Verkko’s Laws: Explaining Violence Against Women

Verkko made several observations about the differences between countries in terms of violence.

Rates of violence have been declining in developed countries. There are fewer cases of murder and other violent crimes in the population each year, however, this in itself does not mean that all violence is reduced.

There are different patterns of victimization that, despite the development of society, are still quite notorious, one of them being cases of domestic violence.

In this article we will look at Verkko's laws that explain this phenomenon, as well as contextualize it.in addition to contextualize it.

Who was Veli Verkko?

Veli Kaarle Verkko (1893-1955) was a Finnish criminologist, pioneer in the study of forensic psychology.pioneer in the study of the comparative investigation of homicides between countries. This researcher addressed how and in what way murder cases occurred in various societies, both in domestic and street contexts, relating it to culture, development, awareness of inequalities and wealth, among other factors.

From his research he postulated two laws, which are known as Verkko's laws, that explain patterns in statistics regarding violence and, especially, homicides, both temporally and cross-sectionally.

Verkko observed that not all homicides were the same.. While this may seem a truism, it is less so when one considers that there are many motives that can lead a person to commit a crime as serious as murder. Verkko saw the need to try to relate the context in which the homicide case occurred to what relationship the murderer had with his victim.

Not all murder victims have the same characteristics, nor do they have the same chances of being murdered. When comparing the chances of being murdered, there are big differences between being a man and being a woman.. Worldwide, for every woman murdered, there are four men murdered.

But the thing does not stop here, given that although there are more men who die murdered than women globally, this is different going by country and taking into account the type of violence that has occurred.

Verkko's laws

Veli Verkko observed that there were different murder rates in terms of the degree of development of the country, seeing that the more developed a society was, the fewer cases of murder occurred. However, fewer murders in general did not mean fewer cases of femicide.

Based on his observations, the Finnish criminologist introduced his two famous laws.

Verkko's first law

Verkko's first law, also called Verkko's static law, postulates that the degree of victimization of women in a society will be reflected by taking into account the total number of homicides..

It is called static since it explains the variations in a country's homicide rate at a particular time, without having a perspective over time.

This law holds that the more homicides there are in a society, both of men and women, the lower the percentage of murdered women is expected to be.

Put the other way around, the fewer murders there are, the higher the percentage of female homicide victims is likely to be..

In most cases, when a homicide is committed, it usually occurs in a situation that is already criminal in itself and, statistically, more men than women are involved.

It is for this reason that the more crimes are committed in a society, the more likely it is that the people killed are men.

2. Verkko's second law

Street violence, also called non-domestic violence, is not the same as domestic violence. The way in which both types of violence evolve, and therefore the homicides they may end up committing, is different.

The more a country develops, the more predictable it is that street violence will decrease, but it does not, or does not.but domestic violence does not, or at least not in the same way.

Verkko's second or dynamic law, which is the best known, postulates that changes in homicide rates in a society are due to the way in which, above all, men carry out fewer homicides in a street context than in a domestic context.

It is necessary to understand what we mean by domestic violence. This construct would incorporate within it any violent act committed against a person. all violent acts committed against a person close to the aggressor, such as a partner, children, children's children, children's children, children's children, children's childrenThis can be related to interpersonal conflicts, such as a partner, children, parents, siblings or other family members.

This may be related to interpersonal conflicts in families. This type of violence will always take place, regardless of time.

Cases of domestic violence are more stable than cases of non-domestic violence, which imply that the aggressor is more likely to be a victim of domestic violence than a victim of non-domestic violence.which involve the perpetrator committing an assault on someone he does not know.

By non-domestic violence we refer to a violent act, which can of course include homicide, perpetrated by a person who did not know or have a close or kinship relationship with the victim.

The contexts of non-domestic violence are usually situations of robbery, nighttime violence, sexual abuse or rape outside the couple and drug offenses. Leaving aside the case of sexual violence, in most of these crimes the aggression is male-on-male.

These types of crimes fluctuate depending on how developed and affluent the society is, as well as whether or not there is the right to a life in the community.The rate of these crimes fluctuates depending on how developed and prosperous the society is, as well as whether or not there are laws in place to ensure that these criminal acts do not occur.

What is the explanation behind all this?

As we were saying, the best known Verkko's law is the second, the dynamic one. It postulates that cases of domestic violence, compared to non-domestic violence, have remained more static throughout history. The perpetrator of this type of violence is usually a man who kills a member of his family. There are several people who have tried to give a sociocultural explanation to this phenomenon..

One of them is the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, who in his famous book The Angels Inside Us highlights the explanation of other psychologists, Martin Dally and Margo Wilson. According to these two researchers, the reason why violence in a domestic context remains more or less stable is the fact that members of any family tend to get on each other's nerves, something that has always happened and always will happen..

This is not to say that every family in which there is some tension will commit a crime, much less a homicide. However, with this explanation one can understand why, as a society develops, street violence decreases, but domestic violence does not decrease in the same way: in every good family there are conflicts.

In a family, members will always have some kind of conflict of interest. In addition, by sharing the same space and also the same genetics, there will always be two people who will want to have the same thingbut only one will be able to get it in the end, and in order to get it, it will be necessary to fight. Aggression, from an evolutionary perspective, is carried out between equals in order to get what is wanted, this being the most normal motive among men.

However, most victims of domestic violence are usually women, something that is reflected even in the statistics of the most developed countries. The clearest example of this is the case of the Nordic countries.

The five independent Nordic countries to date, i.e. Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, share two apparently contradictory characteristics: the first is that in all of them there is a deep sensitivity towards the acquisition of equality and women's rights; the second is that they are the countries with the highest number of cases of murders due to gender-based violence. are the countries with the highest number of cases of murders as a result of male violence..

This is striking because one would expect that, as there is more awareness of the privileges of men and the difficulties faced by women, society would have lower rates of male violence. Although street violence in these countries has been considerably reduced, intimate partner violence is still significantly higher than in Mediterranean countries.

There is an explanation for this phenomenon in the Nordic countries. In these countries, either because of their climate or because of cultural factors, it is more common to spend time with family and friends at home than going for a walk.. Given that Verkko's second law explains that domestic violence is rooted in the struggle for resources and space, it stands to reason that the more time spent cooped up at home with family members, the more tension may occur and, in turn, the greater the risk of violence.

Bibliographical references:

• Kivivuori, J., & Lehti, M. (2011). Homicide in Finland and Sweden. Crime and Justice, 40(1), 109 - 198.
• Kivivuori, J. (2017). Veli Verkko as an Early Criminologist. A case study in scientific conflict and paradigm shift. Scandinavian Journal of History 42(2), 144-165.