Safe School Design

Transcending Violence

by Tod Schneider

What turns people into killers?
Can this process be prevented or +reversed?

In answering these questions, Transcending Violence provides comprehensive, pragmatic, accessible and inspirational guidance in preventing violence and building hope.

About the Book

How do you make sense out of violence? Every Ted Bundy or Charles Manson, every Littleton, Rwanda, or Kosovo inspires a renewed, desperate search for explanations and solutions. Hundreds of books wrestle with aspects of the problem: drugs, poverty, television, child abuse. Only a handful of texts tackle violence on a broader scale. Called "a major contribution to violence theory" by the OMNI Center for Peace; "a brilliant synthesis of all available models;" and "the most comprehensive model of violence enabling yet to be developed" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author of the Pulitzer-nominated "On Killing". Transcending Violence stands out in offering both explanations and pragmatic solutions Violence is complex. It comes in many shapes and sizes. It grows in almost any soil. Ethnic warfare and school shootings, crimes of passion and murder-for-hire seem to have little in common. One specialist blames overblown self-esteem while another points to deep-rooted shame. Criminologists, sociologists, police, peace activists, military historians and forensic psychologists bring contrasting perspectives to the table. Each explanation carries a large grain of truth, but when applied across the board quickly falls apart. What's wrong with this picture? One error has been an obsession with finding only one factor --child abuse, manipulation, guns, greed, drugs, shame, hatred-- that can carry the entire blame. Competing theories often throw light on specific incidents but not on others. These various perspectives become considerably more valuable when interwoven. Specifically, their shared characteristics and concerns can be sorted into up to five steps and ten primary reinforcers. Variations on these five steps, enhanced or inflamed by a variety of reinforcers, produce individually tailored paths to violence. That tapestry is laid out in the first half of Transcending Violence. In part two, Transcending Violence takes this confluence model and turns it on its head. By identifying specific steps and reinforcers for violence, we become empowered to invert them. We can disassemble the steps and eliminate the reinforcers. These actions apply at all levels, from the individual to the global. Transcending Violence covers the full spectrum. Read more! Click here to read an exerpt from Transcending Violence.