Crime and the Mind

Crime and the Mind

Describe Athen's stages of violentization. Provide examples.

Athen was born in 1949 in Richmond, Virginia. He belonged to a lower middle class family. He was a rough and violent person, who used to employ physical force to discipline Lonnie and his brother Rico. Lonnie commonly shared victimization with his brother, but most of the times he just watched and analyzed his brother's acts. However, he was sometimes severely affected by this violence. Both he and Rhodes believe that he would have replicated his father's energetic pattern if not for the intervention of various softening forces: his grandfather on his mother's side, a good friend in school (and the friend's family), and some teachers and professors. Lonnie was however, saved from carrying out the legacy of violence, received from the father.

He had a successful career, especially when it comes to his academics, and in order to find a reasonable solution to the problem, he tried to find out detailed answers related to the problem as what were the factors that led to violence, and criminal behavior. He took small number of in-depth interviews with the prisoners to get answers to his questions. He had to face several issues when he had to conduct interviews from prisoners. Some were willing to cooperate, while others did not answer his questions and were not ready to cooperate with him (Rhodes, 2000).

However, in violent Criminal Acts and Actors (1997), Athens presented the findings of the study. Athens emphasized the fact that criminals remember their crimes and acts, which they deliberately carried out. He called this behavior as violentization. Athens argued that criminals develop a habit of committing violent acts regularly. Athens had defined four stages of the violentization process: brutalization, belligerency, robust performance, and virulency. In brutalization, a person ...