Page 29 - Disrupting the Transmission of Violence

with the two previously cited studies in showing how influences of one social system or

environment impacts the another. This was the case not only because people model
what happens in their immediate environment, but also because they transfer modeled

practices to other social systems and environments.

Based on this understanding of the destructive and far reaching effects of coercive
practices in the home, the CSJP III Parenting Programme identified the reduction of

coercive parenting practices in the communities as a fundamental goal as a means
of reducing the risk of violent behaviours in Jamaica. The objective, therefore, was to

design a programme to directly engage parents (males and females) who are high-risk
for coercive parenting practices, with a view to effecting reform that would be evidence-

based.

A number of local studies revealed that some of these children endure derogatory name-
calling and constant criticism in their homes, and that they are exposed to emotional

tensions that affect them negatively (Leo-Rhynie, 1993; Crawford-Brown, 1999; Smith &
Mosby, 2003; Wint & Brown, 1987; Smith, Springer & Barrett, 2011). Leo-Rhynie, (1993) and

Wint & Brown, (1987) infer that the application of natural and logical consequences,
effective communication, and other alternatives to corporal punishments are parenting

practices that are used, though infrequently and minimally, by some Jamaican parents.

Inter-Generational Transmission of Violence
According to Kalmuss (1984), the inter-generational transmission of family violence involves

two types of modeling. Generalized modeling takes place when children are growing
and learning from the older siblings and care givers who model acceptable patterns of

behaviours in that family. The aggression displayed in the family unit communicates the
acceptability of aggression between family members, and this increases the likelihood of

any form of family aggression being carried over in the next generation. Kalmuss (ibid.)
also expresses the view that this type of modeling does not necessarily involve a direct

relationship between the types of aggression in first-and second-generation families.
However, specific modeling, the second type, occurs when individuals reproduce the

particular types of family aggression to which they were exposed. One study posits that
children learn to adopt the dominant attitudes of their environment, and that attitude

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