to adopt public health-based approach by forming violence prevention teams. The teams should address all the issues relating violence prevention (Fahmy et al., 2016). Projects such as youth-based initiatives and community-based intervention team will respond to incidences of violence and strive to prevent advanced retaliation and violence. The team should work closely with judicial systems to develop and present recommendations to address community-based violence. Developing community listening circle is also a great strategy to discover the sources of violence. These listening circles will help the community to collect and compile violence data that can be used to draft a community violence prevention plan.
Many people are aware that there are high levels of violence. The aspect is mostly misinterpreted without determining the root cause of the violence. Everyone has a responsibility to understand the political, social, and economical structures of violence. By this, we can create well-targeted programs focused on the mostly violence hotspots. The factors that lead to violence needs to be investigated with a preventative plan involving the family and society. The community should focus preventing the causes of violence and develop a systematic and well-coordinated approach to be used by every member of the society. The approach of using law-enforcers only in dealing with violence should be avoided. While justice has a crucial role in averting violence, it should be combined with peaceful interventions and other protective factors that can offer lasting solutions (Auyero & Sobering, 2017). Additionally, violence should be addressed on the same level. The community should treat female and male violence as the same problem. We need to change our dimensions and understand that the gender-based violence. We should find a balance between the risk factors that caused violence. Most importantly, understanding the driving forces of violence is crucial, and beginning childhood interventions is essential. Collaboration between the community and the policy makers will lead to a healthy, safe environment, and increase community and personal responsibility.