Death Threats and Violence: New Research and Clinical Perspectives

Threats of violence―and especially of homicide―are a too-familiar part of modern life, paralleling stressful conditions at home, on the job, on campus, and in relationships. Death Threats and Violence analyzes the meaning and impact of homicidal threats, the means by which they are communicated, and their development from infrequent private occurrence to ongoing social problem. Using data from the Stalking and Violence Project and recent events including the Virginia Tech massacre, Stephen Morewitz explores the lives of the men (and to a lesser degree, women) who make threats against their partners, strangers, social groups, and institutions. By balancing individual variables against the larger context of social norms and controls, this book offers a well-rounded assessment of death threats and their role in domestic and public violence.

Among the topics included:

• Personal and societal risk factors of threat makers and their victims.
• Possible links between stalking, death threats, and homicide.
• The enabling functions of substance abuse and access to weapons.
• Risk factors for partner-, school- and workplace-related death threats.
• Psychological and social effects of death threats on victims and their families.
• Law enforcement and legal system responses to death threats, particularly in comparison with offenders who do not make them.
• Death threats as used in hate crimes, terrorism, and war.

Death Threats and Violence is an up-to-the-minute work of particular interest to general and forensic psychologists, clinical social workers, criminal justice and health professionals and those studying the current social climate in which such threats are prevalent.

Stephen J. Morewitz has almost 20 years of experience as a behavioral/public health scientist, university faculty member, and consultant. He runs a research institution in San Francisco supervising research on the epidemiology and psychosocial aspects of the lower extremity disease/injury, disability, diabetes, and arthritis, and more. He has served on the staff or faculty of Michael Reese Hospital & Medical Center, University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Medicine & School of Public Health, DePaul University, Argonne National Laboratory, & the California College of Podiatric Medicine.