In these 25
pages, the authors spin the perspective of trauma and attachment by delving
into the story of a 16-year-old child perpetrator and/or victim, Leon, who is
diagnosed with ADHD and ASPD, awaiting trial to be charged with the death penalty
or life without parole. We immediately dive into the incidents of his murder
and rape and are forced to judge him by following Dr. Perry’s unraveling of how
his “unintentional neglect” was a precursor to his poor social adaptation and
potentially violent and cold nature.
Some startling
facts that Dr. Perry discussed were Leon’s low verbal and high performance IQ
scores, that also correlated to the same variances in percentages in the prison
population. Leon’s presented with high scores in his ability to read situations
and people’s intentions and low verbal skills, which Dr. Perry says that this dissonance
could be explained by adverse early childhood experiences. Although we don’t know
Leon’s ethnicity, I would like to assume that he is a person of color. I wanted
to add that Leon was in already in a maximum security prison, at the age of 18,
and we currently know that African American’s make up 40% of the prison
population but only make up 13% of the US population and Latinos make up 19% of
the prison population but only make up 16% of the US population (https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html).
Sometimes
doctors and scientists, in this case psychiatrists, too, wish to explain human
biological behavior just as mathematicians wish to solve complex mathematical
solutions to problems. However, we know the human body isn’t as simple as 1+1=2
and we see exactly that in the Leon’s life. Throughout this chapter Dr. Perry,
wants to find a neurological explanation to Leon’s actions just as he has been
able to explain other client’s behaviors based on traumatic events and poor
attachment style. However, as he explained at the end of the chapter he was not
able to provide a solid answer as to why Leon had murdered and raped two
innocent teenagers. I believe that one
of the most influential factors that influenced Leon that Dr. Perry overlooked were
a cultural/societal examination of Leon and his family’s environment.
Leon’s family,
who was obviously low-income, had to make an abrupt move to another city that
removed them from their extended family that provided psycho-social support to
Maria. It is possible that Leon could not find another job because he was
discriminated against and if that was the case, it forced this family to become
isolated in another city. Marias, intellectual disability, and possible
depression when they moved, was also another factor that Perry didn’t really
examine further. It was really difficult to read that Leon was left alone in a
dark room at one month old because his mother didn’t know what he needed,
however it explains his insecure-avoidant attachment style since Maria literally
avoided for most of the day.
Since the extended
family was the driving force in assisting Maria raise her children, the move to
an unknown city with no social support system caused Maria to just barely
survive herself. Although, Leon had two parents that were there, we don’t know
how discretionary discriminatory practices also affected Leon at school, in his
neighborhood, and within his community that affected the outcome of Leon’s
life. We can’t exclude these possible racialized acts that influence young people
of color especially when deteriorating neighborhoods are a result of racist
institutional practices that have forced people in limited opportunities for
upward mobility, lack of employment, and higher rates of crime. Leon already
had the stacks against him, and yes, his failed early childhood attachment was
a factor, however, Dr. Perry limits his scope in reflecting and examining
further Leon’s place within a hegemonic culture. Yes, Leon was broken and cold,
but that is because the system also broke him.
It's interesting that you bring these statistics up Ada because when you do look at the whole picture, in this case who this prison population Perry talks about is composed of, it is mostly people of color. Therefore Perry should think about other variables that could be affecting these low verbal and high performance IQ scores, for example culture and external factors within their environment that comes with being a person of color.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned how the family had to make an abrupt move to another city that removed them from their extended family , this is another variable that comes with being a person of color. The book briefly states, "modern Western culture can erode the extended family networks that traditionally protected many children from it", "it" referring to neglect. In other cultures especially people of color have a more community-based approach towards household. They literally live by the "it takes a village" motto, which was stripped away from the family when they moved. They no longer had any support which many families, regardless if the mother had a disability or not, need. In this case the disability was a factor in the unintentional neglect, but I agree that Perry could have placed more focus into other factors such as race that could have been pushing Leon down in a broken system. If race was one of the environmental factors then I believe the "snowball effect" Perry talks about still applies here: being discriminated against in employment which pushes the family to the city, then leading to depression and loss of support, leading to neglecting Leon.
Hi Ada,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your insightful perspective on Leon’s case. In reading the chapter, I also assumed that Leon was a person of color. I am currently taking a social policy class. For this class, I am writing a paper specifically focused on the disproportionate number of African Americans and Latinos in the U.S. criminal justice system. It is said that one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated – This number just screams injustice to me! In my paper, I also discuss how the pattern of disproportionate punishment for individuals of color starts as early as preschool (AKA the “preschool-to-prison pipeline”). It would be interesting to assess how the deep-rooted racial prejudices that exist in our society were evident in Leon’s life.
I agree that a deeper dive into Leon’s culture, social support systems, community, etc. would have been beneficial in this case. I think this chapter highlighted a key difference between psychiatry and social work. I think psychiatry can be super focused on the individual and their biological/psychological functions. Therefore, this field can sometimes overlook the influence of complex systems on a person’s mental health. Perry does a wonderful job of really digging deep into his clients’ backgrounds. However, he has not appeared to go far beyond the family system in the chapters we read so far. I think your blog post highlights the strength that social workers can bring to the table – We have the ability to look at the whole picture and consider how larger systems influence individual behaviors.
-E. Sterling
It's interesting that you envision Leon as a person of color, though I don't deny that the statistics you cite are certainly evidence enough of the probability that he is a person of color. In all of the cases that Perry discusses he never explicitly states any of his patients' racial identities, and that is always one of the factors that I am most curious about. I find that I tend to picture certain patients as certain races by default, automatically, while others I have difficulty imagining, and I acknowledge the importance of reflection on why this might be given my own biases and internalized assumptions; but Leon was one that I was able to envision with very little doubt or uncertainty as Caucasian. Leon, to me, fit the mold of the charming but dangerous white psychopath – the kind who would shoot up a school, or beat a kid nearly to death for his bicycle, or murder and rape two young girls with casual, almost blasé cruelty. I wonder, though, who he really was, outside of the narrow snippet of description we get from Perry.
ReplyDeleteThe racial dimension does add another level of disenfranchisement and assessment, without a doubt, if he indeed was a person of color, but given what we actually know about Leon's case, there is plenty of reason to believe that Leon, given any other set of situations and environments, may have turned out to be a completely different person, a person not unlike his brother Frank, or his parents, or you and I. Instead, we are told a story that highlights both social and institutional failings as well as what might be simply called bad luck. You do a wonderful job here of expounding other possible etiologies and explanations for Leon's behavior, imagining his situation from a perspective that I hadn't considered.
Though, I think there is an additional element here, one that is irreducible, inscrutable, one that may offer some insight, however unsatisfactory or anticlimactic, as to why Leon, or anyone, would or could murder and rape two innocent girls. It is both the cause and the effect in the case of Leon, and that is the element of individual personality.