Are we really a less violent world? NO! and Yes..

I have been tracking journalists' reports, field workers accounts around the world, everyday citizens, media of all types on and offline, and increasing  books that assert a decrease in violence around the world. Can any studied measure of violence possibly ignore the facts? There is great good being accomplished in the world that we rarely get news of in the press; that's a fact. Violence provokes the spectacle-loving, aggression-seeking desires that exist in an increasingly chaotic and unpredictable world and, in many ways, confirms our deepest fears. As 2012 ended and 2013 opened we both celebrated and mourned more-than-frequent occurrences of identifiable violence from India and China to the Ivory Coast and Connecticut. But if we look closely, just under the surface, human violence is not decreasing as Pinker and others write.That type of subjective comparative data just makes us less anxious, or does it? And what are the data anyway? What and who counts as violence and violated? Have the authors ever experienced violence over a lifetime in a personal setting, as innocents from a prison cell, or in a repressive state?

Selectively analyzing history or prehistory and comparing it to present-day forms of violence underestimates unreported and systemic violence as well as the normalization of forms of human behavior that we are reluctant to categorize as violent. Note how many acts of recent violence target children and women. Laws and policies are key guardians of deviant social behavior but what types of interventions actually reduce violence and what are the proven outcomes?

Weigh in with your experiences on the ground.