This weekend, while surfing the web in a quest for violence related area news, it didn’t take long to find several noteworthy ‘somethings’ in our very own Atlanta Journal Constitution. Here’s a high gloss overview: Home invasion… multiple victims… child fatally wounded while father was getting a hair cut… $2,000 reward for anybody with information… call Crime Stoppers.
What is blaring about violence and violent death in particular is that it disproportionately affects otherwise young and healthy people. Not to downplay the significance of other causes of death, such as cancer and other chronic diseases, but if significance were found in ‘years of productive life loss’, the perpetrators of homicide get much more ‘bang for the buck’ than the rogue cells that cause cancer. Now, some may find contention with public health ‘folk’ spitting the acronym for ‘years of productive life loss’, Y.P.L.L. (pronounced something like yoi-ple, I’m sure my linguistically inclined counterparts will kindly suggest the true pronunciation and grammatical ornaments that should accompany my feeble attempt at phonetics), but this acronym fits comfortably in violence-specific research. Although the number of individuals that die from cancer in Georgia greatly outnumbers the number of homicide victims, the homicidal impact trumps cancer with respect to Y.P.L.L.. It is one of the leading causes of death among adolescents and young adults. Although the number of Y.P.L.L. is only one component to consider when gauging the overall impact of a public health concern on individuals, families, communities, states, and nations, when it comes to injury in general, this measure gives insight into the major impact of unintentional and intentional injury.
Beyond the Y.P.L.L., let’s consider the social impact of violence by abstracting a statement from the community in which this shooting took place. When interviewed, a community member stated the following, according to the AJC,
“‘It’s really scary… not knowing what’s going on in your own neighborhood,” Walker told WSB Radio. “I’d rather be safe than sorry. You never know what’s going to happen.’”
Inquiring minds, otherwise known as those of us who are interested in the story beyond the sensationalism, want to know what was lost in those ellipses? In this case, as in many others, the journalistically unremarkable might have provided greater meaning to the bones of this commenter’s statement… we needed those sentences. For those of us who study this, it was a classic fail at the hand of the economy of words. But, we’ll make due without them. All in all, this person is making a statement about the greater impact of violence… the community impact… the cultural impact. Why don’t we know what’s going on in our neighborhoods? Has our concern for safety fueled a culture of communal ignorance and apathy toward neighborhood conditions? And what does it mean when safe ‘snuffs’ sorry?
Gwinnett police searching for shooter of 8-year-old boy | ajc.com.
Merriah Croston
