Psychologist James Garbarino, PhD, once interviewed a murderer so violent, six correctional officers were needed to control him when he appeared in court. The offender had killed two inmates while in prison. But when Garbarino asked the man to reveal something about himself that would surprise others, he confessed that he cried himself to sleep every night. “I always try to impress upon a jury that they’re not looking at a big, scary man, but really the untreated, traumatized child who inhabits that big, scary man,” said Garbarino, a psychology professor at Loyola University Chicago. Garbarino’s story was one of many that challenged conventional thinking about violence at a conference cosponsored by APA and the American Bar Association in May. The event, with the theme “Confronting Family and Community Violence: The Intersection of Law and Psychology,” brought psychologists, attorneys, judges and others together to discuss new ways to prevent child abuse, respond to troubled children and prevent family violence in the first place.
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