Krav Maga & Criminology
Krav Maga Yashir Boston's Use of Criminology to address Violence
Krav Maga Yashir Boston’s Head Instructor, Gershon Ben Keren, is a criminologist who has been working in the security industry since 1990. His area of interest and expertise within the discipline is that of environmental criminology. Environmental criminology looks at the temporal and geographic factors which create the conditions/environment for an offense to be committed e.g., why is crime concentrated in certain locations and at certain times etc. In Boston, a longitudinal study – between 1980 and 2008 - found that 74 percent of fatal and non-fatal shootings occurred in 5% of the city’s street corners and block faces, with 65 specific locations accounting for 1000 of these shootings. Similar types of statistics are reported/replicated for cities other than Boston, both inside and outside of the state (Massachusetts); most shootings in Boston take place afters schools are dsimissed, and at the weekend, during evening hours. By understanding when and where violent offenses take place and recognizing the environmental factors that predict and contribute to such offenses, it is possible to improve a person’s situational awareness – one of the key components of training is a self-protection/self-defense system such as Krav Maga. It is one thing to tell people that they need to be situationally aware and another to teach and inform them of what they need to be aware of etc.
By using real-life crime data, including police incident reports, victim surveys etc. It is possible to get a realistic impression and idea of how violent crime occurs; something that goes beyond the personal experience(s) of an individual – or even group of – Krav Maga instructors. At Krav Maga Yashir Boston, we take an evidential and research-based approach to dealing with violence. Rather than “imagine” how a mugging or street robbery may look, we analyze and study how such offenses are committed and design our solutions around them e.g., in Boston most street robberies involve multiple individuals (they’re committed in groups), where no weapons are displayed i.e., they are largely “strong-arm” affairs etc. This doesn’t mean the offenders involved aren’t carrying any weapons but rather that they choose not to use/display them etc. The statistics for crime in Boston also suggest that there is little difference, by gender, in who is targeted for such offenses, with age being a more significant predictor; you are more likely to be victimized if you are young (teens to mid-twenties) or if you are old e.g., over fifty. Again, these statistics are not unique to Boston and are common across many American cities.
When looking to train effective and proven self-defense, solutions need to be appropriate for the situations that you are likely to face. If this is not the case then you are simply training a martial art, which may help you develop a certain set of skills and attributes but won’t help you deal with actual, real-life violence. If the training scenarios you deal with don’t reflect reality, you are not training to deal with real-life violence. At Krav Maga Yashir Boston, our goal is to prepare you to deal with and survive the actual incidents you are likely to face, and not the ones an individual instructor may think/believe you will have to. By taking a criminological and research-based approach we are able to add reality into your Krav Maga training. Get started today by booking one of our introduction to/beginner Krav Maga classes, using the button below.
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