Listening to Killers: Lessons Learned from My Twenty Years as a Psychological Expert Witness in Murder Cases with Dr. James Garbarino (2021)

WEBVTT
1
00:00:01.320 --> 00:00:02.799
Okay, real live. Hi, this is William Ramsey.
2
00:00:02.839 --> 00:00:05.320
Welcome to William Ramsey investigates on tonight show of a
3
00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:11.160
very special guest. His name is doctor James GA garbarinoar.
4
00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:11.000
Bar I n O.
5
00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:13.599
And he published a book in twenty fifteen. Title of
6
00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:16.440
that book is Listening to Killers. Lessons learned from my
7
00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:20.079
twenty years as a psychological expert witness in murder cases.
8
00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:23.000
But this book that he wrote in twenty fifteen is
9
00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:25.480
one of twenty six books that he's written. Some of
10
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:28.839
the titles. His best known book is Lost Boys, Why
11
00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:31.320
our sons Turned violent and how we can save them
12
00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:33.719
That was published in nineteen ninety nine. There's also an
13
00:00:33.719 --> 00:00:37.560
audiobook for that. But one of the more recent books
14
00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:40.880
is Miller's Children. While giving teenage killers a second chance
15
00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:43.920
matters for all of us. Also the positive psychology of
16
00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:48.439
personal transformation, leveraging resilience for life change in twenty eleven. C.
17
00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:50.679
Jane hit Why girls are growing more violent and what
18
00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:53.039
we can do about it in two thousand and seven.
19
00:00:53.479 --> 00:00:56.320
Also and Words Can Hurt Forever, How to protect adolescents
20
00:00:56.359 --> 00:00:59.240
from bullying, harassment and the most general Violence two thousand
21
00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:03.960
and two very important and also some of his earlier books,
22
00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:06.879
some of which were mentioned in this book Listening to
23
00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:10.079
Killers is the nineteen ninety one No Place to Be
24
00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:12.040
a Child growing up in a war zone in nineteen
25
00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:15.439
ninety two, children in danger, coping with the consequences of
26
00:01:15.480 --> 00:01:18.000
community violence. But he's going to talk more about this book,
27
00:01:18.040 --> 00:01:23.079
Listening to Killers. So, doctor Garbarino, are you there, I'm here. Awesome, Well,
28
00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:25.480
thanks for bringing to the interview for people who may
29
00:01:25.480 --> 00:01:27.560
not have heard your name. Can you talk You have
30
00:01:27.599 --> 00:01:30.280
a very long, lengthy background. Can you talk about your background?
31
00:01:30.359 --> 00:01:33.560
What led you to write this book Listening to Killers?
32
00:01:35.120 --> 00:01:39.079
Well, I came to developmental psychology as a graduate student
33
00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:44.760
after being a classroom teacher, and I was the low
34
00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:47.799
man on the totem pole, and so I was assigned
35
00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:51.599
sort of all the worst students. So this is back
36
00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:55.439
in the late nineteen sixties, and it really had an
37
00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:00.400
influence on my future development because I was very taken
38
00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:03.319
with how the influences of what happened to them at
39
00:02:03.319 --> 00:02:06.680
home and in the community were brought into the classroom.
40
00:02:07.159 --> 00:02:09.479
So I mentioned that because it sort of propelled me
41
00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:14.520
into a doctoral program in developmental psychology, but always with
42
00:02:14.599 --> 00:02:19.520
an interest in social issues, not just sort of pure
43
00:02:19.599 --> 00:02:24.919
developmental science disconnected from the world. And so the first
44
00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:30.520
I got my PhD in nineteen seventy three, So really
45
00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.719
the first almost twenty years of my career were spent
46
00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:40.960
developing some expertise in child abuse, trauma, the impact.
47
00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:41.759
Of war on children.
48
00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:45.000
And then when I moved to Chicago in nineteen eighty
49
00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:49.319
five to become president of the Ericson Institute for Advanced
50
00:02:49.319 --> 00:02:52.719
Study and Child Development, I quickly got involved in the
51
00:02:52.759 --> 00:02:57.080
impact of community violence, that kind of trauma on kids,
52
00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:00.360
in part because the students who came to this graduate
53
00:03:00.479 --> 00:03:04.039
program were early childhood educators, many of whom worked in
54
00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:08.599
inner city communities where community violence in a place like
55
00:03:08.719 --> 00:03:12.439
Chicago was really a big, big issue.
56
00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:18.360
Still is, of course. So in the early nineteen nineties.
57
00:03:19.919 --> 00:03:25.759
I started getting approached by originally one lawyer who had
58
00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:29.719
a teenager who was in a murder trial, and she
59
00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:32.280
had become aware of work I had done on the
60
00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:37.759
links and the joint impact of violence and the maltreatment
61
00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:41.280
in the home and violence and trauma in the community,
62
00:03:41.759 --> 00:03:43.919
and thought that from what she had read, this was
63
00:03:44.039 --> 00:03:47.000
very relevant to her client, who was a fifteen year
64
00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.800
old girl who had shot another teenager, reportedly because of
65
00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:55.960
a dispute over a jacket, and so I agreed to
66
00:03:56.039 --> 00:03:58.479
testify in that case. It was something I had never
67
00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:02.439
planned to do, just sort of the door was opened
68
00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:04.840
in front of me, and it seemed like an important.
69
00:04:04.439 --> 00:04:04.879
Thing to do.
70
00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:07.680
So I walked through that door, went up to Milwaukee
71
00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:11.400
where the case was. The lawyer tried to present me
72
00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:15.719
to the court. The prosecution objected, claimed that it was
73
00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:20.920
irrelevant the traumatic history of this girl, her exposure to
74
00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:26.759
community violence, her psychological, physical, sexual abuse at home, and
75
00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:31.839
the judge agreed with the prosecution and basically sent me home. Well,
76
00:04:31.879 --> 00:04:34.279
the case went on appeal. Eventually it got up to
77
00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:38.800
the federal courts, and the courts eventually took twelve years,
78
00:04:38.839 --> 00:04:42.360
as these things often do, and the courts eventually ruled
79
00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:44.720
that I should have been able to testify that it
80
00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:49.040
was relevant. By that time, the state sort of just
81
00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:52.639
let this girl go after twelve years, in part because
82
00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:56.560
when she was sentenced, the father and the sister of
83
00:04:56.600 --> 00:05:00.959
the victim had heard the hearing on what I would
84
00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:03.759
say if I was allowed to testify, and it had
85
00:05:03.759 --> 00:05:07.160
an effect on them. They said, you know, we understand
86
00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:10.519
what happened better now to our daughter or sister that
87
00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:13.360
this girl did, and they asked the court to show
88
00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:18.319
mercy for some compassion, and that led to this relatively
89
00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:21.360
short sentence that the girl received, which is why when
90
00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:25.360
the case was overturned, the state didn't bother try it.
91
00:05:25.959 --> 00:05:28.120
So I sort of backed into this in the sense
92
00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:31.079
that I never set out to be a psychological expert
93
00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:34.360
witness and murder cases. I just went about my work
94
00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:39.480
of understanding child adolescent development, the impact of trauma, the
95
00:05:39.519 --> 00:05:43.560
impact of maltreatment, and it just sort of came to
96
00:05:43.639 --> 00:05:47.439
a point where some lawyers began to think this was
97
00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:51.720
useful in helping to understand what their clients had done
98
00:05:52.199 --> 00:05:55.879
to younger clients. And so it's a bit like what
99
00:05:55.959 --> 00:05:58.480
happened with my work on children in war zones. They
100
00:05:58.519 --> 00:06:00.879
didn't set out to become an expert on children in
101
00:06:00.959 --> 00:06:07.240
war but through a series of circumstances, people had read
102
00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:10.600
work I had done on trauma and community violence, and
103
00:06:10.680 --> 00:06:12.560
I was asked to go to the Middle East to
104
00:06:13.240 --> 00:06:15.759
sort of help write a report about the impact of
105
00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:20.680
the Palestinian Intifada, the uprising on Palestinian kids, and that
106
00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:25.319
led to other war zone experiences including Kuwait and Iraq
107
00:06:25.519 --> 00:06:31.560
and oh gosh, Cambodia, Nicaragua, and that led to a
108
00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:34.160
book on children war zones. So I'm going on about
109
00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:37.839
that a bit because this work is an expert witness
110
00:06:37.879 --> 00:06:42.079
sort of grew out of my core interests in human
111
00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:48.560
development in difficult circumstances. And so once that case in
112
00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:51.439
Milwaukee was put on appeal, I thought, maybe this is
113
00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:54.360
the end of it. But somebody in Colorado read about
114
00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:58.000
the case thought it was worthwhile to ask me to
115
00:06:58.040 --> 00:07:01.199
testify there, and the judge there is much more sympathetic,
116
00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:04.800
and indeed I did testify. I think it did have
117
00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:08.160
an impact on the sentence. And then through word of mouth,
118
00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:14.240
various internet sources. There's a source for lawyers called Lexusnxus
119
00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:18.439
and publications and so on. This is sort of snowball
120
00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:21.560
to the point where it became a significant part of
121
00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:27.079
my professional life, bringing developmental psychology to the courtroom in
122
00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:31.160
these murder cases. I emphasized the develop mental part because
123
00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:35.040
mostly what I found had been coming into court was
124
00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:40.000
mostly clinical psychology and psychiatry, both of which were focused
125
00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:46.639
on diagnosing conditions mental disorders. So you had that going on,
126
00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:51.519
and then you had social workers, mostly social workers, developing
127
00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:55.879
social history, which essentially are biographies, and I thought what
128
00:07:56.040 --> 00:08:01.000
was missing was a developmental framework, a developmental active on
129
00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:05.240
the social history that would illuminate the lives of these
130
00:08:05.319 --> 00:08:08.959
kids and young people and young adults, but not just
131
00:08:09.160 --> 00:08:13.279
pigeonhole them in diagnostic categories, right, you know, so I've
132
00:08:13.319 --> 00:08:17.319
been very suspicious of many diagnostic categories. My favorite is
133
00:08:18.079 --> 00:08:20.759
something that I first developed in the nineteen ninety nine
134
00:08:20.759 --> 00:08:24.399
book Lost Boys, and that's the diagnosis of conduct disorder.
135
00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:28.720
You know, if you observe a kid for six months
136
00:08:29.160 --> 00:08:33.159
and they demonstrate a chronic pattern of aggression, bad behavior,
137
00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:36.559
acting out and violating the rights of others, you can
138
00:08:36.600 --> 00:08:40.720
hand them this diagnosis of conduct disorder. It's an official diagnosis.
139
00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:43.360
But I kept thinking, well, what more do you know
140
00:08:43.480 --> 00:08:47.919
by calling it conduct disorder? And it sort of came
141
00:08:47.960 --> 00:08:51.440
to a head when in New York State the Youth
142
00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:55.559
Prison System issued a research reports from the Research Office
143
00:08:55.840 --> 00:08:58.039
that said, and as I reported Lost Boys, I think
144
00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:00.720
they said eighty five percent of the book in prison
145
00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:04.159
had conduct disorder. And my response, though, is well done.
146
00:09:04.279 --> 00:09:06.200
Of course they do. That's how you get to prison
147
00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:09.879
by showing a chronic pattern of aggression, bad behavior, acting
148
00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:12.639
out and violent the rights of others. It says, It's
149
00:09:12.679 --> 00:09:13.960
a bit like if you did a study of the
150
00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:17.080
football team at your high school and your conclusion was
151
00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:20.759
that eighty five percent of the players were athletes. Well,
152
00:09:20.879 --> 00:09:22.440
you know, you'd say, well, of course there athletes are
153
00:09:22.440 --> 00:09:25.000
on the football team. The interesting question then would become,
154
00:09:25.039 --> 00:09:26.519
what about the other fifteen percent?
155
00:09:26.759 --> 00:09:29.960
What are they doing on the team. So I tried
156
00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:31.240
to craft this approach.
157
00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:35.200
You know, we call a developmental perspective on all these
158
00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:35.960
issues of the.
159
00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:38.440
Impact of trauma. You know, that's an example.
160
00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:41.600
You know, many people are familiar with this diagnosis post
161
00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:46.200
traumatic stress disorder PTSD. But the more I learned, the
162
00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:48.960
more I thought, we really should change that D. The
163
00:09:49.039 --> 00:09:53.399
D should really be post traumatic stress development because that's
164
00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:55.840
really what it comes down to, is how do you
165
00:09:55.960 --> 00:09:57.639
develop in the wake of trauma?
166
00:09:58.320 --> 00:09:58.440
Right?
167
00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:00.080
And you know, the way.
168
00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:03.360
Looking at this huge amount of work on trauma from
169
00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:08.159
a somewhat different perspective, one that doesn't pathologize people for
170
00:10:08.600 --> 00:10:11.759
the natural human response to trauma, and it also opens
171
00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:15.120
up the possibility that you can move beyond trauma, as
172
00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:16.279
many many people.
173
00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:19.000
Do, and you saw that similarity between the war zones
174
00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:22.240
in some of these urban environments or some of these
175
00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:26.799
households where I mean, you talk about the talk about
176
00:10:26.799 --> 00:10:31.080
a double whammy household chaos, and that's definitely not a
177
00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:34.320
psychological term. And then kind of the war kind of chaos.
178
00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:37.240
Can you talk about the similarities between what happens in
179
00:10:37.279 --> 00:10:39.000
some households and conflict.
180
00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:45.120
Well, I really began to dawn on me when I
181
00:10:45.159 --> 00:10:49.320
went to the Middle East for the first time six
182
00:10:51.360 --> 00:10:54.519
and I spent time, you know, sort of running around
183
00:10:54.559 --> 00:10:59.320
the streets of the West Bank and Gaza and talking
184
00:10:59.799 --> 00:11:03.799
through interpreters, in many cases with teenagers who were involved
185
00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:07.360
in this uprising. And then I went back to Chicago,
186
00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:10.320
and I was struck by the fact that there were
187
00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:16.039
similarities and differences between this experience of community violence. It
188
00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:20.000
was semi or completely organized in both cases. You know,
189
00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:22.679
many of these war zones, you know, there are gangs,
190
00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:26.720
they may be called militias, but they're often not fundamentally
191
00:11:26.759 --> 00:11:28.639
different from gangs that we saw in Chicago.
192
00:11:29.639 --> 00:11:31.200
But a big.
193
00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:34.919
Difference was that in most of the war zones, involved
194
00:11:34.919 --> 00:11:38.440
in this violence had a sense of purpose and meaningfulness,
195
00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:43.639
and in Chicago, the gang membership sometimes had that element,
196
00:11:44.159 --> 00:11:46.759
Usually though, it was much more a matter of survival
197
00:11:47.240 --> 00:11:51.639
of access to resources. And so I began to think
198
00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:56.039
about explore the parallels and decided that it did make
199
00:11:56.120 --> 00:11:59.320
sense to think about the urban war zone because the
200
00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:04.879
similarities are very simple, there's very common. I'd begun to
201
00:12:04.919 --> 00:12:11.039
see that the impact of community violence was in some
202
00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:13.120
way similar if you were in the West Bank and
203
00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:18.120
Gaza or in Chicago, LA. Then I began to think
204
00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:20.559
about it because, well, why are some kids more attracted
205
00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:23.799
the gangs? Why is the trauma more impact than some
206
00:12:23.879 --> 00:12:26.519
kids than others. And this is the question that we
207
00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:30.120
explored in research with Palestinian kids as well as with
208
00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:35.440
Chicago kids. And I think what emerged was that one,
209
00:12:36.679 --> 00:12:44.159
if your home life is emotionally devoid, if it's abusive, neglectful,
210
00:12:44.279 --> 00:12:51.399
if you experience rejection at home, you crave the affirmation
211
00:12:52.159 --> 00:12:55.679
that a gang can provide. And this has been validated
212
00:12:55.720 --> 00:12:59.559
in studies from Salvador, where I spent some time, and
213
00:12:59.600 --> 00:13:03.360
Flora where kids you know, people often say, you know
214
00:13:03.399 --> 00:13:07.080
that the kids see these gangs as family surrogates, alternatives
215
00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:09.399
to family life, and you hear that a great deal.
216
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:12.879
You know that I got the affirmation there, the sense
217
00:13:12.919 --> 00:13:15.919
of even sometimes kids that don't have fathers, say, the
218
00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:18.840
older guys, you know, were my role models and all
219
00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:21.320
of that. So that was one thing that emerged, and
220
00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:23.639
I think was important that in an urban war zone,
221
00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:29.399
when you are vulnerable, particularly because of maltreatment, abuse, rejection,
222
00:13:29.519 --> 00:13:34.519
abandonment at home, the gangs provide a very powerful incentive
223
00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:37.679
to join because once you get in and eventually many
224
00:13:37.720 --> 00:13:41.720
of the many of these gang members become disillusioned. A
225
00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:43.480
lot of the work I do is with men in
226
00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:46.840
their thirties and forties who are former gang members, and
227
00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:49.639
they talk about how it was an illusion, you know,
228
00:13:49.679 --> 00:13:53.559
but that's true sometimes in these militias and revolutionary movements
229
00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:57.279
as well, that the ideology that is so appealing to
230
00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:01.960
a kid seems kind of phony to a middle aged adult.
231
00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:04.919
So that was certainly one part of it that became
232
00:14:05.039 --> 00:14:09.200
very important in this. And then I began to realize
233
00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:12.919
that when you looked at gangs, who are the source
234
00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:16.639
of much of the urban violence, that you really had
235
00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:20.679
to recognize they were not homogeneous. By that, I mean
236
00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:23.679
that for let's say eighty five percent of the kids,
237
00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:29.360
these kids are basically normal kids, who get involved in
238
00:14:29.399 --> 00:14:32.279
the gang, not unlike you might get involved with the
239
00:14:32.279 --> 00:14:36.240
Boy Scouts, in the sense that a peer influence the
240
00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:41.600
peer experience, the excitement, the activities, the rewards that it gives,
241
00:14:41.639 --> 00:14:44.799
and merit badges and all that are all there. They're
242
00:14:44.840 --> 00:14:50.120
not fundamentally profoundly damaged these kids. They are basically normal
243
00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:52.159
kids drawn into this toxic environment.
244
00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:54.399
But it's for them.
245
00:14:54.440 --> 00:14:56.320
It's sort of like the Boy Scouts with knives and
246
00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:59.159
guns and drug dealing. But there is a let's say
247
00:14:59.159 --> 00:15:02.840
fifteen percent for whom the gang is a vehicle for
248
00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:06.960
their very damaged view of the world. You know, about
249
00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:12.279
one percent of the population or psychopaths. Psychopaths find a
250
00:15:12.519 --> 00:15:17.759
very nurturing home in a gang because the normal moral
251
00:15:17.879 --> 00:15:21.399
rules and normal issues of conscience are suspended and they
252
00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:24.360
can thrive there. And so there's fifteen percent who are
253
00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:28.480
very damaged sociopaths. Psychopaths can find the gang as a
254
00:15:28.519 --> 00:15:32.840
sort of vehicle to implement their own internal psychological agenda.
255
00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:37.559
And that has tremendous implications for prevention and intervention, because
256
00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:40.440
if you treat gangs just like they're a bunch of
257
00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:45.200
psychopathic killers, you try to suppress them, you destroy them
258
00:15:45.240 --> 00:15:48.600
if you can, and that process alienate the eighty five
259
00:15:48.679 --> 00:15:51.879
percent who are fundamentally normal. But if you just treat
260
00:15:51.960 --> 00:15:54.639
them as the boy scouts with knives, guns and drug dealing,
261
00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:59.679
then you allow that fifteen percent to exploit the situation.
262
00:16:00.559 --> 00:16:04.879
And so complexity is the rule here rather than simplicity.
263
00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:10.200
Hl Menchener said, for every complex problem with a simple solution,
264
00:16:10.600 --> 00:16:12.159
that is almost invariably wrong.
265
00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:16.720
Right, But it is that underlying, like you talk, your
266
00:16:16.759 --> 00:16:21.399
theme is, you know, basically, these complex motivations result in
267
00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:26.879
criminal activity. But it's that turmoil of that takes place
268
00:16:26.919 --> 00:16:30.399
over years that add brings these people into the criminal
269
00:16:30.519 --> 00:16:31.120
justice system.
270
00:16:31.200 --> 00:16:34.879
Right, Yeah, for the most part, you know, they begin
271
00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:38.120
and the gangs, the gang leadership is often very aware
272
00:16:38.159 --> 00:16:41.879
of that. They recruit kids and they often give you know,
273
00:16:41.919 --> 00:16:44.600
for example, a lot of guys will tell me when
274
00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:48.320
they were ten, eleven, twelve thirteen, their first job in
275
00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:51.720
the gang was to hold the guns. So that the
276
00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:54.720
thinking was if they were caught, they wouldn't have much
277
00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.279
of a penalty. That the older guys could then have
278
00:16:57.399 --> 00:17:01.080
access to the guns while protecting themselves, and that you
279
00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:03.639
know that, so you sort of move through the ranks
280
00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:06.680
up to the point where you're more like a soldier.
281
00:17:07.480 --> 00:17:10.559
And often you do hear this kind of soldier mentality
282
00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:16.200
in young gang members, and then you know they all
283
00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:22.720
the vulnerabilities of young brains and young minds are sort
284
00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:27.480
of exploited by this toxic environment. And that's you know
285
00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:30.759
where I came to think about this double whammy that
286
00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:34.160
in the sense that one whammy is that you have
287
00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:37.839
an immature brain that basically all kids have. I think
288
00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:40.480
it's fair to say you can't really presume a mature
289
00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:44.640
brain till about age twenty five. So that's one of
290
00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:47.799
the whammys that you're dealing with, whatever it is, whether
291
00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:52.799
it's going to college or driving a car, or sex
292
00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:56.960
education or choosing a career with this immature brain that is,
293
00:17:57.480 --> 00:18:02.039
has difficulty with two basic things executive function, which means
294
00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:08.880
decision making, planning, anticipating consequences, balancing costs and benefits, all
295
00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:11.119
that kind of stuff. And then the second area is
296
00:18:11.119 --> 00:18:16.480
called emotional regulation or affective regulation, which means emotional intelligence,
297
00:18:16.880 --> 00:18:20.400
understanding your own feelings, understanding the feelings of others, being
298
00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:24.079
able to link your rational brain with your emotional self.
299
00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:28.119
And these are things that are slow to develop, and
300
00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:32.160
research shows that they're particularly slow to develop in what
301
00:18:32.200 --> 00:18:37.640
it's called hot cognition, which are emotionally powerful situations. And
302
00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:41.480
that's why, to use an example that many parents even
303
00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:44.279
could relate to, you can do sex education in a
304
00:18:44.279 --> 00:18:48.039
classroom with kids are being calm, they're not aroused, and
305
00:18:48.119 --> 00:18:50.240
they can understand, oh, yes, if I'm about to be
306
00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:53.319
sexually active, I should put on a condom. But you
307
00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:57.039
get into an arousing situation, and it's much more difficult
308
00:18:57.039 --> 00:18:59.839
to think clearly in that situation, to the point where
309
00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:03.200
I lie. Kids have unprotected sex even though they quote
310
00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:06.599
know that they shouldn't. And the same thing applies to this.
311
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:11.279
A lot of the violence comes in these rapidly escalating
312
00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:16.880
situations in which there is misperception of the expression or
313
00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:18.000
the feelings of others.
314
00:19:19.319 --> 00:19:21.839
They do. They do a seven.
315
00:19:21.720 --> 00:19:25.440
To eleven robbery, but they haven't planned for the fact
316
00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:29.200
that the clerk might have a gun, and so they panic.
317
00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:33.000
Somebody gets shot, somebody gets killed. The list is so
318
00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:38.640
long of these stupid, dumb situations that particularly young offenders
319
00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:40.079
are prone to, and.
320
00:19:40.079 --> 00:19:42.000
You kind of bring to talk about that in your book,
321
00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:44.359
like how much choice is there really choice?
322
00:19:44.920 --> 00:19:47.039
With these offenders, right.
323
00:19:47.319 --> 00:19:49.440
Like, how much choice do they really have at that
324
00:19:49.559 --> 00:19:52.359
thing they're thinking? But you're like, you're saying, like it's
325
00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:55.480
kind of on a primitive level, Really it is.
326
00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:55.680
You know.
327
00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:59.079
One of the guiding concepts that in the field of
328
00:19:59.160 --> 00:20:02.079
child sexual abuse, it's one of the breakthroughs, was a
329
00:20:02.079 --> 00:20:07.119
guy named David Finkelhor who said that the big issue
330
00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:11.720
in sexual abuse of children is informed consent. Now, informed
331
00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:15.839
consent has two components. One you have to understand sort
332
00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:19.519
of intellectually what it is you're deciding to do. And
333
00:20:19.559 --> 00:20:21.319
the second thing is you have to be free to
334
00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:24.000
say yes or no. This is why, you know, most
335
00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:28.759
medical research with prisoners has been outlawed because if you're
336
00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:31.039
a prisoner and the warden says we'd like you to
337
00:20:31.079 --> 00:20:34.160
participate in this drug study, it's very difficult to think
338
00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:36.839
you have a free yes or no choice. And if
339
00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:39.799
you don't, you know, in seat of a may seem
340
00:20:39.839 --> 00:20:44.079
like an a red herring here, But if you were
341
00:20:44.119 --> 00:20:48.240
told to be in a trial for a vaccine and
342
00:20:48.279 --> 00:20:51.079
they didn't tell you what the negative side effects might be,
343
00:20:51.359 --> 00:20:54.559
you couldn't give inform consent because you don't know everything
344
00:20:54.559 --> 00:20:56.839
you need to know. And that's true about a lot
345
00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:01.720
of the decisions that kids, particularly in gangested neighborhoods, who
346
00:21:01.799 --> 00:21:06.960
have often they have powerful emotional issues related to their
347
00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:10.559
family trauma that they're only beginning to understand by the
348
00:21:10.599 --> 00:21:14.960
time they're in their twenties. I mean, for example, it
349
00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:17.119
looks like one of the worst things that can happen
350
00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:20.359
to a little boy is to be rejected and abandoned
351
00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:24.279
by his mother after almost thirty years of doing this.
352
00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:26.680
That's about the worst thing that can happen to you,
353
00:21:27.119 --> 00:21:31.160
partly because if your father rejects you, there's a certain
354
00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:34.759
sort of cultural social normalness to that normality to that.
355
00:21:35.319 --> 00:21:38.319
When I interviewed a kid once who was fifteen, he said,
356
00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:41.720
until I was fourteen, I never met anyone who had
357
00:21:41.720 --> 00:21:44.680
a father living in the home. So the absence of
358
00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:47.079
his father was He didn't take it personal in a
359
00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:50.960
way because it's so common. But if your mother abandons you,
360
00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:53.839
your mother rejects you, it's hard not to think, what's
361
00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:56.640
wrong with me? Why am I such a loser that
362
00:21:56.680 --> 00:21:59.640
my mother would abandon me? And it can generate some
363
00:22:00.039 --> 00:22:04.480
h dodibly powerful and confusing ways of approaching the world.
364
00:22:04.519 --> 00:22:07.160
For example, I think this case is probably in listening
365
00:22:07.240 --> 00:22:10.240
to killers. Imagine this kid was abandoned by his mother
366
00:22:10.599 --> 00:22:13.400
four times. If he would abandon him, he'd go into
367
00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:16.480
foster care, she'd come back. Get it hopes up, she
368
00:22:16.519 --> 00:22:19.359
would abandon him again, and by the time he was twelve,
369
00:22:20.599 --> 00:22:25.480
she came back again. Persuaded the agency to have visits
370
00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:28.160
with her son. He came over to her trail or
371
00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:30.839
whatever it was. After a couple of visits, she said, well,
372
00:22:30.839 --> 00:22:32.440
I want you to feel at homes. He said, bring
373
00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:35.319
your bicycle over here so you'll feel at home with me.
374
00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:38.680
So he did, and the next week when he came,
375
00:22:38.759 --> 00:22:41.519
not only was she gone, but she had sold his bicycle.
376
00:22:42.400 --> 00:22:45.599
We have to imagine the rage and the sadness. Well,
377
00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:48.720
year boys, mind to have this happen to him again,
378
00:22:49.119 --> 00:22:52.400
to fall for it again. Well, fast forward ten years.
379
00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:55.039
He's now twenty two. He gets involved with the woman
380
00:22:55.079 --> 00:22:57.920
who is the same age as his mother. She's seventeen
381
00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:01.880
years older than he is. I have a stormy sexual
382
00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:05.640
relationship for five years. Eventually they get into a fight
383
00:23:05.720 --> 00:23:08.880
over drug money and he stabs her thirty five times.
384
00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:13.400
To stab somebody thirty five times regards an enormous mobilization
385
00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:17.640
of energy. And you know, he didn't realize that at
386
00:23:17.640 --> 00:23:20.400
the time, but you know, to us as an outsider,
387
00:23:20.440 --> 00:23:23.559
it's pretty obvious who is he stabbing. He's stabbing his mother,
388
00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:26.880
not this other woman. It took him number of years
389
00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:29.960
to really get that because it was so powerful, it
390
00:23:30.039 --> 00:23:34.400
was so built into his unconscious mind. And one of
391
00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:36.279
the things I tried to do with my nineteen ninety
392
00:23:36.359 --> 00:23:40.319
nine book Loss Boys was to enricher understanding of the
393
00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:45.519
psychological inner life of these violent boys were men.
394
00:23:46.039 --> 00:23:48.559
Right, and you would you agree that the kind of
395
00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:53.079
criminal justice system, at least maybe before your time, before
396
00:23:53.119 --> 00:23:56.720
this expert witness involvement, really had a kind of superficial,
397
00:23:57.079 --> 00:23:59.359
kind of cookie cutter thing. You've done this, this is
398
00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:01.960
it's your sentence, go to jail.
399
00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:05.799
I'd say, for the most part, yes, you know, I
400
00:24:05.839 --> 00:24:08.160
think I was one case I was working on resay.
401
00:24:08.160 --> 00:24:12.440
I was looking at the original sentencing hearing, and the
402
00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:17.200
prosecutor's concluding remarks basically said, look, this kid chose to
403
00:24:17.319 --> 00:24:20.960
reject his family when he was eight, He chose drawing
404
00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:23.640
a gang when he was nine, he chose to get
405
00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:26.359
involved in drug dealing when he was eleven, and now
406
00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:29.039
here he is at seventeen choosing to commit a murder.
407
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:31.960
You know, to me, that is superficial.
408
00:24:32.559 --> 00:24:38.759
It's intellectually bankrupt, it's developmentally stupid. Because if we had
409
00:24:38.759 --> 00:24:40.920
an eight year old girl who chose to have sex
410
00:24:41.079 --> 00:24:45.119
with her uncle, a thirty five year ocle, we wouldn't say, well,
411
00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:47.160
she chose to have sex, it must be okay, it's
412
00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:51.920
her fault. That's why this issue of informed consent is
413
00:24:51.960 --> 00:24:55.559
so powerful. Eight year olds can't give informed consent for
414
00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:59.200
sex with adults. They can't give informed consent for drug dealing,
415
00:24:59.279 --> 00:25:02.519
they can't given form consent for gang membership. And yet
416
00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:05.559
often the criminal justice system ignores that. It says, well,
417
00:25:05.559 --> 00:25:09.359
they just made bad choices, right, right. And this idea
418
00:25:09.400 --> 00:25:12.599
of choice, you know, it's so fundamental to ideology in
419
00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:16.519
American culture. But when you really get down to the
420
00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:19.720
nitty gritty of it. For example, if you were a
421
00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:23.000
sixteen year old, you could say this to any viewer listener.
422
00:25:23.319 --> 00:25:26.559
If you're sixteen years old and on your way to school,
423
00:25:27.240 --> 00:25:30.000
a couple of eighteen year olds approach you and say,
424
00:25:31.119 --> 00:25:33.359
we're going to give you a choice. You can join
425
00:25:33.480 --> 00:25:35.559
us and become a blood or a crip or a
426
00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:38.480
Latin king or whatever it is, or we're going to
427
00:25:38.599 --> 00:25:39.880
kill your mother and your sister.
428
00:25:40.839 --> 00:25:43.680
Well, all right, make a choice. What's the right choice
429
00:25:43.720 --> 00:25:44.960
in that join?
430
00:25:46.039 --> 00:25:49.559
I mean, especially you're sixteen, But Leah, you got all
431
00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:52.119
that context that is so important too, Yeah, it is,
432
00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:56.400
and the criminal justice system does not take that into account.
433
00:25:56.680 --> 00:25:59.000
I mean, I just did another interview with a guy
434
00:25:59.039 --> 00:26:02.640
who said criminal justice reformer, and it's just like some
435
00:26:02.680 --> 00:26:05.039
of the stuff used to definitely not be taking accounts
436
00:26:05.079 --> 00:26:08.240
all punishment, and they don't take into account all the
437
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:11.119
contexts and all the background. And it is interesting you
438
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:13.200
juxtapose some of these things where you cannot sign a
439
00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:18.559
contract under eighteen acknowledging that your brain isn't in yourself
440
00:26:18.599 --> 00:26:21.880
personal self isn't developed enough to be in a contractual
441
00:26:21.960 --> 00:26:24.640
business arrangement, But in some of these other things they
442
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:27.079
impute all this blame upon you. If you're twelve or
443
00:26:27.079 --> 00:26:29.359
thirteen in a drug environment where you have no choice,
444
00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:33.319
sexual abuse, physical abuse, all that stuff is happening to
445
00:26:33.400 --> 00:26:36.440
a very young person is not a fully developed personality
446
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:36.759
at all.
447
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:39.079
Just like you said, yeah.
448
00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:42.480
And I think you know, it's very easy to get
449
00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:47.359
wrapped up in a sort of ideological approach to this. So,
450
00:26:47.480 --> 00:26:51.559
for example, forty years ago, I mean, I've been doing
451
00:26:51.559 --> 00:26:54.599
this long time, so forty years ago puts me in
452
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:59.240
my mid thirties. I had a sort of ideological belief
453
00:26:59.279 --> 00:27:01.799
that every teenagers should be dealt with in.
454
00:27:01.759 --> 00:27:03.200
The juvenile justice system.
455
00:27:04.119 --> 00:27:07.759
I don't think that anymore because I've come to recognize
456
00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:12.720
that some juveniles are so profoundly damaged by the abuse
457
00:27:12.799 --> 00:27:15.720
and the trauma they've experienced that they're not just going
458
00:27:15.799 --> 00:27:20.119
to get better if you wait a few years. There's
459
00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:22.839
a study from Florida that found that when they sentenced
460
00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:26.759
juvenile murderers to at that time they were getting like
461
00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:30.119
ten years, the recidivism rate, the rate at which they
462
00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:33.519
committed additional violent crimes when they were released was something
463
00:27:33.559 --> 00:27:37.720
like ninety percent. And that makes sense to me developmentally,
464
00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:41.839
because ten years only brings you to your mid twenties,
465
00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:44.519
which is when you have a mature brain, and then
466
00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:46.920
you need to use the time to use the mature
467
00:27:46.960 --> 00:27:51.240
brain to rehabilitate and transform yourself positively. So I sort
468
00:27:51.240 --> 00:27:53.440
of got to the point of saying, look, if a
469
00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:58.799
kid is just experiencing an adolescent crisis without longstanding issues
470
00:27:58.799 --> 00:28:00.839
of trauma and abuse. You know, a kid from a
471
00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:05.720
basically normal family who gets involved with drugs and before
472
00:28:05.799 --> 00:28:08.720
long he's involved in a drug dealing related murder, with
473
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:14.400
no other trauma criminal record, he probably can be rehabilitated
474
00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:18.039
in a few years. Actually, many of the school shooters
475
00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:21.319
that we had and you know, not so much a lady,
476
00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:24.359
but we had a surge of them twenty thirty years ago.
477
00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:26.519
Most of them, and I know a couple of them,
478
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:30.039
could have been rehabilitated by the time they were twenty
479
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:35.799
one because they were experiencing a crisis, not a longstanding.
480
00:28:35.039 --> 00:28:37.000
Chronic traumatic environment.
481
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:40.160
But because so much of our sentencing is just based
482
00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:44.359
on the crime, not on the context with the person,
483
00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:47.119
most of them got like one hundred years or three
484
00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:52.200
hundred years or life without prole Whereas I was working
485
00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:54.599
on a case just a couple of days ago where
486
00:28:54.599 --> 00:28:56.799
a kid was involved in a group he shot somebody
487
00:28:56.839 --> 00:29:00.720
three times. But the guy didn't done, He just was
488
00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:02.559
shot in the leg three times, who was wounded and
489
00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:07.440
recovered well. In the criminal justice system, that kid is
490
00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:10.480
a low relatively low risk, and so his sentence is
491
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:15.839
relatively short because it was only you know, attempted murder
492
00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:21.519
or aggravated assault. But from my perspective, it doesn't matter
493
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:23.599
how many bullets he put in or whether he killed
494
00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:26.079
him or not. What matters is who he is, where
495
00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:30.720
he comes from, where he's headed. And that guy, that kid,
496
00:29:31.079 --> 00:29:33.359
I don't think you know, is going to get better
497
00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:36.839
within just a few years, going from fifteen to eighteen
498
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:39.720
or fifteen to twenty. He's probably got to stay till
499
00:29:39.720 --> 00:29:42.359
he's twenty five, when he has a mature brain, and
500
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:45.119
then have that mature brain as a resource to work
501
00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:49.279
on his issues. So it's paradoxical in a way that
502
00:29:50.440 --> 00:29:54.640
you know, the understanding doesn't necessarily lead to dismissal of
503
00:29:54.680 --> 00:29:58.640
the charges. It may lead to recognition that this is
504
00:29:58.680 --> 00:30:04.039
a long haul to get better from this. And I
505
00:30:04.079 --> 00:30:06.200
see it happen because I work with a lot of
506
00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:08.319
guys in their thirties and forties, and I've seen it
507
00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:09.359
happen with them.
508
00:30:09.599 --> 00:30:11.599
But clearly, you know, because sometimes I.
509
00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:13.359
Ask them, what do you think would have happened if
510
00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:15.000
you had gotten away with this murder that.
511
00:30:14.960 --> 00:30:18.000
You committed when you're seventeen, and they typically.
512
00:30:17.599 --> 00:30:19.839
Say, well, I either would have been dead by the
513
00:30:19.880 --> 00:30:22.079
time I was twenty, or would to kill somebody else
514
00:30:22.119 --> 00:30:25.200
by the time I was twenty, and that insight is
515
00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:28.359
so powerful and important. And yet, as you point out,
516
00:30:28.359 --> 00:30:30.640
the criminal justice system to a larger v is not
517
00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:31.799
set up to think.
518
00:30:31.599 --> 00:30:34.440
That way, right, I mean, it is something else, Like
519
00:30:34.480 --> 00:30:36.440
I don't know anybody in their teens who really had
520
00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:40.279
that capacity for self analysis that maybe comes with age
521
00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:43.839
or are kind of seasoned self analysis. So a lot
522
00:30:43.839 --> 00:30:46.119
of these people in their teens are just making decisions
523
00:30:46.200 --> 00:30:49.000
based upon many other things. Can you talk you talk
524
00:30:49.039 --> 00:30:53.279
about your book and your book about rehabilitation and trying
525
00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:57.279
to transform this process of people who've done terrible things
526
00:30:57.279 --> 00:30:59.680
in their teens or youth. Can you talk about some
527
00:30:59.720 --> 00:31:01.759
of the steps that can be taken to try to
528
00:31:01.799 --> 00:31:03.480
ameliorate some of these problems.
529
00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:09.240
Well, certainly at the preventive level, there are There's a
530
00:31:09.240 --> 00:31:12.759
guy named Robert Zager who's mentioned in the book his research.
531
00:31:13.880 --> 00:31:16.839
He developed a way of identifying the kids most at
532
00:31:16.920 --> 00:31:21.119
risk to commit severe violence. They used it in Chicago
533
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:25.440
to identify it was three thousand of the most high
534
00:31:25.559 --> 00:31:29.880
risk kids, and then they put them into a particular program.
535
00:31:30.200 --> 00:31:33.960
A program had three components. One was a mentoring program,
536
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:38.599
a long term mentoring program, because mentoring can provide this relationship,
537
00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:44.319
this role model, this correcting of thinking, this access to
538
00:31:44.359 --> 00:31:45.599
alternative experiences.
539
00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:46.960
So mentoring was one part.
540
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:51.359
A jobs program was the second part, because that gave
541
00:31:51.400 --> 00:31:55.640
them an alternative economic pathway to the drug dealing and
542
00:31:55.680 --> 00:31:58.160
the crime and so on. And the third was an
543
00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:02.480
anger management program, which you know is partly shorthand for
544
00:32:03.160 --> 00:32:08.680
preventive psychotherapy, to get self understanding, to get a resolution
545
00:32:08.839 --> 00:32:11.319
of some of these issues, to have techniques to deal
546
00:32:11.359 --> 00:32:14.039
with your anger. And they found with those three components
547
00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:18.720
they reduced the number of murders by half. Wow, that's
548
00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:22.200
pretty dramatic. Of course, when you came in, they said, well,
549
00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:23.799
now we're going to do our own program, and they
550
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:27.440
you know, they scrapped it back up with homicide rink.
551
00:32:27.759 --> 00:32:30.519
So that that sort of gives you an idea that
552
00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:34.920
once you've committed a murder, now once you're in custody,
553
00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:38.839
the elements really are the same. That you need to
554
00:32:38.920 --> 00:32:43.880
have this therapeutic intervention that deals with anger issues and
555
00:32:44.519 --> 00:32:48.400
parental rejection issues and trauma issues, all of that stuff.
556
00:32:48.839 --> 00:32:51.079
You need to have a mentoring program, which is in
557
00:32:51.119 --> 00:32:54.480
a sense role models. And you sometimes guys will say
558
00:32:54.680 --> 00:32:58.759
some older guy, often a lifer sort of, you know,
559
00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:01.680
took me on and help me see things more clearly.
560
00:33:02.319 --> 00:33:07.119
So you get that, and then you get this jobs education,
561
00:33:07.559 --> 00:33:12.079
spiritual development component. I remember in one prison they had
562
00:33:12.119 --> 00:33:16.680
a hospice program, and the guys who participated as helpers
563
00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:20.720
in the hospice program were transformed by it because partly
564
00:33:20.720 --> 00:33:23.920
they would say, I took a life, and the idea
565
00:33:23.960 --> 00:33:30.759
that I can help someone pass peacefully is restorative for me.
566
00:33:32.519 --> 00:33:35.960
They have educational programs. You know, one of the best
567
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:40.000
predictors is if you get your deed while incarsiating, so
568
00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:42.359
you have the competence to do it and you have
569
00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:46.720
the motivation to stick with it. College credits. And then
570
00:33:46.759 --> 00:33:50.880
there's this spiritual component. You know, here you are a
571
00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:53.240
young person, you've been told you have life in prison.
572
00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:59.680
What possible motivation can you have for becoming a civilized, educated,
573
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:03.359
well behaved person. Well, often it's that you say, it's
574
00:34:03.400 --> 00:34:07.240
not just me here, there's a larger dimension to this.
575
00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:12.320
There's a spiritual dimension. So that practically often translates into meditation,
576
00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:16.920
which can change your brain, change your attitude through spiritual
577
00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:20.159
activities which give you a sense of the meaningfulness of
578
00:34:20.199 --> 00:34:23.440
life and give you a sense of humility. And I've
579
00:34:23.480 --> 00:34:27.679
often thought with teenagers that you have this issue. If
580
00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:30.440
you don't have a spiritual grounding, then it's just you
581
00:34:30.559 --> 00:34:32.480
and me. I want your jacket, and I'll kill you
582
00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:35.480
for your jacket. But the minute you have a spiritual dimension,
583
00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:38.639
it's you and me and something bigger, and that imposes
584
00:34:38.679 --> 00:34:42.159
limits both on what you can do. It also promote
585
00:34:42.920 --> 00:34:45.679
creates limits for how bad you can feel. If you're
586
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:49.440
less likely to go into this despair because you know
587
00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:52.519
that no matter how awful my life seems, there may
588
00:34:52.559 --> 00:34:55.360
be a larger purpose to it. Now, whether you agree
589
00:34:55.360 --> 00:34:58.079
with that or not, it does seem to function psychologically
590
00:34:58.320 --> 00:35:02.119
for a lot of guys, So you get this process going.
591
00:35:01.880 --> 00:35:03.639
On, and particularly when they get to their.
592
00:35:03.519 --> 00:35:05.840
Mid twenties, when they haven't met your brain, they can
593
00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:09.199
make use of this. Mad a guy recently who said,
594
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:11.920
I woke up on my twenty fifth birthday and I said,
595
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:13.800
what the hell have I been doing? I got to
596
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:17.960
really do coming to my life extreme. But it captures
597
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:21.599
this idea that it's like now you have a tool.
598
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:23.960
Instead of having one hand tie behind your back, you
599
00:35:23.960 --> 00:35:25.079
have both hands available.
600
00:35:25.559 --> 00:35:27.679
So I often slay that you have the choice that
601
00:35:27.719 --> 00:35:31.320
you have to make eventually if you have long term incarceration,
602
00:35:31.559 --> 00:35:33.599
is are you going to live as a barbarian and
603
00:35:33.639 --> 00:35:36.280
a savage or are you're going to live as a monk.
604
00:35:37.079 --> 00:35:39.119
And the ones who choose to live a monk take
605
00:35:39.159 --> 00:35:42.840
this path. And we know that because human brains are malleable,
606
00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:47.360
if you begin to behave differently, you think differently, your
607
00:35:47.360 --> 00:35:50.519
brain will adapt to that and support you in that change.
608
00:35:51.039 --> 00:35:54.000
There's a book called The Brain That Changes Itself by
609
00:35:54.039 --> 00:35:57.960
Norman Deutsche, was a neuroscientist. That chapter after chapter shows
610
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:01.599
that your brains not just in childhood and adolessons, but
611
00:36:01.679 --> 00:36:05.599
into adulthood. Brains can change in response to change behavior
612
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:09.079
and environments. And so the more you act like a monk,
613
00:36:09.119 --> 00:36:10.840
the more you have a brain of a monk, the
614
00:36:10.920 --> 00:36:13.880
easier it becomes to act like a monk. And I
615
00:36:14.119 --> 00:36:17.000
see these guys very often, and some of them are
616
00:36:17.039 --> 00:36:19.440
the focus of the book that followed Listening to Killers,
617
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:23.039
the book called Miller's Children, which is about the resentencing
618
00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:26.559
of guys who committed murders has adolescens and now have
619
00:36:26.599 --> 00:36:31.519
gone through this process of rehabilitation and transformation. That book
620
00:36:31.559 --> 00:36:34.719
was very inspiring for me because, you know, particularly working
621
00:36:34.760 --> 00:36:37.920
on death penalty cases where the quote best outcome that
622
00:36:38.039 --> 00:36:41.800
somebody is not going to be executed. It's very hard emotionally,
623
00:36:41.800 --> 00:36:44.719
it's very hard spiritually to do. But these cases of
624
00:36:45.119 --> 00:36:47.719
where you get to see right in front of you
625
00:36:48.360 --> 00:36:52.519
rehabilitation and transformation, not just that the guys are safe
626
00:36:52.519 --> 00:36:55.480
for release, but some of them become remarkable human beings.
627
00:36:56.039 --> 00:37:00.960
And that's been very sustaining for me intellectually, spiritually, emotionally.
628
00:37:01.239 --> 00:37:03.440
Right, And I mean, I think that it's important to
629
00:37:03.480 --> 00:37:07.280
look at that whole person and that progress, uh, the
630
00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:10.519
ability to change too. Giving The criminal justice system really
631
00:37:10.599 --> 00:37:12.840
needs to give people that opportunity. But it goes on
632
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:15.800
so much back to nurture, and I think our society
633
00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:18.440
has really done a disservice to a lot of kind
634
00:37:18.480 --> 00:37:21.239
of smaller subgroups. You talk about racism in your book too,
635
00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:25.159
about you know, these these environments are producing these effects.
636
00:37:25.199 --> 00:37:28.960
It's obvious that that's happening. So and you talk about
637
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:32.199
like maybe you can finish up by talking about your
638
00:37:32.360 --> 00:37:36.280
your views on like guns in uh, those environments.
639
00:37:38.559 --> 00:37:42.320
Well, you know, my intellectual background is what's called an
640
00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:46.920
ecological perspective, on human development, and that basically means that
641
00:37:47.400 --> 00:37:51.880
context is very important to outcome, so much so that
642
00:37:51.960 --> 00:37:58.119
if you say, does X cause Y, the best scientific
643
00:37:58.119 --> 00:38:01.920
answer is usually it depends. It depends on the context
644
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:04.760
in which of the X and Y occurring. So, for example,
645
00:38:05.639 --> 00:38:10.239
if guns are widely available, it's become pretty clear that
646
00:38:10.360 --> 00:38:14.320
in most contexts you get higher suicide rates because depressed
647
00:38:14.360 --> 00:38:20.159
people who have guns shoot themselves. I was token, if
648
00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:24.039
you have guns available to teenagers and they're in these
649
00:38:24.079 --> 00:38:29.920
toxic environments and they come from motional deprivation, people die.
650
00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:32.400
You know, back in nineteen ninety, remember when I looked
651
00:38:32.440 --> 00:38:35.360
at the data, If you look at the highest youth
652
00:38:35.400 --> 00:38:38.440
homicide rates, you found that they were in cultures that
653
00:38:38.519 --> 00:38:42.320
had a combination what is called the culture of honor,
654
00:38:43.039 --> 00:38:46.880
which is the culture that says if somebody disrespects you,
655
00:38:47.079 --> 00:38:51.639
violence is the response. So the culture of honor coupled
656
00:38:51.679 --> 00:38:56.440
with access to lethal weapons. So back in nineteen ninety,
657
00:38:57.280 --> 00:39:00.159
you know what was the country with the high to
658
00:39:00.159 --> 00:39:03.519
youth homicide rate, taking out countries that were officially at war,
659
00:39:03.880 --> 00:39:08.119
it was the United States, and particularly African Americans within
660
00:39:08.159 --> 00:39:13.679
the United States. Because the culture of racism interacts with
661
00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:16.360
this culture of honor, which was particularly strong in the
662
00:39:16.400 --> 00:39:20.719
American South, and most American African American populations have roots
663
00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:25.079
in the South. So that experience of disrespect coupled with
664
00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:30.280
that rage from racism, you know, is a dangerous combination.
665
00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:34.840
When you throw guns into that mix, you get you know,
666
00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:36.400
you get mayhem.
667
00:39:36.679 --> 00:39:38.039
Higher amounts of violence. Right.
668
00:39:38.079 --> 00:39:41.760
So without the guns, it wouldn't be as vicious, right,
669
00:39:41.840 --> 00:39:44.320
So there's the access to weaponr I have a.
670
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:50.039
Question for example of that is that Scotland is where
671
00:39:50.079 --> 00:39:51.880
a lot of this culture of honor came to the
672
00:39:51.880 --> 00:39:54.840
Old South, the disproportioned settlement of the South by Scots.
673
00:39:55.320 --> 00:40:00.119
Scotland is up near the top of youth homicide rates,
674
00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:03.119
not at the top because they have knives instead of guns.
675
00:40:03.119 --> 00:40:05.880
A colleague of mindset, if our kids had guns at
676
00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:09.000
the same rate yours did, we'd be number one in
677
00:40:09.079 --> 00:40:13.079
youth homicide instead. Glasgow was called the knifing capital of
678
00:40:13.119 --> 00:40:18.599
Europe because the poverty combined with the culture of honor. So,
679
00:40:19.159 --> 00:40:22.119
you know, there's always a question of drawing a complete
680
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:25.400
map that has the cultural and the social influences, the
681
00:40:25.559 --> 00:40:29.639
historical influences, and then the psychological influences as well.
682
00:40:29.719 --> 00:40:32.679
So again it's it's not simple.
683
00:40:33.079 --> 00:40:36.079
But the more you know, I think, the more you know,
684
00:40:36.119 --> 00:40:39.119
the more compassion you have, because the more you understand.
685
00:40:39.480 --> 00:40:40.119
Yeah, I agree.
686
00:40:40.320 --> 00:40:42.159
I have a question from one of the listeners. He's
687
00:40:42.199 --> 00:40:46.000
asking the same theory applies to birth certificates and Social
688
00:40:46.039 --> 00:40:50.440
Security numbers. Citizen citizenship is much the same as race
689
00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:55.079
that way, can doctor Garrett Garbarino speak on informed consent
690
00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:59.440
and presumption of legal liability to one hundred million laws?
691
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:07.199
I guess, well, anything anything that diminishes people, diminishes their
692
00:41:07.239 --> 00:41:10.559
sense of validity, is a risk factor in this equation,
693
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:16.639
and so racism by us, by us of any kind.
694
00:41:17.239 --> 00:41:17.480
You know.
695
00:41:17.559 --> 00:41:21.760
It's about a very significant proportion of African Americans in
696
00:41:21.760 --> 00:41:25.599
the United States have Native American heritage, something like I
697
00:41:25.639 --> 00:41:28.880
forgot a number forty percent something like that. I remember
698
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:31.880
working on a case of a kid who was quote black,
699
00:41:32.079 --> 00:41:34.519
but he had a lot of very Native American features,
700
00:41:34.960 --> 00:41:37.320
and he was bullied and panted for that and it
701
00:41:37.400 --> 00:41:40.719
became a source of danger to his development.
702
00:41:41.280 --> 00:41:44.320
When we met him he was in a detention center.
703
00:41:44.480 --> 00:41:48.199
He gave him a book called The The Black Indians,
704
00:41:48.639 --> 00:41:51.840
which is about this and it was remarkable because it
705
00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:54.960
gave him a sort of positive place to stand culturally,
706
00:41:55.800 --> 00:41:58.960
and he got a lot better because he wasn't constantly
707
00:41:58.960 --> 00:42:01.840
being eaten away by the feeling of inadequacy. And I
708
00:42:01.880 --> 00:42:06.039
think that can be true as well with immigration issues,
709
00:42:06.119 --> 00:42:10.760
citizenship issues, that anything that makes you part of the other,
710
00:42:11.280 --> 00:42:13.719
that makes you a devalued group, is a risk factor.
711
00:42:14.039 --> 00:42:16.440
Whether or not it translates into violence depends on a
712
00:42:16.440 --> 00:42:17.199
lot of other.
713
00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:20.840
Things, including gender. I mean, that's the most obvious.
714
00:42:20.480 --> 00:42:21.159
Thing that right.
715
00:42:21.239 --> 00:42:23.480
I think you said like ninety eight percent or something,
716
00:42:23.559 --> 00:42:24.199
or male.
717
00:42:26.079 --> 00:42:28.960
And there are biological reasons for that. There are cultural
718
00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:32.679
reasons for that. You know. For example, there's a gene,
719
00:42:32.719 --> 00:42:34.800
the MAOA gene.
720
00:42:34.840 --> 00:42:38.000
That if you have it in a certain form, it
721
00:42:38.079 --> 00:42:41.000
reduces your brain's capacity to deal with stress.
722
00:42:42.039 --> 00:42:43.199
And so kids who.
723
00:42:43.159 --> 00:42:46.639
Have that gene sort of turned off and are abused.
724
00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:51.440
In a study, eighty something percent develop conduct disorder, that
725
00:42:51.519 --> 00:42:55.119
chronic pattern of aggressions on if they had the gene
726
00:42:56.400 --> 00:42:58.480
turned on, had the normal gene.
727
00:42:58.280 --> 00:42:59.800
And they were abused, it was only.
728
00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:04.960
Fourty But the real story was if they were not abused,
729
00:43:05.239 --> 00:43:09.039
the gene became irrelevant. So the gene is only relevant
730
00:43:09.079 --> 00:43:12.199
if you're in the stressful environment of child abuse. And
731
00:43:12.239 --> 00:43:14.519
I think that, and then the reason why I mention
732
00:43:14.639 --> 00:43:19.199
it now is that genetic problem is nine times more
733
00:43:19.199 --> 00:43:21.880
common in males than females because that gene is on
734
00:43:21.920 --> 00:43:25.079
the on the X chromosome, and males only have one
735
00:43:25.239 --> 00:43:27.920
X chromosome as opposed to two. So I mean, it's
736
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:30.159
a complex story, but the point is there may be
737
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:35.039
genetic foundations for this gender difference when you look at
738
00:43:35.639 --> 00:43:39.679
because you know, there's even this racial difference in assault
739
00:43:39.719 --> 00:43:43.280
and homicide only applies for low income African Americans.
740
00:43:44.199 --> 00:43:45.920
African Americans don't have a higher.
741
00:43:45.719 --> 00:43:51.599
Rate combination the accumulation of risk factors. I would often
742
00:43:51.639 --> 00:43:54.480
be asked, you know, is this the cause of youth violence?
743
00:43:54.480 --> 00:43:57.000
And I would say, it's like building a tower of blocks.
744
00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:00.239
Would block after block after block on the tower, only
745
00:44:00.280 --> 00:44:02.400
put one more block on and the tower falls over
746
00:44:02.840 --> 00:44:05.159
that block. Isn't really the cause, It's only the cause
747
00:44:05.320 --> 00:44:07.079
in the context of that accumulation.
748
00:44:07.679 --> 00:44:09.880
And people need to be able to think this way.
749
00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:14.800
Because it leads to much better interventions, much better laws
750
00:44:14.840 --> 00:44:19.079
and policies, and a much better sense of the humanity
751
00:44:19.760 --> 00:44:22.880
of people who otherwise can be dehumanized.
752
00:44:22.480 --> 00:44:26.480
Right, better outcomes for them too, Bob, what an outstanding discussion.
753
00:44:26.480 --> 00:44:28.320
Thanks so much for sharing all that knowledge. Where's the
754
00:44:28.320 --> 00:44:31.960
best place for people to get listening to Killers?
755
00:44:32.519 --> 00:44:35.800
Well, I think it's available on Amazon and paperback, as
756
00:44:35.800 --> 00:44:38.360
you know those children. I think Lost Boys are still
757
00:44:38.360 --> 00:44:40.519
on there too, but certainly that's the way to go.
758
00:44:41.280 --> 00:44:45.599
I think it's available. I think as a online book
759
00:44:45.639 --> 00:44:48.480
as well as a fashion hard copy, which is what
760
00:44:48.559 --> 00:44:50.440
I read of course being an old geezer.
761
00:44:50.719 --> 00:44:53.199
And then you have Lost Boys too, that's an audiobook.
762
00:44:53.480 --> 00:44:56.320
And do you have social media or email or your
763
00:44:56.360 --> 00:44:58.920
website where people can reach out to you if they
764
00:44:58.920 --> 00:45:00.840
want you.
765
00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:02.000
Well, I'll give you my email at the risk of
766
00:45:02.039 --> 00:45:02.840
being inundated.
767
00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:04.960
But I don't you know, I have a.
768
00:45:04.920 --> 00:45:07.599
Face, you have a Facebook? Okay.
769
00:45:07.639 --> 00:45:09.760
I never go there though, So if you really want
770
00:45:09.800 --> 00:45:11.360
to hurry you man, not much about I'll.
771
00:45:11.199 --> 00:45:12.760
Put it in the shell show notes. You can just
772
00:45:12.800 --> 00:45:14.840
send it to me by email. It doesn't have to
773
00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:15.119
be there.
774
00:45:15.159 --> 00:45:17.960
I mean some people have websites, book websites, but Amazon
775
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:19.639
seems to be the best place to get this movie.
776
00:45:20.519 --> 00:45:24.480
Gotcha and the title again that we discussed doctor Garbarino
777
00:45:24.599 --> 00:45:27.840
has twenty six books, but this book again is Listening
778
00:45:27.880 --> 00:45:31.159
to Killers. Lessons learned from my twenty years as a
779
00:45:31.199 --> 00:45:35.920
psychological expert witness in murder cases. Published twenty fifteen, Doctor
780
00:45:36.039 --> 00:45:40.119
James Garberino, gar bar I n O. Thank you so much,
781
00:45:40.119 --> 00:45:42.239
Doctor Garbarino, thank you.
782
00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:44.480
Yeah. Excellent, excellent and if you stay there,