With all the additional time I have as a senior who has finished up their leadership roles and is socially distancing, I have watched far too many crime dramas and documentaries. One that really sparked thoughts about masculinities was the Netflix documentary series I Am a Killer, which interviews capital murder offenders (i.e. people on death row) and asks them why they killed. I became hyper-aware of the connections between the offenders in terms of childhood experiences. Focusing only on the male participants, the majority had been abused emotionally, physically, of sexually in their childhoods by family members. Using my skills gained from the Netflix drama Mindhunter, a dramatization of the development of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in the 1970s, I deduced that something about these shared experiences of abuse must be connected to why these men committed their crimes. While violent crime such as murder is most surely an extreme reaction to abuse, it is nonetheless a serious public health concern that I believe is a direct result of this existence of hegemonic masculinity that values lack of emotion, strength, power, and control. This blog serves as my deep-dive investigation into the unsettling relationship between childhood abuse and toxic masculine identities, such as violent behavior.

A study on the long term effects of child abuse and neglect found that being abused or neglected as a child increases an individual’s risk for an arrest as a juvenile by 53 percent, increases the probability of arrest as an adult by 38 percent, and increases the probability of an arrest for a violent crime by 38 percent. Erdal Tekin out of American University conducted a larger national study into child mistreatment and violent crime and found a similar correlation, that mistreatment greatly increases the probability of engaging in crime and that the probability increases with the experience of multiple forms of maltreatment While both of these studies are correlations, meaning that we cannot state that abuse causes crime, it is still significant enough to raise alarm. There are nearly 700,000 cases of child abuse annually in the United States, showing that abuse is a pervasive issue that might be a reason for many of society’s ills, as that means hundreds of thousands of children are seeing the negative impacts of extreme, violent masculinity.

Hegemonic masculinity exists due to the power and control we give men, especially white men, over the “other”. Thus, a loss of power/control by someone in the dominant group can result in a fall from the hegemon, and thus desperately pursue ways to reassert one’s identity. Crime, even if it is not socially accepted, is one of those ways in which individuals might try to reassert their position in the hegemonic status. Another reason why crime might be pursued is that the abuse faced is already not socially accepted but so is talking openly about that mistreatment, and so the only way to assert oneself seems like more violence. A developing child might see violence as the only way to “be a man” and thus pursues crime even if there is some hidden understanding that what is being done is morally wrong.

Returning to our conversations about penetration to build on this loss of power/control – it is no wonder why sexual violence against boys is of such concern. Through penetration, those who should typically occupy penetrative positions become penetrated and thus lose their existence in the hegemon. This fall to a position of weakness adds another layer to the emotional damage of abuse, as that male individual loses that power and control that was promised. More often than not, we do not believe survivors of sexual violence, and sexual violence against young boys is no exception. One of the most gruesome murders of I Am a Killer was in Season 2, Episode 2, “Overkill”, where “the killer” David Barnett killed his adopted grandparents in an incredibly gruesome manner. David acknowledges that the murder was extreme and he was out of control, but it was a response to his grandparents not believing that his adopted father has sexually molested him as well as other boys in his house. David was a part of the foster system before being adopted because he experienced serious abuse from both his parents and thus finding a home that made him feel worthy was all that he wanted. The molestation faced at the hands of his adopted father, and his adopted grandparents refusing to believe that their son was not capable of such actions, was enough to break David and lead him to murder, in a way to assert control and power over a situation that had never gone his way. While there are definitely murders detailed in this show that is entirely meaningless and just for the thrill of the kill, episodes like David reminds me of the human nature of many killers. In a way, committing violent crime is a tragedy for both the victim and the perpetrator, as the perpetrator only saw violence as a method of asserting power. When these murderers have spent their lives marginalized by significant abuse, we see the crime as a twisted way to re-establish the hegemonic identity, even if it’s in a way that greater society will reject.

Why this topic matters to me more goes beyond my love of crime dramas. With COVID-19 leading to more families socially distancing, there have been reported upticks in child abuse. This crisis has created conditions for a rise in violence that young victims will find difficult to escape – and without a doubt, this abuse will have longstanding consequences. And with social services throwing all of their energy into helping with COVID-19 and schools closed, much of this child abuse will likely go unknown, as state providers will not have time to focus on children’s wellbeing and teachers will not be present to notice signs of physical and emotional abuse. While I watch a lot of true crime, it makes me sick to my stomach to think about future spikes in cases of violent crime if these children facing abuse during COVID-19 are not serviced. I think it falls on state agencies to be more cognizant of the spikes in child abuse during this time and deploy resources, and health providers to be able to identify signs of physical and mental abuse. For more info on this crisis, I highly recommend checking out this opinion piece from the NY Times.