CJ 725 Forensic Behavior Analysis Blog

Blog Post – Child Trauma

A traumatic experience is a terrifying, perilous, or violent event that represents a risk to a child's life. Seeing a traumatic event that undermines the life or physical security of a friend or family member can likewise be traumatic. This is especially significant for small kids as their feeling of wellbeing relies upon the apparent security of their connection figures. 

Traumatic experiences can start strong emotions and aversive physical responses that can continue long after the event. Children may feel dread, defenselessness, or fear, just as physiological responses, for example, heart palpitations, vomiting, or loss of bowel control and incontinence. Children who experience a failure to shield themselves or who lacked safeguarding from others to be shielded from the outcomes of the traumatic experience may likewise feel overpowered by the physical and emotional reactions. 

Despite the fact that parents make a continuous effort to protect children, dangerous and traumatic events despite everything still can occur. This risk can emerge outside of the family, (for example, a cataclysmic event, car crash, school shooting, or even internet bullying) or from inside the family. (for example, abusive behavior at home, physical or sexual maltreatment, or the sudden passing of a friend or family member.)

In spite of the fact that people frequently make statements like, "He was so young when that occurred. He won't even remember it as he grows up," childhood trauma can have a deep-rooted impact in their life even long after the event is over. And keeping in mind that children are resilient, it does not mean they are made of stone. It's critical to perceive when your child may require proficient assistance with managing a trauma. Early intervention could prevent your child from encountering the continuous impacts of the trauma growing up and even in adulthood.

I myself have an interesting relationship with childhood trauma. Just over 20 years ago, my dad, manifested his passion for mountaineering chasing peaks, along with Marcus Tobía and part of the Proyecto Cumbre team (some of the biggest names and teams of mountaineering in Venezuela). My mom did the same from motherhood, with three small children and a fourth who was on the way (me).

So, pregnant with me, she received that first alarm signal. My dad was undergoing medical examinations, in preparation like every professional mountaineer does before an expedition. And just beginning the stress test the alarmed doctor asked him to stop: "You're going to die here! You have the highest blood pressure!" He said. Now I wasn’t born yet so I don’t know exactly what the doctor said but for the purpose of storytelling, I will tell it as my mother told it while I was growing up. 

After this encounter with the doctor, my father got a bunch of tests to figure out what was wrong but the answer was worst than he could imagine. He needed a new kidney. This is when my whole family was forced to climb a whole mountain with cero preparation and no warning (a metaphorical one obviously) He had just started his own company with every penny he had saved up since college, had three children and one on the way. It seemed like the worst possible time for him to get sick but life doesn’t really care about convenience does it?

Only months after his diagnosis and weeks after I was born we got a burst of luck, and we crowned the first peak: My dad’s uncle expresses his willingness to help by donating one of his kidneys, and the transplant is done, and it is a complete success. But this is just the start (but you knew that since this couldn’t be my traumatic experience if it was over when I was a month old).

The path to follow since then has not been easy, but he faces a backpack loaded with the most valuable for those who suffer from a disease like this. Hope. His uncle gave him hope. But my dad has to take immunosuppressants for life. And if for just three days he stops taking the medicine, it turns out that his body would begin to reject the new organ, and you immediately return to zero, or to the base as mountaineers call their point of departure. 

Now I can’t say I remember this but I do believe it shaped my relationship with my family for many years. The first 3 years after a transplant getting sick is a no-go. It is hard having school-age children that have school-age friends who are basically germ and snot producing machines. My mom had to make a choice and that meant my three siblings basically lived with our cousins those first three years, spending months at a time away from home. The worst part is that my dad was taking a cocktail of medications that are not only tough on your body but have serious side effects, one of which was irritability. Every time my siblings came home my dad would go into a screaming fit and get aggressively angry that they were being noisy and hyperactive. 

I was three the first time my dad screamed at me that I recall (though I suspect there were many others before this one since having a child who doesn’t even sleep through the night and cries all day must be incredibly tough without those pesky side effects.) I was being homeschooled at this point because preschool is worst than a school for germs and sickness, I was outside with my mom learning my ABCs and there was a dog being walked near us. 

My dad walked outside and screamed at me for not singing the song correctly and the dog got spooked, it jumped at me and bit my face, I had to get facial reconstruction surgery every year until I was 9 to make sure my face was not deformed. It made my dad so guilty he stopped interacting with me altogether. Wouldn’t come to school events, or kiss me goodnight, or even acknowledge I was home when I got home from school. My siblings had formed such a strong bond being in different houses all together they didn’t really acknowledge me either and so I started to feel lonely and sad. My mom loved me but she was so busy with my dad and keeping us alive that she didn’t have time to make me feel like I belonged in my own family. 

I started to become anxious and had a lot of self-doubt. Why didn’t my own family want me? What is so horribly wrong with me that my dad won’t even talk to me? I harmed my friendships, my grades until it got to a point where I just thought I was a burden. I didn’t want to be a part of my family anymore. One night my mom talked to me about going to boarding school and I completely broke down. “You care about me so little that you just want to ship me off and never see me again?” she was confused because she thought this was an opportunity for me to learn new languages and see new cultures like my cousins had done. She never thought id remember my dad’s transplant or that I would be so traumatized by events that transgressed when I was barely a toddler but thankfully she got me help. 

She took me to a psychologist who helped me understand my pain and to get through it. I owe everything I am today to having a mom who understood that I needed help. Some people are not so lucky. This is why it is so important to know the signs and get children the help they need, because thinking they won’t remember or that they won’t be affected for being so young is unfortunately not the case.

Trauma, Substance Abuse and Crime

For a time in my early twenties, I lived in a small city in Missouri. Having recently graduated, the move there was based on convenience rather than desire. I spent a varying amount of time walking around the downtown, where I would sit about and wonder fickle and errant about topics that were of little concern or interest to anyone but myself. One day after work I was walking downtown when a person experiencing homelessness came up to me and asked for money. I gave him more than his usual, so it seemed, because he insisted on shaking my hand and talking to me. He introduced himself as Chuck and told me that he was a Vietnam veteran. I introduced myself and we got to know one another. After our meeting, I’d see Chuck downtown. Usually in the summers. I’d stopped giving him money and instead took him out to lunch or dinner. We’d talk. I suspected he had a problem with alcohol, but we’d never talk about it. Over time I noticed the track marks. He told me that he’d never found what he could do in America after he came back from Vietnam. He told me about his failed marriage that broke up while he was away, told me about his parents. How he couldn’t sleep and the kind of people he’d be with. At the time I didn’t understand much of what he’d gone through, especially in relation to how powerful the substance abuse cycle invigorates itself by the power of traumatic experiences, in Chuck’s case the Vietnam War and his succeeding lack of support upon his return. It is a common experience for veterans in the U.S., but felt especially poignant during certain conversations with Chuck.

The accompanying sketch is meant to be a memory of Chuck. Mostly, a depiction of my misunderstanding of Chuck’s needs and what he was not getting, even as I sat with him and did what I thought was a good deed. The figure in the picture is not Chuck. I never took a picture of him. But the figure reminds me of him, sitting as he is as Chuck first sat when he asked me for some money. Seeking something we both knew not what and like birds on a wire commiserating in broad and sometimes unclear terms indicative of a steadfast and puerile misconception of attributable trauma.

The intersection of crime and trauma is a tragic misstep of circumstance, and realizing this quickly dismantles the frightening image of the hostile criminal who acts on some whim in service of evil deeds and vile acts. The substances we deem illicit are branded upon those who use them so that the act itself is demonized, so that the people themselves are dehumanized, in order to suit an order that seeks to rectify crime not with practices derived from study, empathy and rehabilitation but with the fundamental error of ignoring the human needs of people impacted by, in many ways, the tragic misstep of circumstance.

Terrorism

I chose to write about terrorism because it hits close to home for me. In the summer of 2016, the summer before I went off to college, a dark wave hit my city: Dhaka, Bangladesh. I remember being in the car with my sister and my father on our way for our weekly Thursday night dinner outing. While we were stuck in traffic, I was texting with a friend who lived near the restaurant we were going to and she said she heard gunshots from her balcony. She then said that her father spoke to the guard in their building and he thought there might be a terrorist attack at a restaurant called Holey Artisan, which was the next street over from her house. Holey Artisan was a high-end restaurant/cafe frequented by mostly expatriate residents who lived in the area. Local kids who attended international schools also used to hang out there a lot. This area of the city, Gulshan, is widely a residential area but has many restaurants and so it doesn't have much security around. I relayed this information about the potential terrorist attack to my father and he suddenly became very quiet. He turned on the radio and looked up the news on his phone but at the time there were no reports about anything. We were almost approaching the restaurant when various traffic police started blocking the roads to Gulshan and turning cars away because there was an ongoing terrorist attack. We were anxiously waiting to get home while hearing the news about how 6 to 8 young men stormed the restaurant and held 33 people hostage, including chefs and working staff. Some of the hostages were people I knew personally, people my age whom I would even call my friends. The militants were part of ISIS and held these hostages for about 10 hours, through out the night. When the military finally stormed the restaurant strategically, 20 of these hostages had already been killed. From the reports that came out later, the hostages were made to recite verses from the Quran and were killed if they could not. Many women were killed because they were dressed in Western clothes like jeans and t-shirts instead of covering their head and wearing traditional clothing like "good Muslims do." In the end, 6 of the terrorists were gunned down and the rest were arrested. My city was trembling, and still is.

When reading about terrorism in class, it particularly interested me how young and well-educated people from good family backgrounds get roped into extremist groups such as ISIS. Bartol & Bartol outlined culturally motivated terrorists as those who are driven by fear of irreparable damage to their way of life or culture by an organization or foreign country. Religion generates the most passion in these types of groups and these groups are largely defined by a system of faith that remains vigilant for forces that may suppress their religious way of life. This is absolutely what ISIS is like. In this particular attack, the terrorists targeted those who didn't seem "Muslim enough" and saw them as threats who were brain washing others with Western ideals.

So why do they join? Bartol & Bartol explain that when one has next to nothing working out in life, they will still always have their religious, political, or philosophical faith. Young people who lack self esteem and a sense of self may be primary targets for joining terrorist groups. The text also talks about social learning theory and how those who are exposed to or live in places of political or religious strife, may directly witness terrorist behaviours and may learn from it. Bangladesh is a Muslim country and while we say we're secular, many of the political and religious leaders preach otherwise. So, exposure to Islam, and more importantly extremist Islam, is common and thus maybe social learning applies here.

The process of radicalization is so bewildering to me. How can someone be brain washed to such an extent without even realizing? Turns out, it's not that difficult. The boys who were recruited were socially isolated from friends and family for months. Many times it is our peers or even our family who can influence us into certain ways of thinking. In this case, I believe many of these boys were recruited by their peers in class and were gradually drawn into the group. As stated in Bartol & Bartol, individuals gradually adopt the beliefs of the extreme members in a psychological process called risky shift. Risky shift refers to the tendency of groups to develop beliefs and make decisions that are more extreme than they would have initially. The recruits become so deeply immersed in the ideology of the group that they don't even realize it. These recruits go through a training process that gives them a sense of eliteness and provides social rewards and thus entices these people to go through with it.

In sum, while it's been 4 years since this attack, I still think about it. It makes me uneasy to think that someone I go to school with could be so easily transformed into a terrorist. The research about why one joins these extremist groups fascinates me. It's similar to joining a cult and even that fascinates me. How can one be brain washed so intensely in so far as they put the groups ideologies above their family or friends?

Bartol, C.R., & Bartol, A.M. (2016). Criminal Behavior: A Psychological Approach (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Burnout

Professional burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. Burnout can occur when an individual feels overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. Prolonged stress can cause an individual to lose the interest and motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place. Burnout is a serious concern among those working in the criminal justice and social services field. When burnout occurs, it reduces productivity, drains energy, and can leave a person feeling resentful and hopeless.

Burnout not only effects an individual work life but can spill over to include home life, social life, and other personal areas. It can change a person’s body and make them more vulnerable to illness, colds, and the flu.

How to know if you are on the road to burnout?

• Everyday is a bad day
• Caring about your work or home life seems like a total waste of energy
• You’re exhausted all the time
• You feel like nothing you do makes a difference or is appreciated
• Most of your day is spent on tasks you find either dull or overwhelming

Having a bad day or feeling overloaded, even unappreciated, doesn’t necessarily mean an individual is burned out or on the road to burnout. However, meeting all these symptoms is a good indicator to reach out and get additional support.

Burnout occurs over a long period of time and can easily creep up. Knowing the signs and symptoms can help an individual address burn out symptoms and red flags sooner. For example, trying to reduce overall stress.

Psychical signs and symptoms of burnout?

• Feeling tired and drained most of the time
• Lowered immunity, frequent illness
• Frequent headaches or muscle pain
• Change in appetite and sleep habits

Emotional signs of burnout

• Sense of failure and self-doubt
• Feeling helpless, trapped, defeated
• Detachment, feeling alone
• Loss of motivation
• Increasingly cynical and negative outlook

Behavioral sign

• withdrawing from responsibilities
• isolating yourself from others
• procrastinating
• using food, drugs, or alcohol to cope

Understanding the early signs and symptoms of burnout can help an individual reduce their overall stress by addressing these concerns through counseling, self-care, or other services. Working in high stress fields everyday can be hard and burnout occurs frequently. Its important for professionals to understand the risks and try to address any early symptoms as soon as possible.

Burnout Prevention and Treatment. (2019, November 7). Retrieved December 12, 2019, from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm.

The Ted Bundy Tapes

True crime and forensics had never really been my cup of tea before taking this class. Ever since, I feel like I have a weird obsession with learning more about the minds of serial killers and their motives, and what kind of people they are. Mind you, I have boundaries for learning more. The documentaries and dramatizations I watch have to be about those who are either dead or in jail for the rest of their lives. I don't like unsolved cases or knowing about murderers who were never caught because I have too much anxiety for that, as I'm sure most of us do when we find out there could be a serial killer sitting right next to us. Anyway, I've been particularly drawn to the famous ones; Aileen Wuornos, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffery Dahmer, and of course Ted Bundy. I watched the "Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes" on Netflix, and here's what I learned.

I think everyone was a little perplexed by Bundy because of his demeanor and how he presented himself to the media. His trial was the first to be publicly televised which was huge, and his background was like no other, coming from law school and thinking he was his best defender. He was found guilty and given the death penalty so clearly, he wasn't a very good defender, but at least he tried. I watched this docuseries after learning about psychopaths and typical behaviors they exhibited and I could've seen him coming a mile away. He was a psychology major after all, and I think he knew exactly what he was doing. He was extremely manipulative, he knew his audience always, he was condescending, and narcissistic. I can go on and on about these character traits he exhibited throughout the trial and on the confession tapes. Towards the end of his life, he was diagnosed with manic bipolar disorder, which may have contributed to some of these exhibits of odd, antisocial personality characteristics. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that he was a serial killer, and never showed remorse for the things he did even up until the day he died.

Though I can analyze Bundy and point out key characteristics that may explain why he committed the heinous crimes he did, I cannot understand it. Sure, I can understand bipolar disorder or major depression, because that can be scientifically explained with chemical imbalances. But using that for a reason as to why you'd murder 30 innocent young women doesn't do it for me. I cannot understand that.

I hate to say this about any human being but I'm glad he is no longer with us and no longer out there causing destruction in the lives of so many. He was a sociopath, a psychopath, and a serial killer, and none of his victims deserved to be hurt by him. I hope they are at peace, and I'm glad the judicial system did not let him off easy for his crimes.

The Criminalization of Mental Illness

https://create.piktochart.com/output/43096522-criminalization-of-mental-illness

Use the above link to access the Infographic I created on the criminalization of mental illness. We have taken steps back as a society, locking up individuals who need help simply because we either do not understand how to help them or there is lack of funding for the aid. Our jails and prisons have become modern day asylums, a holding cell for individuals with mental illness where they decompensate at significant rates under the guise of rehabilitation. The lack of community resources, funding, and accessible treatment has been a disservice that has gone on far too long. Steven Liefman, a Miami Judge, stated, ‘We have failed people with mental illness miserably. We have seen homelessness increase, seen shootings of people with mental illness increase, wasted critical tax dollars and have made mental illness a crime in this country.. This is a shameful American tragedy and it is one that must be reversed’ (2019). These powerful words hold the conviction that change is essential. Individuals with mental illness comprise a vulnerable population that should be protected, not shamed and punished.

LIVING SAFELY WITHOUT VIOLENCE IS A NEW GENDER RESPONSIVE GROUP INTERVENTION FOR WOMEN

Females involved in the criminal justice system come with a unique set of other needs. In assessing this, there has been edits and additions created within the types of programing available for these women. More recently there has been a group created as an intensive program specifically for women who are involved in the CJ system that engage in violent behavior. It is a gender responsive program that address the needs and real-life issues of women under community supervision. The program is based on cognitive behavior theory and research from evidence-based treatment models: Relational Theory, Trauma Informed, Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive Behavior Intervention. Each female who comes through the AIC, Alternative In the Community, are screened to assess for the need to participate in this group. The group meets twice a week for 2 hours each session and runs consecutively for 20 sessions. It is a closed group after the 3rd session. The main intention is to assist identified high risk women with a history of violence, emotional dysregulation and history of conflict in relationships. It is done over a period of time utilizing 6 different modules that touch upon the following areas:

• • Module 1: Understanding Violence focuses on defining safety, defining violence, exploring causes and motivation for using violence.

• • Module 2: Building Healthy Relationships: focuses on defining the qualities of a healthy relationship, exploring the warning signs of an unhealthy relationship, identifying the consequences of an unhealthy relationship, identifying and addressing the barriers to leaving an unhealthy relationship.
  • Module 3: Recognize and Regulate: focuses on building awareness of body sensations, feelings, thoughts and the connection with behavior. Participants also learn to recognize external triggers and label emotions as well as rate emotional intensity. Participants learn a variety of mindfulness strategies to achieve regulation as well as learn a variety of calming strategies.
  • Module 4 Resolve: Participants explore and practice using a four-step model to clarify problems and generate options.
  • Module 5 Reach Out: focuses on exploring boundaries, power and balance in relationships. Participants learn to express wants and needs respectfully and practice strategies to deal with conflict while developing social awareness through social action initiatives.
  • Module 6 Review: session focusses on reviewing and practicing strategies to enhance the Living Safely Plan as well as celebrate achievements and successes.

The following tool is utilized to screen the women that are referred:

LIVING SAFELY WITHOUT VIOLENCE ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

The following criteria should be followed when determining placement into Living Safely Without Violence.

• Administer the ANGER/HOSTILITY SCREEN: Anger/Hostility Screen questions must be asked directly of the client in an interview format.

If the client answers ‘Yes’ to 4 or more questions in the Anger/Hostility Screen, that would indicate the client may be an appropriate referral to Living Safely Without Violence versus Moving On. In addition to administering the Anger/Hostility Screen, the following should also be considered when determining which intervention is most appropriate.

• LSWV Eligibility Criteria :

• Moderate to High Risk females on a standardized risk/need assessment (WRNA, LSI-R, DVSI-R).

• Females with a history of violent behavior

• Females with emotional dysregulation

• Females with a history of conflict in relationships

• Client’s alcohol/drug and mental health issues are not interrupting daily functioning. (Clients with severe substance abuse or mental health issues should attend alternative interventions prior to or concurrently with LSWV).

• Cognitive abilities – client must be able to perform and understand at a 6th grade level

• Information received from the referral source and information reported from the client. Ex. criminal history, past experiences.

• All cases should be reviewed on a case by case situation. Example: If a client answers ‘Yes’ to 3 questions (vs. 4) on the Anger/Hostility Screen but other pertinent information is received from the referral source, then she can be enrolled in the LSWV group.

ANGER/HOSTILITY SCREEN