Violence Teaches Retribution as Default

Repeated exposure to lethal urban violence trains people's emotional and decision‑making habits so that retaliation becomes the default response rather than a discrete moral choice. Interventions that ignore the learned cognitive script (rage→search for perpetrators→shoot) will miss a key lever for breaking cycles of violence. — If violence creates durable cognitive scripts for revenge, policy should fund psychological and social‑norm interventions (not only policing) targeted at those microgeographies where the script is learned and reinforced.