Eric Henry Monkkonen

Eric H. Monkkonen (1942–2005) was a urban and social science historian[1] that conducted authoritative studies on the history of crime, as well as urban development. His work found evidence that countered and overturned many assumptions, such as the belief that crime rates are higher in urban areas, and that crime declined during times when they were assumed to increase, such as post-war periods and economic downturns. His works on the history of crime in several cities were extensive, cataloging close to every recorded homicide in New York City since 1798, and every homicide in Los Angeles since 1827, and conducting extensive studies on several more cities, primarily in the Western world. At one time he believed that murder was largely "a problem of men", and that "If men take charge of anything ... it must be of the notion that real men don't kill, that self-respect means shrugging off an insult, and that the better manliness accrues to him who does not fight. Other countries have done this, and so can the United States."[2]

Life

Monkkonen was born in 1942, a native of Kansas City and grew up in Duluth, Minnesota. He gained an interest in studying murder as a graduate student in the late 1960s, in part because it was clearly studied over a long period of time. He earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees from the University of Minnesota between 1964 and 1973, after which he taught at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte for a few years. After publishing The Dangerous Class: Crime and Poverty in Columbus, Ohio, 1860-1885 in 1975, Monkkonen moved to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and continued working at UCLA for the rest of his career. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995, and died on May 30, 2005 at the age of 62 in Culver City, California.[2] His family and colleagues at UCLA established the Eric Monkkonen Fund to support students working in social history.[3]

Research

Monkkonen's comparison of cities in the United States with other cities in the Western world led him to conclude that violence was endemic in the US; the US has had a homicide rate much higher than the rest of the Western world except Russia, and over 200 years, the murder rate in New York City was five times that of London, even after removing murders with guns. He also found that the US had a disinclination to prosecute murders, such as with the first three decades in 19th century New York City, when most murders went unpunished, and London executed four times the number of offenders.

By gleaning records going back deep into the history of major cities and conducting far-reaching studies of crime in the US, Monkkonen was able to precisely measure how much crime there was, overturning many assumptions. Using his meticulously constructed database of 1,781 cases in New York City, he found that factors such as poverty, crowding, a corrupt justice system, and riots are not necessarily preconditions to an increase in homicides.[2] He found that some of the most miserable times in New York City's history, such as during the Great Depression, were the times with the lowest murder rates. He furthermore found that New York City had a lower murder rate in the first half of the 1900s than the nation as a whole; his database of murders that he compiled between 1830 and 1960 showed that Los Angeles in 1900 was four times more violent than New York City.[3] He furthermore found that the murder rate in Los Angeles declined after World War II; it was commonly believed that violence on the battlefield made brought the tendency of violence back at home - Monkkonen speculated that the soldiers returning home were sickened by gunplay and were actually less likely to use weapons to kill, and that they were also more focused on their domestic needs in starting families. He even claimed that cities are not necessarily more murderous than the country, a point that was the most debated in his book Murder in New York City, which nonetheless won high praise.[3]

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ Roth, Randolph (2005). "'In memoriam: Eric Monkkonen (1942-2005)". Crime, History, and Societies 9 (2): 157–158.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Woo, Elaine (June 17, 2005). "Eric Monkkonen, 62; historian made trailblazing studies of murder rates". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "In Memoriam. Eric Henry Monkkonen, Professor of History and Public Policy, Los Angeles, 1942-2005". University of California Academic Senate. Retrieved 14 June 2014.

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