 Cover | |
| Author | James Garbarino |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Juvenile delinquency |
| Publisher | Free Press |
Publication date | August 15, 2000 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | Approx. 288 |
| ISBN | 978-0-385-49932-3 |
Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them is a 2000 book by the psychologist James Garbarino, in which the author details the epidemic of violent male youths in the United States.
Garbarino makes use of various quantitative research, in addition to qualitative research in the form of interviews with juvenile delinquents in detention and violent boys on death row.
Garbarino addresses biological and environmental factors that contribute to aggression in boys, which in most cases is diagnosed by mental professionals as conduct disorder or chronic mis-behaviour.
Additionally, Garbarino discusses that youths with violent backgrounds are to be understood as boys rather than as miniature adult criminals. Several passages assist parents in revising how they think about their teenaged sons. He credits the work of Anna Freud for adding to the misconception that adolescence is a disconnect from childhood. [1]
Attachment disorder in infancy is one potential cause for violent and/or aggressive teenagers, linking the childhood with future behaviour and demeanour. Kids who experience trauma in the form of parental or caregiver abuse may depart emotionally from their physical self, called dissociation. This may cause difficulties in feeling empathy and functionally socially, which Garbarino posits makes committing violent acts more likely.
Since many youth who commit violent offences develop in physical and psychological environments that are overstimulating, effective treatment has to include a different, more soothing milieu for the youth. Garbarino provides preventive treatment plans and interventions, in addition to a systematic approach to reforming violent offenders. [1]
In part 2 of his book, Garbarino details a comprehensive plan for both prevention and reclamation, which include but are not limited to:
The preventative interventions make use of family systems therapy, behaviour therapy, whereas the treatments for reclamation are largely cognitive behavioural and existential.
Garbarino criticizes the prison detention system that follows the boot camp model. He encourages the monastery model in its place, which has spiritual or religious leaders instead of wardens and disciplinarians. It encourages meditation and self-reflection in the adolescent inmates, expanding their understanding of how their violent acts effect both victims and society's perception of them and the community they come from.
"Lost Boys makes an important contribution to the literature on the causes and prevention of youth violence." [2]
"Jim Garbarino sounds the alarm about the spread of youth violence—. Focusing on the hurt and social alienation that are at the heart of youth violence, he offers not only insight and compassion, but also steps that will lead to prevention and intervention." [3]
"Garbarino addresses timely questions of biological and social influences of violence from an ecological perspective, and the results are very provocative."
However, as an academic, he experienced that some of the book's content "resulted in more questions than answers." [1]
"James Garbarino presents a logical and compelling analysis of not only why boys turn violent, but also how this transformation from vulnerable young boy to violent offender, and possibly even "killer," can be interrupted." [4]
"All in all, he has tackled an extremely difficult topic and done a very admirable job of making some sense of it and recommending ways to improve things." [5]
Violence is the use of harmful physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."
Conduct disorder (CD) is a mental disorder diagnosed in childhood or adolescence that presents itself through a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior that includes theft, lies, physical violence that may lead to destruction and wanton breaking of rules, in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate norms are violated. These behaviors are often referred to as "antisocial behaviors." It is often seen as the precursor to antisocial personality disorder, which is per definition not diagnosed until the individual is 18 years old. Conduct disorder may result from parental rejection and neglect and can be treated with family therapy, as well as behavioral modifications and pharmacotherapy. Conduct disorder is estimated to affect 51.1 million people globally as of 2013.
Antisocial personality disorder is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of disregard for, or violation of, the rights of others. A weak or nonexistent conscience is often apparent, as well as a history of legal problems or impulsive and aggressive behaviour.
Juvenile delinquency, also known as "juvenile offending", is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. For example, in the United States of America a juvenile delinquent is a person who is typically below 18 years of age and commits an act that otherwise would have been charged as a crime if they were an adult. Juvenile crimes can range from status offenses, to property crimes and violent crimes.
Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception of an imbalance of physical or social power. This imbalance distinguishes bullying from conflict. Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by the following three criteria: (1) hostile intent, (2) imbalance of power, and (3) repetition over a period of time. Bullying is the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally, or emotionally.
Anti-social behaviours are actions that harm or lack consideration for the well-being of others. It has also been defined as any type of conduct that violates the basic rights of another person and any behaviour that is considered to be disruptive to others in society. This can be carried out in various ways, which includes, but is not limited to, intentional aggression, as well as covert and overt hostility. Anti-social behaviour also develops through social interaction within the family and community. It continuously affects a child's temperament, cognitive ability and their involvement with negative peers, dramatically affecting children's cooperative problem-solving skills. Many people also label behaviour which is deemed contrary to prevailing norms for social conduct as anti-social behaviour. However, researchers have stated that it is a difficult term to define, particularly in the United Kingdom where many acts fall into its category. The term is especially used in British English.
School violence encompasses physical violence, including student-on-student fighting and corporal punishment; psychological violence, including verbal abuse; sexual violence, including rape and sexual harassment; many forms of bullying, including cyberbullying; and carrying weapons in school. It is widely held to have become a serious problem in recent decades in many countries, especially where weapons such as guns or knives are involved. It includes violence between school students as well as physical attacks by students on school staff.
Relational aggression or alternative aggression is a type of aggression in which harm is caused by damaging someone's relationships or social status.
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is listed in the DSM-5 under Disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders and defined as "a pattern of angry/irritable mood, argumentative/defiant behavior, or vindictiveness" in children and adolescents. This behavior is usually targeted toward peers, parents, teachers, and other authority figures. Unlike children with conduct disorder (CD), children with oppositional defiant disorder are not aggressive towards people or animals, do not destroy property, and do not show a pattern of theft or deceit. It has certain links to ADHD and as much as one half of children with ODD will also diagnose as having ADHD as well.
The studies of violence in mass media analyzes the degree of correlation between themes of violence in media sources with real-world aggression and violence over time. Many social scientists support the correlation. However, some scholars argue that media research has methodological problems and that findings are exaggerated.(Ferguson & Kilburn, 2009; Freedman, 2002; Pinker 2002; Savage, 2004)
Gender dysphoria in children (GD), also known as gender incongruence of childhood, is a formal diagnosis for children who experience significant discontent due to a mismatch between their assigned sex and gender identity. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder in children (GIDC) was used by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) until it was renamed gender dysphoria in children in 2013 with the release of the DSM-5. The diagnosis was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.
Sibling abuse includes the physical, psychological, or sexual abuse of one sibling by another, more often younger sibling by older sibling. A fourth category that brought attention from researchers during the first decade of the 21st century is sibling relational abuse, which derives from relational aggression.
Teen dating violence is the physical, sexual, or psychological / emotional abuse within a dating relationship among adolescents. Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been a well examined and documented phenomenon in adults; however, there has not been nearly as much study on violence in adolescent dating relationships, and it is therefore not as well understood. The research has mainly focused on Caucasian youth, and there are yet no studies which focus specifically on IPV in adolescent same-sex romantic relationships.
School bullying, like bullying outside the school context, refers to one or more perpetrators who have greater physical or social power than their victim and act aggressively toward their victim by verbal or physical means. This behavior is not a one-off episode; it must be repetitive and habitual to be considered bullying. Students who are LGBT, have parents of lower educational levels, are thought to be provocative, are perceived to be vulnerable, or are atypical or considered outsiders are at higher risk of being victimized by bullies. Baron (1977) defined such "aggressive behaviour as behaviour that is directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment".
Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do is a book by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson. Along with psychiatrist Eugene V. Beresin, Kutner and Olson are co-directors of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media, a division of the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Victimisation is the process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology.
James Garbarino is an author and professor at Loyola University Chicago. He has specialized in studying what causes violence in children, how they cope with it and how to rehabilitate them. Garbarino has served as consultant or adviser to a wide range of organizations, including the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, the National Institute for Mental Health, the American Medical Association, the National Black Child Development Institute, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the FBI. In addition, Garbarino's work is associated with the School of Human Ecology at Cornell University under the leadership of Urie Bronfenbrenner who began Head Start programs in the US.
In 1993, American psychologist Terrie Moffitt described a dual taxonomy of offending behavior in an attempt to explain the developmental processes that lead to the distinctive shape of the age crime curve. Moffitt's original statement of the theory is one of the more important articles in criminology with 2,792 citations. She proposed that there are two main types of antisocial offenders in society: The adolescence-limited offenders, who exhibit antisocial behavior only during adolescence, and the life-course-persistent offenders, who begin to behave antisocially early in childhood and continue this behavior into adulthood. This theory is used with respect to antisocial behavior instead of crime due to the differing definitions of 'crime' among cultures. Due to similar characteristics and trajectories, this theory can be applied to both females and males.
Callous and unemotional traits (CU) are distinguished by a persistent pattern of behavior that reflects a disregard for others, and also a lack of empathy and generally deficient affect. The interplay between genetic and environmental risk factors may play a role in the expression of these traits as a conduct disorder (CD).
Hostile attribution bias, or hostile attribution of intent, is the tendency to interpret others' behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign. For example, a person with high levels of hostile attribution bias might see two people laughing and immediately interpret this behavior as two people laughing about them, even though the behavior was ambiguous and may have been benign.