Loneliness and Behavioral Illness: Addictions, Violence and Crime (From EuroCriminology, Volume 10, P 143-153, 1996, Brunon Holyst, ed. - See NCJ-171167)

• NCJ Number: 171176
• Author(s): J G McGraw
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Poland

Annotation

This article considers the nature of loneliness in relation to behavioral illnesses, specifically addictions, violence and crime.

Abstract

Loneliness entails a lack or loss of interpersonal relationships and involves negative emotions as well as felt negations of one's being. If loneliness is not dealt with, but is repressed or suppressed, feelings of rage and rancor are liable to fester and to foment hostility, aggressiveness and even various sorts of violence against self or others as well as crime, both violent and non-violent. Loneliness is a prominent factor in addiction, which destroys bridges to and bonds with others, and makes individuals easy prey to and perpetrators of pseudo-intimacy such as promiscuity, voyeurism and pornography. The most lonely North American age groups are those which are also the most violent and criminal: adolescents and young adults. There are good reasons to consider crime, deviance and addiction as interconnected by the common link of social isolation and loneliness. Notes