Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them

See Larger Image	List Price: $14.95 Our Price: $10.17 Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: Anchor Written By: James Garbarino Average Customer Rating:
Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 303.60835 EAN: 9780385499323 ISBN: 0385499329 Label: Anchor Manufacturer: Anchor Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 288 Publication Date: 2000-08-15 Publisher: Anchor Release Date: 2000-08-15 Studio: Anchor
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Editorial Reviews: "Remarkable--. What sets Lost Boys apart from the ordinary lament is the author's palpable sense of care and compassion."--The Washington Post Book World In the past few years our national consciousness has been altered by haunting images of mass slaughters in American high schools, carried out by troubled young boys with guns. It's now clear that no matter where we live or how hard we try as parents, our children are likely to be going to school with boys who are capable of getting guns and pulling triggers. What has caused teen violence to spread from the urban war-zones of large cities right into the country's heartland? And what can we do to stop this terrifying trend? James Garbarino, Ph.D., Cornell University professor and nationally noted psychologist, insists that there are things that we, both as individuals and as a society, can do. In a richly anecdotal style he outlines warning signs that parents and teachers can recognize, and suggests steps that can be taken to turn angry and unhappy boys away from violent action. Full of insight, vivid individual portraits, practical advice and considered hope, this is one of the most important and original books ever written about boys.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Exceptional and Groundbreaking Book by the Leading Authority in the Field Comment: Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them James Garbarino has been referred to by Edward Zigler as one of the nation's major social critics, his groundbreaking research and writing on children in refugee camps around the world, his study of children growing up in war zones from Cambodia, Mozambique, Kuwait, Nicaragua, and Palestine, not to mention his work with children growing up in this country in inner city war zones has influenced a whole generation of child development specialists, mental health professionals, politicians, and policy makers. He has been a truly inspirational figure for me and so many in the field in informing and guiding our work with violent youth. This book is destined to be a classic in the field and makes a compelling case for viewing in a humanistic way those youth who suffer traumatic, often unrecognized, and untreated lacerations to the soul that ultimately lead to a huge cost to society, not just economically, but more poignantly in pain and suffering. Garbarino along with Kenneth Hardy, who is another leading voice in this work, don't condone violence, in fact they deplore it, but they recognize a complicated underlying emotional process consisting of devastating emotional wounds to many of these youngsters who ultimately hurt and in rare, but extreme instances murder others. Typically these wounds have been ignored. In so many cases as Garbarino points out, when you peel away the layers, you will ultimately come to a traumatized child at the core. Tragically, many opportunities along the way are missed with these youngsters to recognize and treat the underlying pain; to provide the trauma-informed treatment that could offer healing to these deeply hurting youth. Our culture has become increasing punitive as if these methods were novel. The basic philosophy behind these harsh methods is that we need to break down the spirit of the kid. What is sadly missed in this approach is that for most of these kids their spirit is already broken down. Garbarino injects a refreshing breath of fresh air in the stale, dank, and limiting prevailing approaches that further demoralize our youth and offer little respite from violence in our society. To simply demonize our youth and to heap still harsher punitive measures on them is a deadend. By contrast, Garbarino's humanistic philosophy and deep committment to hurting youth opens the door to newer, more hopeful possibilites. His work has been instrumental in the encouraging movement in the last 8 years to develop trauma-informed treatment programs for youngsters in residential treatment diagnosed with conduct disorder. The Sanctuary Model developed by Sandra Bloom is one sterling example of such an approach. This is the first book I recommend to people working with violent youth. The field will be forever indebted to James Garbarino for this humanistic turning point in the treatment of deeply troubled youth. Customer Rating: Summary: Briliiant and Eye-Opening Comment: One of my graduate school professors recommended this book to my class. I just finished reading it. Here is a brilliant book, written in a beautiful, flowing style. Dr. Garbarino bases the book on in-depth interviews with some of the most violent boys in our country. These boys have killed classmates, dealt drugs, and engaged in kidnapping. Garbarino never lets you lose sight of the fact that these boys have committed heinous crimes. But he gives context to the crimes by explaining how these boys were abused, physically and emotionally, how they suffered, and how they were neglected. Context is not justification. Not only does Dr. Garbarino describe the causes and effects of violence, but he also proposes preventative solutions. Customer Rating: Summary: Hidden Agenda Tacked onto Valuable Observations Comment: While I believe that Garbarino has valuable insight to offer and shares interesting research with the reader, but he offers up so many explanations for why the boys are violent that he offers no room for personal responsibility or culpability. Additionally, in the last half of the book he pushes an agenda of socialism and an end to Second Amendment rights. Customer Rating: Summary: Some information unconscionably misrepresented Comment: I worked as a documentary producer for some time in the 90's and came to have some first-hand knowledge of one of the cases James Garbarino discusses in this book, that of Shareef Cousin, a New Orleans teen who was once the youngest person ever to be on death row in the US. Garbarino presents Cousin as a prime example of how a child can fall into a life of violence and murder for lack of a father figure. Problem: Shareef Cousin was not violent and did not murder anyone. His case is one of the most famous US cases of a totally innocent person, in this case a child, landing up on death row. Cousin was actually on several home videotapes taken at the time of the crime playing in a basketball game at a distant community center. Authorities were well aware of this evidence at the time of his trial but suppressed the information, and, in the meantime, coerced Cousin into confessing to a robbery he also couldn't have committed in order to keep him in prison after he was taken off death row. (He's out now, all charges dropped and convictions overturned, and he's a fine, upstanding citizen.). His story is not one of a fatherless boy falling into a life of crime, but of racism and corruption in the New Orleans DA'S office. If you use the Amazon search feature to view Garbarino's references to Cousin's case in this book, you'll see he gives the impression he interviewed Cousin at length to get all sorts of insight into how his childhood circumstances made him a murderer. He even intimates that Shareef more or less admitted guilt. This is sheer rubbish. From day one, Cousin, his wonderfully supportive family, and numerous witnesses proclaimed his innocence to anyone and everyone who would listen. And by the time this book was published, his murder conviction was being overturned and he was well on his way to being cleared of the sham robbery charges. I find it hard to believe Garbarino was unaware of Sharif's innocence when he wrote this section of the book. But he needed Cousin to be guilty, being the picture-perfect fatherless black kid and all, in order to support his shallow, pop-psychological theories on boys and violence, so he completely misrepresented this child and his situation. Such a lack of respect for people and for the truth makes all the other anecdotes and "data" in this book highly suspect. What a shame because this is such an important topic that really needs to be addressed by an author of intellectual and personal integrity. -- If Garbarino is their only advocate, the Lost Boys will most likely remain lost. Customer Rating: Summary: Nothing new or enlightening Comment: You'll find nothing new in this book; social cues, abuse, cycle of violence, shame, role models, etc. Perhaps it was new news in 1999, but no longer. The author's brain seems to connect items which have nothing to do with each other, and in a judgmental way. See page 151, he makes a severe and inappropriate judgment of a person's reaction to imminent death, and attempts to make an outrageous connection to "being in touch with your soul." Don't waste your money. I'm sure you can find it in a local library and peruse it, but I doubt you'll get much out if it. Unless you're a sheltered Psych 101 student who has never watched the news. More Reviews