Running head: Journal Review: Gun Violence

JOURNAL REVIEW: GUN VIOLENCE

Matthew John Brennan
Hodges University

PSY3007
Dr. Arway
September 23, 2012

Journal Review: Gun Violence

Pogrebins accounts of violent events by gun offenders sets out to apply Scott and
Lymans sociology of accounts to the world of violent gun offenders. Pogrebin et al. do this by
interviewing a demographic representation of violent gun offenders in the Colorado Department
of Corrections system. By analyzing the offenders narrative, they attempt to identify the main
justifications and excuses found in the accounts given.
The authors are not concerned with identifying the causes of gun violence, but rather in
applying Scott and Lymans sociology of accounts to a new group of deviants that had
heretofore not been examined. To understand what this sociology of accounts is, we must
understand the differences between causes and explanations and accounts as used in this
context. The causes and explanations for a given behavior are separate from the actor involved
and more empirically derived. On the other hand, the account is how the actor describes his own
reason for his actions. Taken one-step farther, the actors account also encompasses how others
perceive his reasons. In fact, this external perception seems to be the common factor that
delineates the two main types of accounts given by violent gun offenders as reported in this
article. When reading this article, it is important to understand what this research is and what it
is not.
With this research, they are expanding the catalog of deviant accounts to include
violent gun users (Pogrebin, Stretesky, Unnithan, & Venor, 2006, p. 480). They are not
offering empirical causes or explanations for gun violence. Pogrebin et al. make the argument
that offenders will offer accounts that attempt to mitigate their deviant identity. The ability to
present accounts that are favorable to the actor is important because it will lessen the degree of
ones moral responsibility and it is framed in the perspective of each actors dominate group

about whose opinion he cares (Pogrebin, Stretesky, Unnithan, & Venor, 2006, p. 480). The two
main types of accounts discovered in this group of violent offenders include Justifications and
Excuses. Specifically, the actors deny victimhood as a justification for their crime or offer
defeasible reasoning. While the former account generally stands alone, the latter almost always
has accompanying excuses or justifications.
The authors demonstrate both types of accounts with a series of offender narratives that
distill what each was thinking before, during and after each violent offense. The first four
accounts support the authors argument that denial of victimhood, as justification for violence is
singular in nature. The last three accounts adequately demonstrate the appeal to defeasibility
(Pogrebin, Stretesky, Unnithan, & Venor, 2006, p. 492).
While reading the analysis of each account by the authors one could not help but infer a
large cultural chasm between the inmates and researchers. In the first account, a grounds keeper
from Columbia shoots his supervisor because his supervisor talked harshly to him, close to his
face, thereby violating his personal space that should be respected by another during face to face
interaction (Pogrebin, Stretesky, Unnithan, & Venor, 2006, p. 487). Clearly, the author does not
understand the cultural differences in regards to personal space between Latin cultures and North
Americans. Personal space in Latin cultures is much more restricted. Being face to face is not
aberrant. North Americans, generally like to keep people at arms length. Regardless of this
cultural minutia, the conclusions the authors draw from this affront to the offenders honor is off
base. Pogrebin et al. claims the offender felt that his termination, plus the humiliation of the
confrontation, lead to the claim that the victim was responsible for his own injury. The reviewer
concedes this fits the definition of a Justification account, but it completely misses the point why
the bad actor committed the crime.

The cultural chasm does not end with only one example. The second story details how an
urban drug dealer confronts a man who stole approximately $18,000 worth of product. The
interviewers said that the dealer was faced with the choice of losing face with his drug subculture
by being taken advantage of in a public way or by doing harm to the person responsible for
threatening his livelihood. The authors argue, the subject admitted the commission of the
untoward act but also argued that the victim caused the offender to use a gun (Pogrebin,
Stretesky, Unnithan, & Venor, 2006, p. 489). This justification is grounded in that the bad actor
felt disrespected by the victim. This, like the first example cited above, is a prima facia
argument. Obviously, murder is deviant both legally and morally, and everyone will try to
explain it away in terms that give the most benefit to the deviant with his peer group, but what is
more interesting and useful is the why. Did not the drug dealer make a complex cost/benefit
analysis between action and inaction and simply make a business decision when he committed
his murder against someone who was threatening his livelihood?
The fourth story details a sixteen-year-old Caucasian adolescent driving around with a
gun in a predominately-black neighborhood. After encountering three other local males and
engaging them in a confrontation at least three separate times, the sixteen year old justifies his
shooting crime as self-defense. The claim of self-defense is the ultimate denial of victim
justification. Again, this reviewer would argue that there is nothing new presented in this
example. It only serves to highlight the inconsistencies of a sixteen year old in criminal
possession of a handgun and his repeated interjections into a bad situation.
The remaining accounts all take the second tack, that of defeasibility as an excuse for the
gun crime. As the authors pointed out in their thesis, the defeasibility excuse is always found in
conjunction with other excuses or justifications. It is as if the bad actor knows that the argument,

he made me do it, is never enough to explain away an immoral act. As Pogrebin et al. point
out, in trying to conserve their morality, the offenders are willing to become amoral. Two of the
accounts given involve boyfriend/girlfriend peer pressure and conflict that is used to excuse the
violent crime. The last account is most interesting in that the offender shoots his abusive
stepfather after being egged on by a friend of his. The offender claims that he became detached
during the crime and actually saw somebody I didnt know shooting my step dad (Pogrebin,
Stretesky, Unnithan, & Venor, 2006, p. 497). In this instance, the defeasibility comes in multiple
layers, first he observes his mother being abused over a long period, he himself is abused, and
most recently, the victim threatens him. Secondly, his friend pushes him to do something about
the situation. All these lead to the Justification of denial of victim and the Excuse that he was
emotionally detached from the crime.
The researches do a good job of supporting their thesis and conclusion that violent gun
users (Pogrebin, Stretesky, Unnithan, & Venor, 2006, p. 480) will use two different types of
accounts when narrating the details of the incident. The usefulness of the conclusions outside of
the purely theoretical world of account sociology is questionable however. If any reader of
this article tries to apply the conclusions to the world at large, they will be committing an error of
assumption. This reader would argue that not all violent gun users are morally or even legally
deviant and to assume so is plain wrong. Not so long ago, this reviewer was employed as a
violent gun user and he would never offer justification or excuses for committing grievous
harm to others. While studying deviant behavior, who is to judge whether denial of victim
justification is truly deviant? A U.S. Marshall shooting an escapee fits the description of a study
subject except for the incarceration. Are we to presume this Marshalls Justification belongs in
the same group as his deviant cousins? Does incarceration by itself make someone deviant?

The methods used by the researches to assure they had a representational sample of
inmates to study is to be applauded, but to not divulge or even to give weight to different age
groups or socioeconomic dividers muddles the results and make them less useful. The
researchers showed that account studies had been conducted on other deviant groups,
Medicare fraud, computer hacking, intimate partner violence, rape, child abandonment,
snitching, and white-collar crime. Each of these groups has very specific socioeconomic profiles
that are going to play a large role in how Justifications and Excuses are explained. The thought
process of a gun addicted sixteen year old with a compromised OODA loop (Boyd, 1976) is not
the definition of a developed character. With the same reasoning, adolescent females that
commit armed robbery with their boyfriends are equally not reliable sources. If a reader of this
article is willing to confine its conclusions to its proper domain, that of account sociology this
does not matter, but to infer broad conclusions about groups of deviants is wrong.

Works Cited
Boyd, J. R. (1976, September 3). Destruction and Creation. U.S. Army Command and General
Staff College.
Mills, C. W. (1940). Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive. American Sociological
Review, 5(6), 904-913.
Pogrebin, M., Stretesky, P. B., Unnithan, N. P., & Venor, G. (2006). Retrospective accounts of
violent events by gun offenders. Deviant Behavior, 479-501.
doi:10.1080/01639620600721429
Scott, M. B., & Lyman, S. M. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33(1), 46-61.