No escape from violence by relocating

“Our hope is to shed light on why some people become more violent than others, and also why it can be difficult to change. Because even though people move to a safer place with better police and a more well-functioning legal system, they don’t necessarily trust these authorities to help them, and therefore they end up taking some cultural behavioural patterns with them,” says Martin Vinæs, associate professor of political science at Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University. 

We will return to how being killed is related to being more violent.

Using data on millions of Americans, he has found that the historical homicide rate in a migrant’s state of birth strongly predicts their risk of becoming a victim of homicide, even after they have moved to a new and safer state. 

The analysis also shows that the reason for this may be that cultural adaptations to dangerous environments – such as excessive independence and willingness to defend oneself with force – can live on even when moving to safer places. 

Martin Vinæs studies housing policy and urban development policy, and this time he wanted to find out why some places are more violent than others. The idea comes from a more general interest in what makes some people more likely to commit violent crime than others. Could it be related to where they came from?

”We were very surprised that we could see such a clear pattern. “People who are otherwise identical and live in the same place have completely different risks of being killed depending on where they come from.” 

^{Martin Vinæs, associate professor, Department of Politcal Science}

Clear pattern

To better understand what Martin Vinæs and his colleagues were looking for, let’s look at an example. It also starts with the America of the 1930s. Back then, Kentucky was the most violent state in the United States for white people, while Wisconsin was the safest.

In this example, you then take a man from Kentucky and a man from Wisconsin and move them to Los Angeles County, California. Even though the Kentucky man has moved to a safer place and now lives in the same state as the Wisconsin man, the Kentuckian still has a much higher risk of being killed than the Wisconsin man.

“We were very surprised that we could see such a clear pattern. “People who are otherwise identical and live in the same place have completely different risks of being killed depending on where they come from,” says Martin Vinæs.

Across generations

It is also interesting that the correlation between the violence rate in the state you were born in and your chance of dying from violence follows you across generations. Both those who moved from violent states in 1959-1961, 1979-1991 and 2000-2017 carry some of the legacy of violence with them today.

The study showed that the increased risk was also present for those who are not normally at high risk of lethal violence, namely married women, the elderly, people with higher education and people with higher incomes. 

Nor can the fact that the migrants themselves chose to move to more dangerous areas in the new state explain the increased risk. The fact that victims of violence more often owned a firearm could not be the explanation, either, because the correlation was the same for other types of homicide than shooting.

"If you come from a place that is twice as dangerous, you bring about half of that risk with you to the new place you move to.” 

^{Martin Vinæs, associate professor, Department of Political Science} 

Higher risk than next-door neighbour

By comparing newcomers with local residents in the same area, the researchers found that the reason for the higher risk of being killed was not due to the newcomers settling in dangerous parts of the new state. Here, the study shows that, also compared to local residents, people who have moved there from an unsafe state are more likely to die from violence. 

This can be exemplified by 1,385,640 people who moved from unsafe Kentucky to Ohio and Indiana in the years 1959-1961. The newcomers from Kentucky had a three-fold higher chance of dying from violence than their neighbours who had lived in Ohio and Indiana their entire lives (5.3 vs. 1.8 per 100,000).

“If you come from a place that is twice as dangerous, you bring about half of that risk with you to the new place you move to,” explains Martin Vinæs.

The researchers saw the clearest correlation for their data from 1959-1961, while the data from 2000-2017 show a slightly smaller effect. 

“The effect decreases over the years, but this is due, among other things, to the fact that the general mortality rate due to homicide is decreasing in the United States. “Although the level of violence has decreased across the United States, the differences across states still remain,” says Martin Vinæs.

Culture moving with people

To understand how people’s state of birth is related to their risk of being killed, the researchers conducted a large questionnaire survey with 7,494 participants. 

“We thought it might be interesting to find out how these people think, because we believed that their thoughts and attitudes could be a mechanism that explained why they still had a higher risk of dying from violence, even though they had moved away from their violent birthplace,” says Martin Vinæs.

The responses from the questionnaire survey showed that people from historically dangerous states have adapted to the dangerous environments they came from and bring this behaviour with them into the new environment when they move. 

“The reason was not that they were more socially vulnerable, but rather that they had a different approach to self-defence. Several believed that if they or their family had problems, they should solve them themselves rather than seek help from the authorities. It shows that cultural adaptations to dangerous environments – such as taking matters into one's own hands and be inclined to defend oneself with force – can live on, even when moving to safer places,” says Martin Vinæs. 

Violence breeds violence

People with roots in historically unsafe states typically see the world as a dangerous place, they react more violently and aggressively and they value being tough. Furthermore, they do not trust the police, but instead rely on themselves and their family in violent situations. 

These adaptations may have kept them safe in historically dangerous states, but they may increase their exposure to danger in safer states – because violence breeds violence. When you yourself are inclined to resolve violence with violence, you are also sometimes on the receiving end of the violence, goes the reasoning.

“Many of those coming from dangerous places – both in the USA and Denmark – live extremely unsafe lives. “It’s not a nice way to live – it’s about putting your life on the line,"” says Martin Vinæs and continues:

“They develop a culture of honour precisely because they have to protect themselves and their family.”

"Cultural adaptations to dangerous environments – such as taking matters into one's own hands and be inclined to defend oneself with force – can live on, even when moving to safer places.” 

^{Martin Vinæs, associate professor, Department of Political Science}

Difficult to break legacy of violence

Previous research, for example from disadvantaged residential areas where there is also a lot of violence, shows that people who live in these areas may end up developing a different way of taking care of themselves. For them, it’s about appearing as dangerous as possible to others, in order to signal: ‘Don’t come after me, or I’ll just hit you harder!’ 

“It may be rational enough if you don’t have the option to call the police, but it will also often end in violence and conflicts,” says Martin Vinæs. 

Martin Vinæs and his colleagues rediscover this very mechanism in their new study. The analysis shows that you cannot simply move away from violence. A person born in a historically safe state remains safe wherever that person moves, while people born in historically unsafe states still face a higher risk of dying from violence when they move. 

According to Martin Vinæs, this emphasises how difficult it is to completely free yourself from your background.

“It’s also ironic that one of the reasons for moving is that you want to go somewhere safer, and then you still end up not being so safe. You take about half of the risk with you. “As a society, we cannot be completely satisfied with this,” says Martin Vinæs.

Facts

We strive to comply with Universities Denmark’s principles for good research communication. For this reason, we provide the following information as a supplement to this article: