Research Paper on:
American Society and Violence

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
the U.S., the socialization process, and even the basic nature of Americans that we not only allow but actually support, and even celebrate violence? It is not necessary to be  either a sociologist, a police officer, a mental health professional, or even a movie producer to understand that more and more violent crimes are regularly being committed by younger and  younger people. Stories of 12-year-olds with guns at school, nine-year-olds who are members of gangs, and atrocious acts committed by teenagers fill the newspaper and evening news. Violent events occur  everywhere in the U.S. -- suburban schools, shopping malls, inner cities, quiet neighborhoods, and any other place where there is more than one person. The "Barbarian" Americans Denis Lacorne  wrote a thought-provoking article for The Wilson Quarterly titled "The Barbarian Americans." In it, he explains that the French generally have a negative view of the United States and that  "an overwhelming majority (80 percent) are convinced that the American system of social protection does not work well" (pp. 51). Lacorne refers to a SOFRES/French American Foundation survey in which  French people were given a brief "list of words and asked which best evoke the United States, the respondents generally chose the most unflattering terms: violence (67 percent), power (66  percent), inequality (49 percent), and racism (42 percent)" (51). Lacorne also uses the example of prison populations to make the point that American society is one of the most violent  in the world. He cites statistics which show that: "Some 650 of 100,000 Americans were incarcerated in 1997, compared with 120 of 100,000 individuals in the United Kingdom, 90 of  100,000 in France and Germany, 86 of 100,000 in Italy, 59 of 100,000 in Sweden, and 750 of 100,000 in Russia" (Lacorne 51). It is particularly interesting to consider that