In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute force. So wrote Mohandas Karamchand…
The petrol bomb – or “Molotov cocktail” – is an iconic symbol of 20th-century political violence. Simple, cheap and effective, it has become a staple feature of protest, riot and rebellion; a weapon of…
When we talk about violence, there is an implicit assumption that we mean human-to-human violence. Yet behind the veneer of our civilised society, economy and culture is a massive edifice of violence of…
Children endure many forms of violence, from slapping and pushing, to fatal assaults; almost one in five of the world’s homicide victims in 2012 were under 20. The recently released UNICEF report on violence…
Over the coming months, we’ll be running pieces looking at the history and nature of violence. Here Philip Dwyer explains why. Violence – to state the obvious – isn’t new. But interest in the history of…
Steroids are easy to scapegoat. Users are viewed as aggressive, violent and mentally unstable, able to snap at any moment and cause great harm to the people around them. Ostensibly, it is this perception…
The Victorian government’s introduction of the Sentencing Amendment (Coward’s Punch Manslaughter and Other Matters) Bill 2014 this week has again sparked debate about the deterrence value and general utility…
Another game, another bite. That’s the allegation against Uruguayan Luis Suárez, anyway, who has been accused of sinking his teeth into an opposition player. For the third time. But a mid-game nibble on…
Services for women fleeing domestic abuse and sexual violence in the UK have developed over the past 40 years, from grassroots services staffed by volunteers to a professionalised (if still small) sector…
A British coroner has sparked anxiety among parents by linking Call of Duty, one of the most popular video games in the world, to teenage suicide. John Pollard says Call of Duty has “figured in recent…
This week saw the convictions of two men at opposite ends of the process of radicalisation – one convicted for radicalising others, the other for being radicalised himself. In the United States, a court…
In November 2013 at Barton Moss on the outskirts of Salford, IGas, a company specialising in onshore extraction of oil and gas, began exploratory drilling to test for coal bed methane and shale gas. The…
A recent study by researchers at Cardiff University claimed that the number of people who attended hospital for injuries caused by violence has fallen by 12% in the past year. But to what extent can the…
The stabbing to death by a 15-year-old pupil of Anne Maguire, a much loved teacher who had worked at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds for more than 40 years, has attracted much attention across…
The chief inspector of prisons has identified the single worst prison he has visited – and, scandalously, it’s a jail for children. HMYOI Brinsford in Wolverhampton is filthy, squalid and has levels of…
Over the past ten years, 519 people have died after contact with the police, either in custody (the great majority) or during a pursuit or another road traffic incident. Some 23 people have been shot by…
The murder of French student Sophie Collombet in Brisbane in late March has sparked a debate about the safety of travellers in Australia. A man has now been arrested and charged with Collombet’s rape and…
Two months after the death of 18-year-old Sydney man Daniel Christie, who was punched to the ground on New Year’s Eve, New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell introduced a set of measures aimed at improving…
The violent and senseless death of 11-year-old Luke Batty in Victoria has not only drawn attention to the serious problem of family violence but has also raised questions about the role that undiagnosed…