Violence Reflections on Our Deadliest Epidemic

James Gilligan lays the foundation for a complete re-thinking of the nature and meaning of violence in society. He reveals the motives of men who commit horrifying crimes, men who not only kill other people, but also destroy themselves rather than suffer shame and loss of self-respect. He focuses on how feelings of shame cause violent and vengeful behaviour, and argues that conventional punitive legal and penal systems perpetuate violent behaviour. After his time in the Massachusetts prison system the high rates of suicide and murder within the state prisons there had dropped almost to zero.