Tag: Violence

New York City, New York/USA June 2, 2020 Black Lives Matter Protest March demanding justice for George Floyd and other victims of police brutality.

The Centrality of Social Movements in Addressing the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Malia Maier and Terry McGovern

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in higher rates of family violence. For advocates and funders, this provided important opportunities to partner with movements, including racial justice, Gender-Based Violence (GBV), Reproductive Justice, and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) movements.

We interviewed 24 GBV and SRHR service providers, advocacy organizations, and donors throughout the country to understand how the pandemic and concurrent racial justice movements were impacting critical GBV and SRHR services.

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Blue house in grass field.

Community-Based Response to Intimate Partner Violence During COVID-19 Pandemic

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Leigh Goodmark

Intimate partner violence has been called “a pandemic within the pandemic.”

A study of fourteen American cities found that the number of domestic violence calls to law enforcement rose 9.7% in March and April 2020, compared to the previous year. A hospital-based study spanning the same time period found significant increases in the number of people treated for injuries related to intimate partner violence. And a 2021 review of 18 studies relying on data from police, domestic violence hotlines, and health care providers found that reports of intimate partner violence increased 8% after lockdown orders were imposed.

Although almost half of people subjected to abuse never call the state for assistance, our responses to intimate partner violence are largely embedded within the state and rely heavily on law enforcement. A disproportionate amount of funding under the Violence Against Women Act — by one estimate, 85% — is directed to the criminal legal system. A growing number of activists skeptical of state intervention are arguing that responses beyond the carceral state are essential.

The pandemic showed that community-based supports, like pod mapping, mutual aid, and community accountability, originally developed by activists critical of law enforcement responses to violence, can foster safety and accountability without requiring state intervention. The pandemic could spur advocates seeking to distance themselves from state-based responses to expand their services.

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globe.

A Critical Analysis of the Eurocentric Response to COVID-19: Western Ideas of Health

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Hayley Evans

The international response to COVID-19 has paid insufficient attention to the realities in the Global South, making the response Eurocentric in several ways.

This series of blog posts looks at three aspects of the COVID-19 response that underscore this Eurocentrism. The first post in this series scrutinized the technification of the international response to COVID-19. This second post looks at how the international pandemic response reflects primarily Western ideas of health, which in turn exacerbates negative health outcomes in the Global South.

This series draws on primary research conducted remotely with diverse actors on the ground in Colombia, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom, as well as secondary research gathered through periodicals, webinars, an online course in contact tracing, and membership in the Ecological Rights Working Group of the Global Pandemic Network. I have written about previous findings from this work here.

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Busy Nurse's Station In Modern Hospital

Violence Against Health Care Workers: Legislative Responses

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By Stephen Wood

COVID-19 and other diseases aren’t the only threat to health care workers. Violence in the workplace is a common occurrence and on the rise.

Despite these troubling trends, the policy response at both federal and state levels has, so far, been lacking.

In a recent survey of nurses, 59% reported that they had been the victims of workplace violence. More than half of those respondents went on to report that they were not satisfied with how the incidents were handled.

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Second Amendment Rights and Mental Illness

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research Leave a comment

Editor’s Note: An updated of this post was published on March 6, 2017, entitled “The Balancing Act Between Mental Illness and Gun Rights.”

By Mariam Ahmed, JD/MSPP (2016)

In recent years, there have been a multitude of state- and federal-level discussions about how to use law to minimize gun violence as active shooter events increase. During these deliberations, one point that has repeatedly been debated is whether people with mental illness should have their gun possession rights limited.

Here’s how the legal landscape currently looks.

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Gun Violence: A Public Health Concern?

Michele Goodwin 3 Comments

By Michele Goodwin

Posted from Amsterdam

I was in India when the tragic news hit; 26 people dead–20 of them children in a massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.   In India, NGOs struggle with ending violence against women and children. Acid tossed in the faces of women by scorned boyfriends is not uncommon nor the increasing, random acts of slitting women’s throats on trains.  Sensational it may seem to us; but very real for women in Mumbai and Bihar.  In fact, the day before learning of the tragedy in Connecticut, Delhi officials announced the hiring of thousands of guards to deploy at 548 elementary schools in South Delhi amid reports of rapes and molestations of little girls who are followed, harassed, and in too many cases harmed on their way home after leaving school.  The government’s response comes on the heels of parents threatening to remove their daughters from school.

In that country and others, broad scale violence is understood as more than a national problem; it is a social and public health problem. In cases of sexual violence and the externalities that result, including sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies, the public health component may be more visible to those of us in the West.  However, the public health indicators extend physical health problems; violence causes emotional and psychological trauma.  The mental health component of public health must be better understood.  Americans who live in gang infested communities, where violence seems almost endless and difficult to escape, understand this all too well as their kids experience anxieties closer to post traumatic stress disorder as part of their daily lives.

The Newtown shootings offer a moment for reflection on the lives lost and also our nation’s first principles and commitments.  Perhaps this will be a time to consider gun control beyond a very divided constitutional law debate to also understand its public health dimensions.  Who benefits from current policies?  Who are those harmed?  Physical wounds do heal, but the mental health traumas, grief, and anxieties often take a lifetime to manage and overcome.