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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Talk Nerdy. Today is Monday,

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March ninth, twenty twenty six, and I'm the host of

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the show, Doctor Kara Santa Maria, And as always, before

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we dive into this week's episode, I want to thank

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those of you who make Talk Nerdy possible. Remember, this

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show is and will always be one hundred percent free

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to download, and the way that we keep it going

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and pay for all the things that we have to

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pay for is by relying on the support of individuals

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just like you. If you'd like to pledge your support

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on an episodic basis, all you've got to do is

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visit Patreon dot com. That's p A t R e

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o N dot com slash Talk Nerdy. This week's top

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patrons include Chuck Blell, David J. E. Smith, Daniel Lang, Maryniva,

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David Compton, Brian Holden, Gabo, j Ulrika high Men, Pasqually Gilati,

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and Joe Wilkinson. Thank you all so much. All right,

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let's get into it. This week I had a fascinating

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chat and gosh, I just learned an awful lot. I

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had the opportunity to speak with doctor Robert J. Sampson.

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He's a sociologist and criminologist and the Woodford Ellen Anna

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Flowers University Professor at Harvard University. Also the founding director

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or a founding director of the Boston Area Research Initiative,

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and an affiliated research professor at the American Bar Foundation.

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But prior to that, he taught at the University of

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Chicago and the University of Illinois. He's won countless awards

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and held a lot of really esteemed positions, and a

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lot of his research stemmed from the project on human

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Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, and we're going to talk about

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that at length because of a lot of it informs

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his most recent book, which is called Marked by Time,

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how social change has transformed crime and the life trajectories

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of young Americans. So, without any further ado, here he

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is doctor Robert J. Sampson. Well, rob, thank you so

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much for joining me today.

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Speaker 2: Pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 1: So when your book came across my desk, I've been

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doing this podcast now for twelve years, I think, and

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so I'm at a stage now where even though sometimes

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I hear about things and I seek things out, oftentimes

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I just I get books from most of the major

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publishing houses all the time sent to me, and you know,

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books upon books, and I'm often kind of giving them

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away to friends and family. Some of them are fastball

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down the middle for a science show. Some of them

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have absolutely nothing to do with the work we do here.

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But more recently I've been getting into talking about social justice.

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And actually some of the listeners of the show might

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be like, you have a white man on the show.

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Whence the last time that happened? But I make exceptions,

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especially when I think the content of the conversation is,

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you know, just timely and incredibly important. So when your

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book came across my desk, I was like, oh, wow,

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this is a topic I don't think we've ever really

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talked about on the show except sort of biting around

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the edges. And as a psychologist, this is, you know,

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deeply interesting to me. So I want to get into

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first kind of your academic path. That's what I usually

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like to do, to figure out how you became expert

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in these areas of inquiry. So you're, yeah, this is

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I love interdisciplinary work. What would you say your actual

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I mean, what department are you in?

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Speaker 2: Even so, I'm in the department of so sociology, but Okay,

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I've always considered myself a social scientist, right, So I

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have studied psychology, law, criminology, sociology, but I do come

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at things really from a sociological background, but in an

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interdisciplinary way.

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Speaker 1: And so has that been your course the whole time? Like,

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did you actually get sociology undergraduate and graduate degrees, get

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appointments in sociology departments, but you were always curious about

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these other things? Or did you jump around and have

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kind of a meandering path to.

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Speaker 2: Get to Oh, definitely meandering actually from the beginning. I

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mean I grew up in upstate New York, in a

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declining city, and there was all kinds of changes going

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around me that until actually I didn't quite understand at

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the time, and I really didn't plan an academic background

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at all. Fact, most of my friends went into a

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very different path. And it really wasn't until I got

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into graduate school that I became hooked, as it were,

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on the ideas about crime and justice and social change.

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And in fact, the program that I went through as

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a graduate student, which was basically, to admit it, I mean,

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sort of random, because I was just bumming around the

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country for a year after undergraduate and I really just

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stumbled on this program an hour and a half where

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I was living at the time, and it was an

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interdisciplinary department. Was actually an experiment that was started in

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the late sixties because crime was a hot topic that

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reincreases in the sixties and the seventies, the turmoil that

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was hitting the country, and so they brought together psychology, lawyers, sociologists, criminologists,

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you name it, into this graduate program. And this was

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at the State University of New York at all of

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any and I was a New York kid through and

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through undergraduate public education, and I was deciding between that

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and Cornell and the sociology of science. Don't ask me why.

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It doesn't really add up. But once I got there,

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as I said, I just got hooked because crime is

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such a fascinating topic, and I do think you have

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to consider it from multiple angles. Although I had, I

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guess in retrospect, I would say sort of a latent

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tendency to view things from a more macro or sociological

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perspective as opposed to just focusing on the individual, because

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I took a lot of In fact, I think it

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was sort of a joint psychology and sociology concentrator as

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an undergraduate.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean in so many ways, you can't

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have one without the other. You cannot understand an individual

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perspective without understanding the culture that shaped that individual. And

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you really can't understand culture without understanding at least something

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about how the brain works and you know, behavior relationships.

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I I got to tell you, it's so timely, and

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this is going to feel like untimely that I mentioned this,

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but my partner and I literally just watched We Own

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This City, the David Simon Show on HBO, which is, yeah,

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all about the Baltimore corruption and the police department and

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you know, a lot of kind of confusion around a

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fallen officer, and you know, we talked a lot about

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the wire and a lot of the kind of really

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fascinating ways that that show showed these multiple angles that

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allowed you to start to develop a nuanced macro view

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of criminology. I'm curious, do you feel like, do you

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feel like the media on the whole, and how do

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you even describe the media on the whole has completely

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skewed our understanding of crime?

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, in many ways, I think the media is

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always sort of hyper focused on crime. It seems like

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with all the news about crime, it's almost like it's

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always increasing. At least that is sort of the perception

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that people have, and part of that is fed by

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the news. Although to give credit where credit is due,

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I think recently there has been more attention paid to

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the dramatic drops in crime since the pandemic. But yeah,

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I think it's definitely skewed, and so are I think

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the political approaches to crime, because they're rooted, in my view,

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in sort of that particularistic view of crime being rooted

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in individual conditions, the who we are, as I put

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it in the book, and as you say, even though

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we recognize that the world is always changing, it's sort

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of a paradox because yes we do. But on the

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other hand, we judge people outside of time all the time,

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and so it's almost like a puzzle. Actually, is the

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way I was thinking about it, And it goes back, actually,

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you know, way back. It's almost a philosophical question. I

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quoted Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher at the beginning on

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the idea that no man steps into the same river twice,

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where it's not the same river and it's not the

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same man. I mean, individuals in society are changing together,

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and what we typically do is to split them apart.

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We look at individuals and tend to rest our assumptions

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in our theories on the qualities of the individuals, their families,

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and their immediate backgrounds. Sociologists tend to focus more on

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the macrol but at the level of looking at let's say,

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changes at the societal level over time, almost leaving out

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the individual. So it's that intersection or interaction of individuals'

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lives with societal change. That's what I really was after.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's why I can't help but go

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back to that paradigm that I guess or maybe that

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insight that I developed when I was much younger watching

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the Wire for this first time and like I felt, so,

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I guess it was an awakening moment for me because

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it was one of the first times that there was

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a fictionalized, dramatized, entertaining experience that that touched on a

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lot of those different layers to our criminal justice system

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and to the human experience as it relates to crime.

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And I mean, I'm curious what your take is on

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maybe like the accuracy or the the you know whether

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you saw that as something that was a boon for

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Americans to experience and learn from, or whether you were like, ooh,

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that sent us back or something. But it did to

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me at least feel like a dramatized version of perhaps

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even some of the work that you do.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I love the Wire.

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Speaker 1: Oh good, Okay.

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Speaker 2: In fact, I was turned onto it by my colleague

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here who has now retired, the great sociologist William Julilist Wilson,

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who wrote The Truly Disadvantage. He actually taught a course

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on the Wire here at Harvard or not. So. Yeah,

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it was important because it captured the times in very

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powerful and poignant way. And it wasn't just the criminal

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justice system, right, It was the grinding poverty, it was

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the racism. It was Baltimore at that time. And I think,

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in a way, I'm glad you brought it up. It

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sort of captures a framing of the book is Chicago,

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at least certain parts of Chicago were not all that

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different at the time. I start out the book just

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using the example of two individuals from our study, Darnell

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and Andrea, both pseudonyms, of course, and I talk about

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how Darnell was born in the mid nineties, and that

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was just after the peak or around the peak of

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violence in Chicago. Murder rates were hitting a really high level.

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The Chicago trib was running a series and killing our children.

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A seven year old was shot and killed walking hand

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in hand with his mother to school. It just ripped

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the city apart. And I was there at the time

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and everyone was just stunned, and you would have thought,

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this kid is in trouble, right, But as soon as

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he was born, more or less, the world started changing dramatically.

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Violence plummeted. Arrest rates when he was in his adolescence

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were plummeting drug arrests, in particular disorder arrests. And I

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compare that to another person, Andre was born around nineteen eighty,

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who was coming of age in the crack epidemic and

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hit his early adolescence during that very peak of violence

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in Chicago. The key, though, is that they were both

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the same race, they both were raised by a single

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mother on welfare, they both lived in a high disadvantage neighborhood.

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So analytically, that got me to thinking, and really that's

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the way I would sort of capture the analytic approach

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of the book. It's sort of a counterfeit counterfactual approach, actually,

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which is to say, what if otherwise identical individuals we're

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exposed to these radical environments that shape their lives. In

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other words, they came of age in very distinct social worlds.

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And if that's the case, then it can't be that

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it well, you know, it's Darnell's poverty level, ors family,

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or even his self control or temperament or personality. I

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try to separate those things out, and that's the idea

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of the interaction of the individual with social change. And

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I was able to do that given the design of

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the study, which I think is relatively unique in the

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social sciences.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so talk to us about that, because I know

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that this study is or at least your investigations on

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Chicago have been a large part of your career and

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a lot of your publications have come out of this.

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So talk to us about sort of the development of

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this study, how long you were doing it, and what

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you know the research questions were.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like I was too long. It started

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actually in the late eighties early nineties. I was a

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faculty member at the University of Chicago starting in the

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early nineties, just a fabulous institution in Chicago is a

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fabulous city. But as I noted earlier, at the time,

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it was really being roiled by these kinds of challenges

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when it came to the concentration of poverty, to violence,

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to children being killed, racist, criminal justice behaviors, you name it.

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And so part of the rationale for the study was

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trying to make sense of all this. And this was

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a large effort that involved multiple institutions and multiple disciplines,

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so psychiatry, psychology, law. It was really a started out

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as a study group funded by the MacArthur Foundation, which

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then built up into this larger study. To make a

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long story short, we started data collection after a lot

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of planning in the mid nineties and enrolled over six

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thousand children and their caretakers or parents. But the key

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analytic piece of that which differed from most other studies

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is that we created Woodstone as a sequential cohort design,

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but put into planar English. We enrolled multiple age cohorts,

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starting with infants, so we'd rolled women were in their

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pregnancy or early childhood let's say up to about six

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months or so on average, spaced out every three years

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up to eighteen years old. So in other words, we

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had multiple cohorts zero to eighteen, and then we followed

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each cohort in detail over the same period of time

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over well now it's been almost thirty years now. We

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didn't follow every child. We couldn't afford to do so

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because it was such a large scale study, so we

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sampled as we went into the further data collection. But

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it was original data collection on these children that were

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coming age of in terms of different times. So you

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can imagine someone turning fifteen, for example, in nineteen ninety

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five versus two thousand and five. And we didn't know

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I would emphasize this at the time. We did not

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envision who could have known, right, It's the whole point.

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You can't predict the future that there would be these

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vast social changes. So it wasn't really until recently that

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we could piece this all together.

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Speaker 1: Did you anticipate that you would be collecting data for

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this long? Absolutely not into it, Like how long did

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you think this kind of longitudinal study would last?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, four or five six years. It mean,

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it's really hard. And as I said, let me just

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give you an example. So there were multiple investigators principal investigators.

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At one point we hired something like one hundred and

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twenty people were on staff, entered up building in Chicago,

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we were collecting data, We hired survey firms. It was

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just a huge operation. It was exhausting, frankly, and it

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was designed to last again about three waves of data,

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which is five to six years. And then it kind

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of went in hiatus for a bit, and it wasn't

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until about twenty twelve that I came back to it

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with fresh eyes, and especially given the changes that had

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ensued over that period of time, the Great Recession happened

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a few years earlier. Along with another colleague, we saw

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funding and said, wouldn't it be a great idea if

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we went back to these kids. It's a unique design.

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Let's see where they are today. And that was hard too,

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because when you go back and try to find kids

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after that many years, it's a challenge. But we did that,

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and then we interviewed them again, and then we matched

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them up with different kinds of records in terms of

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mortality and crime, childhood, exposure to lead and so forth.

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And so it was not anticipated to be honest, and

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in fact, it's sort of kind of a paradox in

293
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the sense of expectations, because the original design statisticians thought, well,

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this is cool, we have kids from zero to eighteen

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in six years, we can look at the life course

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from age zero to approximately twenty five. We'll just stch

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it together. But that assumes that the world and change, right,

298
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So it was like it was an eye opener. But

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it took a while really to envision all that. And

300
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so yeah, that's why I've been working on it for someone.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's incredible. Is this sort of overarching approach then,

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or at least was it at the time. Obviously it's

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been changing as you've as you've analyzed data and you've

304
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you've started to ask new questions. But was the real

305
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question kind of which variables matter when it comes to

306
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I guess myriad outcomes for these kids living in Chicago, Yes,

307
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which variables affect which outcomes?

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Speaker 2: Yes? So I think the predominant view of the study was, well,

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this will allow us to look at the different risk factors,

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if I can put it that way. The risk factor

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paradigm is quite prominent in the social sciences. It looks

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at things like vitual family structure, poverty, the personality of

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the child and so forth, and that's important. In fact,

314
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you go back earlier in my career, I started out

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with a longitude and a life course study of kids

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here in Boston that were born in another really interesting

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historical era, mainly the Depression era of the United States,

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that were born here in Boston, and we ended up

319
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following them for a very long time too, but they

320
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were from the same cohort, and my research was focused

321
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on things like family structured and family supervision, and as

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they got older, looking at things like schooling, work, employment,

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marriage as a turning point in the life course. We've

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looked at military service as a turning point for crime.

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In other words words, does getting married lead to a

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drop in crime or just going into the military lead

327
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to a drop in crime or an increase. So it

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was that sort of focus and that's I think a

329
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large part of focus of life course research, psychological research,

330
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developmental research. And I'm not criticizing that at all. I mean, damn,

331
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I've done.

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Speaker 1: It, but yeah, I mean, yeah, it sounds like nearly

333
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impossible even to do a study like that. And then

334
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with the realization that you know, the cleaner the study, right,

335
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that the cleaner the results very often, and I see

336
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this all the time in the sciences when we talk

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about gold standard research or we talk about you know,

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a kind of outcome studies that set the standard for

339
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how policy is spoken about. But very often, I worry,

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at least I see this in psychology quite a lot.

341
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The reason, for example, that CBT is the gold standard

342
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treatment is because it's easy to test, you know what

343
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I mean. It's like, of course, things that are easier

344
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to do in the lab and easier to show a

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significant you know, outcome are going to be the things

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that are then integrated more readily into treatment or into policy.

347
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But the problem is that's not really you know, effectiveness research, Like,

348
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that's not how the world works. And once you actually

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start to look at the variables that fundamentally, you know,

350
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all of those moderating and mediating variables that fundamentally change outcomes,

351
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and it starts to get really, really messy. I think

352
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a lot of people are like, Okay, that's above my

353
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pay grade, and that's why we don't see that kind

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of research very often.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And the sort of

356
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the randomized clinical trials experimental paradigm is dominant in terms

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of policy. There's a lot to be said for it.

358
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As you know, it sure allows for causal identification of

359
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a particular but if you think about it, it's like, Okay,

360
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there's all these individualized interventions, but it's it's assuming kind

361
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of a static world, right, yes, And to the extent

362
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that the world is changing, then we may not be

363
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making the right inferences. I mean, take the Perry Preschool Project,

364
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which was a famous experiment and a wonderful one, but

365
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you know, those kids came of age in a very

366
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particular world. I think a lot of the assumptions that

367
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we make in these studies are are problematic because there's

368
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temporal heterogenety. Like a lot of people worry about experiments.

369
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Well this worked in Baltimore, Will it work in Chicago?

370
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That's an important question. But I'm more interested in, well,

371
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will it work tomorrow?

372
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Speaker 1: Right? And that worked like Obama's America? Will it work

373
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in Trump's America.

374
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Speaker 2: It's shifting the question. I don't want to and I

375
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do not in any way denigrate those approaches. I'm asking

376
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a different kind of question. I'm sort of flipping the script.

377
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And it even has to do with interventions again. At

378
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the individual level. Let's take you know, a lot of

379
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approaches nowadays are looking at sort of behavioral interventions and

380
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trying to get people to think slower, and we talk

381
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about self control, and I think that's all well and fine,

382
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and in fact of my data, I show that kids

383
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with low self control are much more likely to be arrested.

384
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But we can ask a different question and say, well,

385
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what is the manifestation of something like low self control

386
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in the future when we compare different birth courts. When

387
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we do that, what I found was that the high

388
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:46,880
self control kids of one cohort, the earlier cohorts from

389
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:53,000
the eighties, had essentially the same arrest rates as the

390
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low self control kids of the later cohorts. So, in

391
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other words, the rates of crime were in a sense

392
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equated over time, which means that the manifestations are the

393
00:26:05,759 --> 00:26:09,920
predictions that we might make about kids with low self

394
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:14,000
control are dependent on the historical context. To me, that's

395
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,759
just a different way of thinking. It's not to say

396
00:26:19,279 --> 00:26:22,759
it's unimportant as a construct, but it's.

397
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Speaker 1: Not the whole truth.

398
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Speaker 2: It's not the whole truth. It's fundamentally different. I mean,

399
00:26:26,519 --> 00:26:30,319
let's look at today. I mean, violence is just dropping dramatically.

400
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,839
Is that because, I mean, self control has changed that much.

401
00:26:33,839 --> 00:26:34,480
I don't think so.

402
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would, and I would venture to guess that actually,

403
00:26:39,279 --> 00:26:43,799
the sort of quick attention economy that most people are

404
00:26:43,799 --> 00:26:47,079
living in is affecting our self control in the opposite direction.

405
00:26:47,839 --> 00:26:48,039
Speaker 2: Yeah.

406
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Speaker 1: I wonder if today people are much less capable of

407
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sitting quietly with their own thoughts, of regulating their emotions

408
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than they were historically when they didn't have a million

409
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:03,759
distractions at their fingertips.

410
00:27:04,079 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 2: That's right. It could even be that there's massively less

411
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self control. But yet crime is going down.

412
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, crime.

413
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Speaker 2: It's just another point that you can't go from the

414
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:19,440
individual level to make predictions at the societal level in

415
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,160
a clean and neat way. And so that's what the

416
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,279
book is trying to do, is just you know, it's

417
00:27:24,319 --> 00:27:29,160
like a laser focus on one particular idea which I

418
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:31,440
happen to think is important. It's not to throw out

419
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:34,440
that other stuff, but hey, we really need to zero

420
00:27:34,519 --> 00:27:34,960
in on it.

421
00:27:36,559 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: And so that's why I mean, the book is called

422
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:42,960
Marked by Time, right, how societal change has transformed crime

423
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,160
and the life trajectories of young Americans. And so when

424
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,039
you do studies like this. You can look at your

425
00:27:49,079 --> 00:27:51,960
findings and you can say, oh, it's so interesting. At

426
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:57,039
this time these people had these outcomes and at that time,

427
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,759
those people had those outcomes. But what's sometimes hard with

428
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:02,720
this kind of research, and I think what a lot

429
00:28:02,759 --> 00:28:05,000
of people are like champing at the bit to understand

430
00:28:05,079 --> 00:28:10,680
is why, like what is the actual driving variable underneath.

431
00:28:10,759 --> 00:28:12,839
It's one thing to say this is what we see.

432
00:28:13,599 --> 00:28:16,559
It's another thing to make inferences about why we see that.

433
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,960
And so I'm really curious how you connect those dots,

434
00:28:21,759 --> 00:28:23,720
not just for the reader in the book, but you know,

435
00:28:23,759 --> 00:28:26,839
in all of the publications that you've been engaged with

436
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,319
and all of the you know, academic scholarship that you've

437
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,200
been engaged with throughout this study, are you able to

438
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,599
sort of comfortably say, we think this is why these

439
00:28:36,599 --> 00:28:38,119
are some of the outcomes that we've found.

440
00:28:39,519 --> 00:28:43,559
Speaker 2: I think we can make some reasonable arguments, and that's

441
00:28:43,599 --> 00:28:46,119
what I try to do, because you're absolutely right, you're

442
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:50,720
going to make the argument that when we are is

443
00:28:50,759 --> 00:28:54,200
as important as who we are, and that's exactly what

444
00:28:54,279 --> 00:28:56,920
I do. We need to know something about the when,

445
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:00,920
and so we can't do an experiment and think goes

446
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:04,160
back to your earlier point, particularly when it comes to

447
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:07,359
history when it comes to social change, so you have

448
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:10,359
to work differently, and you know, to put it in

449
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,160
simple terms, what I do is to try to work

450
00:29:13,279 --> 00:29:17,240
like a detective and look at the different things that

451
00:29:17,319 --> 00:29:22,599
were changing over this period of time, but importantly at

452
00:29:22,759 --> 00:29:25,599
distinct ages that are important for child development. So, in

453
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,440
other words, when each of these cohorts when they were

454
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:33,119
turning let's say early adolescens or eighteen or early adulthood,

455
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,640
what was going on in society at the time. And

456
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,039
I spent an entire chapter looking at that more macro

457
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:44,720
level change and then integrating it with the individual change,

458
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,240
and we can rule out certain things. Right, So I

459
00:29:48,319 --> 00:29:52,359
look at factors like, well, was it police for size?

460
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:54,200
I mean, there's a lot of literature saying well we

461
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:56,759
need more police or police for capita. Well, it turns

462
00:29:56,759 --> 00:30:00,359
out that was relatively flat across the entire p period.

463
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:05,000
So logically that can't explain the changes drug use, for example,

464
00:30:05,759 --> 00:30:10,359
we also looked at patterns, and again relatively flat. I

465
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,920
mean there's fluctuations, I go up and down, but the

466
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:19,000
line of drug use just does not align with drug arrests,

467
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:24,400
which dropped almost ninety percent. Think about that. So the

468
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:26,720
andres of the world that kids were born in the

469
00:30:26,799 --> 00:30:31,680
early eighties, you know, they were unlucky in a dramatic way,

470
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:37,960
whereas the other or later cohorts had a totally different

471
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,599
experience or you know, smoking a joint on the street

472
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,480
or roughing it up, that's what kids do, totally different.

473
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,400
And so it's not so much driven by that behavior

474
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:52,880
of drug use. It was driven by policing policy changes. Similarly,

475
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,920
I looked at employment and poverty, and those things can't

476
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:01,279
explain it, and I basically argue that there's sort of

477
00:31:01,319 --> 00:31:04,720
two higher order factors, and then I can break it

478
00:31:04,759 --> 00:31:06,680
down a little bit. But about half, I mean this

479
00:31:06,759 --> 00:31:12,759
is not an exact decomposition, but about half is due

480
00:31:12,799 --> 00:31:16,200
to policing changes, So sort of the collapse of warrior

481
00:31:16,359 --> 00:31:18,680
policing in Chicago, that is to say, the decline and

482
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:25,400
drug arrest decline and public disorder arrests that combined with

483
00:31:25,839 --> 00:31:29,400
i'd say overtime, I mean, it gets not linear. They're

484
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,680
stopping frisk and there were some fluctuations, but the trends

485
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:37,799
were toward less aggressive policing overall, and I would argue

486
00:31:37,799 --> 00:31:42,599
I think better policing, better data, more community policing. So

487
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:46,480
that's sort of the policy change when it comes to policing.

488
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:50,200
But then there's the broad scale social changes. I think

489
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,440
that you might have been getting it, and I sort

490
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:57,680
of lumped them into four or five buckets. One, it's

491
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:02,799
that sort of larger urban revieviation that took place throughout America.

492
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:11,359
Cities changed really quite dramatically in terms of improvement. There

493
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:16,440
was increases in immigration, which conorintuitively, I argue may have

494
00:32:16,559 --> 00:32:21,319
led to reductions in vacancy and even reductions in crime rates.

495
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,359
That was an important social change.

496
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: Another one only counterintuitive in today's America.

497
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I know historically. Yeah, yes, indeed that's a

498
00:32:34,039 --> 00:32:39,240
new threat if you will, because the Ice, let's say,

499
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:44,279
aggressive interventions in places like Minneapolis. To me, that's replaying

500
00:32:44,279 --> 00:32:49,319
the script U rampant immigrant criminality, which I looked back.

501
00:32:49,359 --> 00:32:51,440
I actually wrote a up at of New York Times

502
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,359
in two thousand and six, and at that time there

503
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:57,599
was this kind of panic about immigrant criminality, and there

504
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,480
were there was a legislation that was being put forth,

505
00:33:00,559 --> 00:33:03,240
and I wrote, but I've been This was based on

506
00:33:03,279 --> 00:33:06,559
an article from this Chicago study saying well, wait a minute, folks.

507
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:11,319
First generation immigrants in our study have lower rates a

508
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,200
violence by quite a bit. And if you look at

509
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:18,839
the macro level trends, immigration was going up as crime

510
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,039
was going down. So again, in that detective like fashion,

511
00:33:21,079 --> 00:33:24,759
you can say, well, this argument just isn't holding water.

512
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:28,079
So that's enough example of how you can piece together

513
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:30,039
what the mechanisms are.

514
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:35,039
Speaker 1: Yeah, so more immigration in these cities, as you mentioned before,

515
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,720
kind of went hand in hand with revitalization, with jobs

516
00:33:38,799 --> 00:33:43,559
being filled, with vacancies being filled, with more community engagement,

517
00:33:44,119 --> 00:33:46,519
and all of these things are mechanisms that can help

518
00:33:46,599 --> 00:33:47,519
drive down crime.

519
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 2: Community engagement, for sure, I agree with that. In fact,

520
00:33:52,359 --> 00:33:57,559
there's good evidence from other scholars that increases in community

521
00:33:57,599 --> 00:34:02,519
based organizations, especially for young people, both nonprofits for example

522
00:34:02,599 --> 00:34:09,239
that support kids and after school programs and employment and

523
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:14,280
so forth, were associated with the drop in crime. This

524
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:18,400
was based a very sophisticated study. In other words, communities

525
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,400
were fighting back I'll put it that way when crime

526
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:25,559
is going up, and they had an effect on reducing crime.

527
00:34:25,639 --> 00:34:28,519
So that's another mechanism that I talk about in the

528
00:34:28,519 --> 00:34:30,599
book in terms of what we need to do is

529
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:33,639
as a society it's not all about policing. In fact,

530
00:34:33,639 --> 00:34:40,400
my entire career really has been an argument that informal

531
00:34:40,519 --> 00:34:46,840
social controls and community based social controls are central. People

532
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:50,559
are not committing crime because there's a police officer on

533
00:34:50,599 --> 00:34:56,239
the block, because there's usually not right there time and society.

534
00:34:56,920 --> 00:35:00,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also putting a police officer on the block

535
00:35:00,199 --> 00:35:04,440
is not the only deterrent to cry, you know, it's community.

536
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:10,079
Speaker 2: Yeah, the grandmother on the corner who yells at the kids,

537
00:35:11,039 --> 00:35:14,159
who are you know, making a ruckus? That's a form

538
00:35:14,199 --> 00:35:17,639
of social control. And I think we underplay that, and

539
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:25,159
we underplay other things like clean environments. The good actually

540
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:31,360
going to experiments. There's really good evidence from researchers at

541
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:35,039
pen and other places that did these really neat randomized

542
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:40,880
trials where they cleaned up vacant lots. And you would think, well,

543
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,559
what the hell does that have to do with crime? Well,

544
00:35:43,639 --> 00:35:48,760
if you think about it, when you have a cleaner, safer, greener,

545
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:53,360
more appealing environment than people venture out into those spaces

546
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:56,920
that they were formally fearful of, then they socially interact

547
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,159
with one another and then there's more eyes on the street.

548
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,280
Is the great urbanist Jane Jacobs would have put it,

549
00:36:02,519 --> 00:36:06,199
and that is another mechanism that leads to lower crimes

550
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:07,119
so well.

551
00:36:07,119 --> 00:36:10,760
Speaker 1: And they also feel proud, you know, they feel proud

552
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:14,400
of their neighborhoods, sure, and they engage in a way

553
00:36:14,519 --> 00:36:19,719
that is protective when you have ownership over something, when

554
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:23,159
it doesn't feel like that's for others. I think that

555
00:36:23,199 --> 00:36:26,320
can have a massive impact. And you know, I've long

556
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,000
believed and again this is a psychological perspective because I

557
00:36:29,039 --> 00:36:31,599
am a psychologist, but I think it's informed by these

558
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:38,039
larger social forces. I worry sometimes that when we look

559
00:36:38,079 --> 00:36:40,360
and I'm taking this on a little tangent, but I

560
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:43,519
want to come back to these five things that you mentioned.

561
00:36:44,599 --> 00:36:46,639
I worry sometimes that when we look at kind of

562
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:52,239
criminal behavior, we we moralize. It's it's just a tendency

563
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:55,400
that we do as a culture, you know. And and

564
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:57,440
like you said, we put the onus on the individual,

565
00:36:57,559 --> 00:37:00,800
and we often want things to be simple and easy

566
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:02,639
and say that person did that thing because that person

567
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:06,239
is bad, or because that person is evil, or because

568
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:12,000
that person, you know, is lacking a conscience. But it

569
00:37:12,079 --> 00:37:14,960
is very hard for me to think in those parameters,

570
00:37:15,199 --> 00:37:18,639
and and I've long believed that when people engage in

571
00:37:18,679 --> 00:37:23,880
activity that is like antisocial or you know, deemed to

572
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:28,280
be criminal, it's very often done out of a feeling

573
00:37:29,199 --> 00:37:37,559
of let's call it desperation. That people have a need,

574
00:37:37,679 --> 00:37:41,880
you know, whether we're talking about murder rates as related

575
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,199
to you know, drug activity, whether we're talking about grand theft,

576
00:37:45,199 --> 00:37:48,639
whether we're talking about all these different types of things rape.

577
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 2: You know.

578
00:37:49,679 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that people don't do bad things. Of course,

579
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,119
a lot of people do bad things, but when you

580
00:37:55,159 --> 00:37:59,199
get into the psychology, it's a very small percentage of

581
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:03,199
people who actually have antisocial personality disorder, who actually are

582
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:08,000
sort of have psychopathy. I think most people commit crimes

583
00:38:08,039 --> 00:38:10,079
because they feel like that was the best path they

584
00:38:10,079 --> 00:38:11,079
could take at that time.

585
00:38:11,639 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 2: That's right, and that has a lot to do with

586
00:38:13,639 --> 00:38:17,880
the context at the time. I think it is true

587
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:21,000
that we typically view character as this sort of immutable

588
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:25,920
core of our personality that defines who we are. And yeah,

589
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,840
it has a distinctly moral dimension. If you even go

590
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:34,719
back to some of the great philosophical texts, you'll see

591
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:40,239
references to character being defined as a criminal act or

592
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:45,480
a criminal record, and moreover, that sense of the criminal

593
00:38:45,559 --> 00:38:51,079
character is rooted in this idea of a stable propensity,

594
00:38:51,119 --> 00:38:52,559
and I spent a lot of time in the book

595
00:38:52,599 --> 00:38:56,880
actually on theories of propensity and character and show that

596
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:00,000
even though we're not supposed to, like in the legalists,

597
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:06,199
for example, character is smuggled in really at pretty much

598
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,320
every stage of the criminal justice system, whether it's a

599
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:13,119
cop on the street assuming the sort of moral character

600
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:15,920
of an individual based on their demeanor, looks, or a

601
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:21,320
dress or whatever, to sentencing decisions. It's all wrapped up

602
00:39:22,159 --> 00:39:23,840
with this idea that, well, you have a criminal record,

603
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:30,119
you're a criminal. But as we've been talking, hopefully you

604
00:39:30,159 --> 00:39:34,960
know the listener can see that, well, that criminal record

605
00:39:35,039 --> 00:39:38,079
has history baked into it, and therefore if you're making

606
00:39:38,119 --> 00:39:40,480
decisions be out based on that, then you're sort of

607
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:42,840
falling into a trap. It's actually what I call the

608
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:47,960
character trap, because if let's say we deny someone bail,

609
00:39:48,079 --> 00:39:50,360
we deny someone a job because of a criminal record,

610
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:54,280
or an apartment based on a credential check, then in

611
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:57,599
a sense we're blocking the very opportunities, the very social

612
00:39:57,679 --> 00:40:01,719
ties that prevent crime in the first place. Vicious cycle

613
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:04,639
that's self reinforcing, hence.

614
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: A negative feedback loop that I think drives inequality. And

615
00:40:08,559 --> 00:40:11,039
you know, I often will call that criminalizing poverty, but

616
00:40:11,559 --> 00:40:15,719
that probably isn't a robust enough description because it's not,

617
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:19,960
As you've mentioned so well here, it's not just about poverty.

618
00:40:20,199 --> 00:40:26,239
We don't. We criminalize social standing and opportunity or lack

619
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:30,599
of opportunity. And what ends up happening is that you

620
00:40:30,639 --> 00:40:37,559
can't then extricate racism, you can't then extricate classism. You know,

621
00:40:37,639 --> 00:40:42,039
these very foundational views that were baked in, not just

622
00:40:42,159 --> 00:40:45,679
baked in, but they were the the engine for like

623
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:50,920
eugenics policy early on. I shouldn't even say early, It

624
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:55,599
wasn't that long ago that that is really what we

625
00:40:55,639 --> 00:40:58,239
are talking about. Like when we looked at early eugenics

626
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:03,239
literature and and sort of political stances here in the US,

627
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:05,880
and then of course exporting out to even places like

628
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:10,000
Nazi Germany, the argument was a was one that most

629
00:41:10,039 --> 00:41:13,079
people could get behind. It was we want you know, healthy,

630
00:41:13,159 --> 00:41:17,079
clean babies, and we want streets that are free of crime.

631
00:41:17,559 --> 00:41:19,320
And people were like, that's great, we want that too.

632
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:21,320
How are we going to achieve it? Well, these people

633
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:25,079
over here tend to be criminals, so they shouldn't reproduce,

634
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:27,679
they shouldn't have access to these you know, services, and

635
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:29,920
blah blah blah. Those people over there are of a

636
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,159
good ilk right, like they're they're the right kinds of

637
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:38,039
people to be involved in society, I mean. And that

638
00:41:38,199 --> 00:41:40,119
just pervades everything.

639
00:41:40,159 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 2: Oh it does. And I think if you look at

640
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,920
it historically, different groups have come into that. I mean,

641
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,159
if you look at immigrant groups. In the earlier part

642
00:41:47,199 --> 00:41:51,119
of the twentieth century, like here in Boston, Irish and

643
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:56,400
Italian immigrants were badly mistreated by the police, for example,

644
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:01,960
racism in terms of rmal justice system in regard to

645
00:42:02,039 --> 00:42:04,960
African Americans, the same kind of thing, especially in the

646
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:09,719
era of rising mass incarceration. It was almost as if

647
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:15,519
blackness was equated with criminality. And that's another kind of

648
00:42:15,599 --> 00:42:20,199
way that people are making these links or assumed links

649
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:26,199
with either a categorical group identity let's say, whether it's

650
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:32,440
race or could be poverty, low income individuals of all races,

651
00:42:32,599 --> 00:42:36,280
or the sort of more psychological view which as well,

652
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:41,480
these are just you know, low moral, anti social, low

653
00:42:41,599 --> 00:42:44,960
self control kids that are kind of written off. To

654
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,880
be honest, I mean, the whole idea of anti social

655
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:53,320
or psychopathy, or let's not forget the images that are

656
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:57,239
constantly conjured up right, the super predators. I mean that

657
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:00,000
whole idea. You can't really get to that unless you

658
00:43:00,519 --> 00:43:04,719
have a deeply sort of individualized view of the immorality

659
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:06,760
of individual offenders.

660
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: And of course that protects I think that the consciousness

661
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:16,199
of those who have a privileged position in society, of

662
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:21,519
those who are the ones who are developing policy and

663
00:43:21,559 --> 00:43:26,559
who you know, have their finger on the social control buttons,

664
00:43:26,639 --> 00:43:29,280
because it says, well that I'm never going to be that.

665
00:43:30,159 --> 00:43:33,880
I'm not built that way. That person is built that way,

666
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,480
and they're going to constantly be engaging in this kind

667
00:43:36,519 --> 00:43:38,679
of stuff. And maybe we can rehab them a little

668
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:41,159
and you know, do some things that keep them from

669
00:43:41,159 --> 00:43:43,079
being the worst of the worst, but ultimately that's just

670
00:43:43,079 --> 00:43:46,840
how they are. But me over here, I could never

671
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:48,760
be that. And it's like, you know, it's like the

672
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,639
old adage, like all of us are like a bad

673
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:55,880
week away from homelessness. We are not a good week

674
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,480
away from billionaire status. We just aren't.

675
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:04,039
Speaker 2: Right. Therefore, the grace of God go I. But I

676
00:44:04,079 --> 00:44:08,119
think that's right, and you can think about it in

677
00:44:08,119 --> 00:44:11,920
this context as again, that sort of historical era is

678
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,440
an important piece of that. Like you said, one hundredople

679
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,039
they are making policies, they just have a hard time

680
00:44:17,679 --> 00:44:19,920
imagining what it would have been like to be a kid,

681
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:25,719
for example, in Baltimore during the you know, let's assume

682
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:30,519
the wire is capturing it in inaccurate way during those times,

683
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:34,599
or on the South side of Chicago in nineteen ninety three,

684
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:39,280
when you know, violence was just an epidemic Levels or Washington,

685
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:43,039
d C. Or any number of cities in the United States.

686
00:44:44,639 --> 00:44:47,639
Speaker 1: And it's so important this template that you mentioned, or

687
00:44:47,679 --> 00:44:53,519
this understanding of this temporal and dynamic temporal experience, because

688
00:44:53,599 --> 00:44:55,760
I find myself, I mean, I'm a human being and

689
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:57,440
I fall into these traps too. I was born in

690
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:02,559
nineteen eighty three. I grew up in Exis, lived in

691
00:45:02,559 --> 00:45:04,960
New York, lived in now I've been in LA for

692
00:45:05,079 --> 00:45:07,960
quite some time. You know. I think about the formative

693
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,320
experiences I had. I think about Columbine when I was

694
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:13,320
in high school. I think about nine to eleven, when

695
00:45:13,519 --> 00:45:15,840
my first year of college. I think about, you know,

696
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:18,440
where I was in life when all these big things happened.

697
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:20,920
And I think about what the streets of the different

698
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,679
towns that I spent time in looked like I think

699
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:26,480
about how the wire is relevant to me because that

700
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,639
was my youth. No, I didn't grow up in Boston.

701
00:45:29,679 --> 00:45:32,360
In Boston, and I didn't experience the things that those

702
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,880
kids experienced, but that was the time that I was

703
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:41,559
a child, you know. And so when I think about policy,

704
00:45:41,679 --> 00:45:43,440
I can't help but view it through the lens of

705
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,719
somebody who was born in nineteen eighty three, whereas some

706
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:48,599
of the people who are in power now are viewing

707
00:45:48,639 --> 00:45:51,039
it through a lens of people who lived during you know,

708
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:56,079
post War boom, or through a lens of wherever they

709
00:45:56,119 --> 00:45:57,920
came from. And it's hard for any of us to

710
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:02,320
imagine what sort of like Trump's gilliad or would look

711
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:06,199
like for women, for example. Oh yeah, yeah, it's really

712
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:10,239
tough to do because that's not our experience.

713
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:12,119
Speaker 2: That's right. It's hard to get out of that. In fact,

714
00:46:12,159 --> 00:46:16,000
there's a venerable tradition in the social sciences that speaks

715
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,639
exactly to that that I talk about in the book.

716
00:46:18,639 --> 00:46:21,639
I mean you go back. Actually there's a Carl Mannheim

717
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:28,159
was a great sociologist, wrote about generations and collective memories,

718
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:32,119
and he and others talk about sort of critical ages

719
00:46:32,159 --> 00:46:35,800
and roughly ages, you know, eighteen to twenty five. It

720
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,360
is interesting you mentioned when things happen that sort of

721
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:43,960
are seared into your memory. This is true across all ages.

722
00:46:44,119 --> 00:46:47,360
There's fascinating work that shows. For example, if you ask

723
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,920
people even up till you know, whatever, eighty years of age,

724
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:54,480
everyone tends to mention events that happened within the same

725
00:46:54,519 --> 00:46:55,159
age range.

726
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,800
Speaker 1: So yeah, they also listen to music from that era too.

727
00:46:59,119 --> 00:47:01,679
Speaker 2: Oh yeah music. Yeah, yeah, there's a want to get

728
00:47:01,679 --> 00:47:08,199
into it. Let's stop music. No, it's true. And so

729
00:47:08,639 --> 00:47:12,480
those formative years at the sort of coming of age,

730
00:47:12,559 --> 00:47:15,039
when you link that to that specific historical context, it's

731
00:47:15,079 --> 00:47:17,760
not even just one thing. That's why the I think

732
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:22,760
the sort of experimental logic goes awry, because it's a

733
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:26,039
constellation of factors that were happening when you were let's say,

734
00:47:26,039 --> 00:47:29,960
in late high school or college years, and it's that

735
00:47:30,079 --> 00:47:33,280
interaction of that age with those social changes, and we

736
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,679
can say what they were, and we can make, as

737
00:47:36,679 --> 00:47:39,000
I try to do in the book, reasonable assumptions about

738
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,639
well this is more important than that. But there is

739
00:47:41,679 --> 00:47:46,480
no one magic bullet, just like there is not an individual,

740
00:47:46,519 --> 00:47:50,400
and the real challenge again, as I see it, is

741
00:47:51,039 --> 00:47:53,079
to try to piece together the individual of the macro.

742
00:47:53,159 --> 00:47:56,639
And it's just really damn hard to do absolutely.

743
00:47:56,679 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: I mean, as you mentioned a perfect example I mentioned

744
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,920
and I mentioned nine to eleven. When I was in

745
00:48:03,079 --> 00:48:06,239
early grad school, I was, you know, canvassing for Obama.

746
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:09,360
I was, you know, and all of these things feel

747
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:13,840
like formative experiences for me personally, but in the culture,

748
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:20,039
just the massive change that happened, for example, when we

749
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:25,039
had the Obama era, the massage societal change, the amount

750
00:48:25,079 --> 00:48:27,719
of hope, the amount of But then what policy changes

751
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:31,199
were actually you know, interact in which ones are enacted

752
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:34,119
and which ones weren't. We go back to those big

753
00:48:34,159 --> 00:48:36,840
things that you identified in the book, and I want

754
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:39,119
to make sure that we come back to them. One

755
00:48:39,119 --> 00:48:41,320
of the things that you mentioned was this change in

756
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:47,920
policing from a more sort of aggressive, militarized, you know,

757
00:48:48,079 --> 00:48:52,800
overtly racist and like kind of lack of probable cause

758
00:48:52,880 --> 00:49:00,480
style policing to more community building and maybe I shouldn't

759
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:06,159
say back to but at least an integration of protect

760
00:49:06,199 --> 00:49:08,559
and serve. But how much of that is really just

761
00:49:08,639 --> 00:49:10,639
tied to the fact that the drug We lost the

762
00:49:10,679 --> 00:49:13,760
drug war, and people started to recognize this is, you know,

763
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:16,559
as long as there's a war on drugs, that means

764
00:49:16,559 --> 00:49:20,199
we're at war with our own citizens. And these outcomes

765
00:49:20,199 --> 00:49:23,480
that we're seeing here, this high crime, this you know,

766
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:27,320
not just high crime, but like high murder rates, right,

767
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,719
like actual detriment to public health. How much of that

768
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:35,119
was just tied to a sort of collective understanding that

769
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:39,800
this concept of the drug war and this framing of

770
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:43,079
how we are going to police is it's just not working.

771
00:49:43,559 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's an important part of it. I

772
00:49:45,519 --> 00:49:48,199
think there was a recognition not across the board, but

773
00:49:48,559 --> 00:49:52,159
right the importantly in a lot of places that that

774
00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:56,440
was a mistake and that we started the backtrack on that,

775
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:58,960
not at the same pace in every city. In New

776
00:49:59,039 --> 00:50:02,679
York City, for example, stop and frisk at a really

777
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:09,360
insane level into the twenty ten and so forth, which

778
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:12,719
we didn't see so much in Chicago, but that dropped

779
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:17,880
there eventually too. And so yes, I think pleasing improved,

780
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:21,280
but I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket

781
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:23,800
in the following sense that one of the key lessons

782
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,039
I think in the book is that social change, right

783
00:50:26,079 --> 00:50:29,840
it's not linear and things can change on a dime.

784
00:50:30,079 --> 00:50:33,320
And what I worry about is the fact that by

785
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:37,079
conjuring up these these images from the past, we often

786
00:50:37,119 --> 00:50:40,360
revert back to these mistakes. Right we're fighting the last war. So,

787
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:47,079
I mean, the ice invasion really in Minneapolis, I think

788
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:50,760
is really problematic. I mean, it's obviously problematic in terms

789
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:55,280
of the violence, but in terms of leading to more

790
00:50:55,320 --> 00:51:01,199
mistrust and alienation, particularly of youth. The artisicmal justice system.

791
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:06,920
I see a setback here, and that's really worrisome because

792
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:09,159
to the extent you have distrust in the police, then

793
00:51:09,199 --> 00:51:12,159
people don't report crimes to the police, which then is

794
00:51:12,199 --> 00:51:15,599
another kind of vicious cycle which can lead to more crime.

795
00:51:15,679 --> 00:51:20,800
And what's interesting is that even police chiefs, or at

796
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:25,719
least many police chiefs, are against what's happening there because

797
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,239
they feel like there were gains made, there was more

798
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:33,000
trust in the communities now being undermined. So it's not

799
00:51:33,159 --> 00:51:36,840
guaranteed that crime is going to continue to go down

800
00:51:37,119 --> 00:51:39,119
or who knows what's going to happen.

801
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 1: Oh, I think it's almost guaranteed that it's going to

802
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:44,559
go up based on I mean, that's my big concern

803
00:51:44,599 --> 00:51:47,280
about because this, as you mentioned, there's one thing. When

804
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,840
you look at these sort of slow, steady changes over time,

805
00:51:50,920 --> 00:51:54,039
and a big longitudinal study like this that allows you

806
00:51:54,079 --> 00:51:58,840
to have multiple cohorts, you can see nuanced changes even

807
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:01,719
if things are happening slow, but it's always going to

808
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:07,119
be punctuated with these massive dramatic shifts that occur when

809
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:10,760
you know there's an authoritarian regime, or that occur when

810
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:14,679
there's like like a massive recession or some sort of

811
00:52:14,679 --> 00:52:19,199
horrific natural disaster, a pandemic for example. Those things don't.

812
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 2: Exactly that hit us all right, with everyone unaware, And

813
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:28,519
the youngest cohort actually in the book that I study

814
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:33,840
was lucky in most ways in terms of arrests in

815
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:36,679
many forms of violence. But when they were in their

816
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:41,320
late teens early adultho, they were bumping up against that

817
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:45,159
chaos of the pandemic and George Floyd and the unrest

818
00:52:45,599 --> 00:52:48,679
spike and gun violence, and so in certain respects they

819
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:51,960
were unlucky. It goes back to that what happens when

820
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:57,400
you're eighteen to twenty five, and so that sort of

821
00:52:57,519 --> 00:53:02,000
leads to that imprint in terms of how people are

822
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:04,199
experiencing the world. So you know, going back to let's

823
00:53:04,199 --> 00:53:08,599
say Minneapolis, the youth in particular, I think are going

824
00:53:08,679 --> 00:53:11,960
to be the most affected by that, not limited to

825
00:53:12,039 --> 00:53:15,079
that group, but I think that's the real worry about

826
00:53:15,199 --> 00:53:19,079
the kinds of the gains that have been made and

827
00:53:19,119 --> 00:53:22,400
the setbacks that we're seeing. So hopefully, you know, we

828
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,519
can get back on track. And the good news is

829
00:53:25,599 --> 00:53:30,000
that violence is down pretty dramatically. Most crimes are down,

830
00:53:30,639 --> 00:53:34,599
so it is almost as if we're sort of reverting

831
00:53:34,679 --> 00:53:37,800
back to the pre pandemic era that that was this blip,

832
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:43,400
a massive blip in terms of this rupture in the

833
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:50,559
social structure which led to all kinds of alienation, to

834
00:53:50,639 --> 00:53:53,760
increases in violence and accidents, you know, sort of a

835
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:58,360
multitude of factors which are now for the most part,

836
00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:01,360
tending to recede. So that's why we need to take

837
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:05,480
both the long view but also look at these punctuated

838
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:10,280
large events like the pandemic, like nine to eleven, like

839
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:14,079
the Great Recession, like the drug war. And again that's

840
00:54:14,199 --> 00:54:15,639
what I do, and in fact, one of the graphs

841
00:54:15,639 --> 00:54:18,400
in the book, I try to piece together all the

842
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:21,679
major events, including political administrations and changes in that.

843
00:54:22,239 --> 00:54:26,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've long believed that sort of because of

844
00:54:26,679 --> 00:54:30,360
the in this again back to a psychological framing, because

845
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:33,119
of the way that we perceive time, and the way

846
00:54:33,159 --> 00:54:35,800
that we perceive the time that existed before us and

847
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:38,800
the time that may exist after us. I think there's

848
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:44,639
a tendency, almost like a psychological bias to maximize the

849
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:50,280
impact of history of Oh, that happened back then, and

850
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,159
things were really different then, things were really weird. That

851
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:56,119
was a really intense thing. But right now this is

852
00:54:56,199 --> 00:55:00,000
just my life, and I think that that framing shitt

853
00:55:00,519 --> 00:55:04,760
We are living in history. All of these things that

854
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:10,760
we are experiencing are shaping outcomes for as you mentioned,

855
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:16,320
you know, months, years, decades, generations to come, the children

856
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:20,400
who are experiencing the social pressures or you know, this

857
00:55:21,119 --> 00:55:24,280
myriad kind of variables right now that's going to affect

858
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:28,519
how they govern in the future, or how they vote,

859
00:55:28,679 --> 00:55:32,920
or how they engage with their neighbors. And so that

860
00:55:33,119 --> 00:55:35,880
temporal component of it. Not only is it so important

861
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:40,920
to look at it sort of academically, sort of cognitively,

862
00:55:41,199 --> 00:55:45,280
it's also I think important to constantly relate ourselves back

863
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:49,000
to it. We are not somehow separate from time.

864
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:54,760
Speaker 2: That's absolutely right, and that's in a way, if you

865
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:57,679
think about projecting into the future, another advantage of sort

866
00:55:57,679 --> 00:56:00,320
of Cohork way of thinking. It's not all only that

867
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:04,519
kids are differentiated by these social changes at the time,

868
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:09,480
but they are going to then age right in two

869
00:56:09,679 --> 00:56:15,880
later years with those experiences formative in their minds, and

870
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:19,719
all the events that shape where they are will influence

871
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,760
future policy. And that's what we think of in terms

872
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:27,280
of Cohort replacement. And so what about the kids that

873
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:29,960
are eighteen to twenty five now when they are in

874
00:56:30,039 --> 00:56:33,760
positions of policy when they're forty, or the people that

875
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:37,800
are in positions of power now. I think that's a

876
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:44,119
really central insight of the Cohort way of thinking that

877
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:48,880
really tells us what's going to or at least the

878
00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:53,400
important features for the future. And part of the problem

879
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:56,559
here too is that we really have trouble I think

880
00:56:57,000 --> 00:57:00,039
updating our mental models of the world almost like a

881
00:57:00,119 --> 00:57:03,199
cognitive bias, which I another way of kind of getting

882
00:57:03,679 --> 00:57:05,840
to what you were saying. That's what I think of

883
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:10,079
it as that we tend to again revert back to

884
00:57:10,159 --> 00:57:12,840
that imprint in our brains.

885
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 1: Really it's an anchor point for us. So yeah, it's naturally,

886
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:19,159
we all do it totally. So everything we experience, Yes,

887
00:57:19,199 --> 00:57:22,559
I am alive today in twenty twenty six, but everything

888
00:57:22,639 --> 00:57:26,360
is being compared to those you know, sort of late

889
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:29,960
teenage years or whatever, the experiences you were having at

890
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:32,400
that time. Whether I felt safer than than I do now,

891
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:34,760
Oh things have gotten worse, or whether I felt less

892
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:37,880
safe than oh things are more stable in life, you know,

893
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:42,880
like we're always anchoring back to that sort of inflection

894
00:57:43,039 --> 00:57:45,679
point in our lives. And I see it. I guess

895
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:49,679
I've gained insight into this, and that's why this this

896
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:51,800
conversation is so exciting for me, because you're kind of

897
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:59,440
sharing this evidence based description of something that I feel

898
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:02,840
like lately. As I'm a psycho therapist, I'm a clinical

899
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:05,440
psychologist in a cancer center, which means that I work

900
00:58:06,199 --> 00:58:09,639
primarily with gerontological patients, although I do see some pediatric

901
00:58:09,679 --> 00:58:11,920
patients and some kind of you know, patients in middle age.

902
00:58:12,159 --> 00:58:14,159
Who gets cancer? You know, we all get cancer the

903
00:58:14,199 --> 00:58:16,880
older we get That's sort of the way life works.

904
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:20,320
And I just have this beautiful opportunity to get in

905
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:26,280
to do deep therapy with people who have lived really long,

906
00:58:26,400 --> 00:58:31,719
rich lives, and it's fascinating learning about their perspectives. You know,

907
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:37,360
somebody who's anchor point was in you know, nineteen sixty

908
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:40,760
eight and that was their formative year, or somebody who's

909
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:43,920
anchor point, you know, it's it's fascinating to see their

910
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:48,239
worldview and their perspective throughout these different I guess you

911
00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:50,000
could call them cohorts as well.

912
00:58:50,519 --> 00:58:55,679
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, do that enough, Yeah, to sort of

913
00:58:55,679 --> 00:58:59,519
get into their sense of time and how it's experienced

914
00:58:59,519 --> 00:59:03,000
across these different ages and going back to sort of

915
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:06,280
the earlier conversations. That's how a lot of research is

916
00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:09,880
problematic because if you just look at one cohort, basically

917
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:16,320
you're aging and the societal changes that are happening are simultaneous,

918
00:59:16,599 --> 00:59:20,880
so they're.

919
00:59:18,800 --> 00:59:22,199
Speaker 1: Happening in the background, you don't notice it, Yeah.

920
00:59:21,559 --> 00:59:24,719
Speaker 2: And so therefore disentangling them that's really the key. So

921
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:28,079
you need to separate that out. And that's why looking

922
00:59:28,119 --> 00:59:31,199
at the different coorts at these different points, even though

923
00:59:31,199 --> 00:59:34,719
they're the same ages at different historical points, it's like

924
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:36,840
another way of seeing the world. That's how I think

925
00:59:36,840 --> 00:59:37,119
of it.

926
00:59:37,639 --> 00:59:40,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it is, and it reminds me of

927
00:59:40,559 --> 00:59:43,199
you know, it's a way that you've probably heard this before,

928
00:59:43,239 --> 00:59:46,960
but a lot of at least academics and psychology and

929
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:50,679
probably in sociology too, will often refer to things like

930
00:59:50,719 --> 00:59:57,480
patriarchy or things like sort of these background social pressures

931
00:59:57,519 --> 01:00:02,360
that really affect literal everything, but you don't notice them

932
01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:04,559
because we often will say it's the water we swim in.

933
01:00:05,039 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, swimming in water.

934
01:00:07,199 --> 01:00:08,920
Speaker 1: Yeah you don't notice it.

935
01:00:09,119 --> 01:00:11,079
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's I mean, that's how I feel about

936
01:00:11,119 --> 01:00:13,039
these changes like the air we breathe. It's like, yeah,

937
01:00:13,039 --> 01:00:15,519
it's okay, we all know it's changing, but I'm just

938
01:00:15,559 --> 01:00:18,039
gonna go on acting the way that they normally do.

939
01:00:18,199 --> 01:00:20,760
And again, judge people outside of the time.

940
01:00:21,119 --> 01:00:24,440
Speaker 1: Right right, and we just, yeah, we cannot do that.

941
01:00:25,039 --> 01:00:27,239
And I think this sort of a last point that

942
01:00:27,280 --> 01:00:29,000
I think is important to bring up. We do have

943
01:00:29,039 --> 01:00:31,599
to judge people in time, and I think historians do

944
01:00:31,679 --> 01:00:34,280
a brilliant job of that. But sometimes I think there's

945
01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:39,280
an apologetic way that we judge individuals based on time,

946
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:41,840
Like we can also take it too far, and I

947
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:44,480
will often see this when I talk to older adults

948
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:47,679
in my life who are sort of apologizing for bad

949
01:00:47,760 --> 01:00:53,159
behavior of you know, let's say, gross men or bad

950
01:00:53,199 --> 01:00:58,679
behavior of grandparents who aren't, you know, understanding progressive movements

951
01:00:58,719 --> 01:01:02,159
of their of their kids' kids, And they'll say, oh,

952
01:01:02,159 --> 01:01:03,880
but they're from a different era and they just and

953
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:06,920
I'm like, yeah, but it was still bad then, you know,

954
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:10,400
like racism was still bad even when it was acceptable

955
01:01:10,599 --> 01:01:13,559
in the public to be overtly racist, and there were

956
01:01:13,599 --> 01:01:18,719
always people in those cohorts who weren't and who were

957
01:01:18,719 --> 01:01:22,559
fighting against it and who had, you know, a perspective

958
01:01:23,039 --> 01:01:27,639
that maybe wasn't normative. But now looking back on the

959
01:01:27,719 --> 01:01:30,239
sort of moral arc of history we see was just

960
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:32,800
and I think we have to remember that as well.

961
01:01:33,360 --> 01:01:36,159
We are products of our time, but we are not

962
01:01:36,400 --> 01:01:37,440
victims of our time.

963
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:40,239
Speaker 2: No. It's another way to think about it is that

964
01:01:40,239 --> 01:01:42,519
there's a lot of heterogeneity within the cohorts.

965
01:01:42,519 --> 01:01:44,840
Speaker 1: So absolutely, yeah, yeah, it's.

966
01:01:44,679 --> 01:01:49,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just a way of capturing the historical experiences

967
01:01:49,639 --> 01:01:54,559
that each cohort is growing up with. But and I

968
01:01:54,639 --> 01:01:56,239
say this in the book, I mean, in no way

969
01:01:56,320 --> 01:02:02,079
am I arguing against individual response onsibility or even arguing

970
01:02:02,679 --> 01:02:05,559
against the idea of punishment. It's more that, well, we

971
01:02:05,679 --> 01:02:08,119
have to place it in context, and these are some

972
01:02:08,239 --> 01:02:11,039
of the characteristics we have to take into account, and

973
01:02:11,079 --> 01:02:15,760
that has pragmatic implications, like, for example, the drug war,

974
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:18,719
we now know that in large part that was a mistake.

975
01:02:18,920 --> 01:02:22,960
So commuting the sentences, for example, of people who were

976
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:26,639
locked up for smoking marijuana. When you can walk into

977
01:02:27,559 --> 01:02:31,039
a marijuana store I have won, you know, four blocks

978
01:02:31,039 --> 01:02:33,320
from my house, it's like a weird experience, like wait

979
01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:36,679
a minute, you just go in and bipop, there's people

980
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:41,320
in prison an earlier point. So we can say, well,

981
01:02:41,360 --> 01:02:45,480
in that case, that's a kind of cohort reparations philosophy.

982
01:02:45,559 --> 01:02:48,159
But it's not to say that every individual commits crime

983
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:51,000
we let off now that that's just crazy talk.

984
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:54,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's it's the gray,

985
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:56,719
it's the nuance, and I think these kinds of conversations

986
01:02:56,760 --> 01:02:58,920
help us spend more time in there and help us

987
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:02,920
with our comfort level in the nuance, in the gray,

988
01:03:02,960 --> 01:03:04,760
in the uncertainty, because.

989
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:07,679
Speaker 2: Learning too that we just can't predict very well, you know,

990
01:03:08,159 --> 01:03:10,800
the fundamental level right that at the end of the day.

991
01:03:10,920 --> 01:03:13,320
And that's another thing I show is that when you

992
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:16,280
use the data from the older cohorts and you predict

993
01:03:17,159 --> 01:03:21,239
the younger cohorts outcomes, we do a poor job, And

994
01:03:21,440 --> 01:03:26,679
to me, that's just a clean finding that again goes

995
01:03:26,719 --> 01:03:29,960
to the point that we have to take these things

996
01:03:30,199 --> 01:03:35,079
into account because we're just making large errors.

997
01:03:35,719 --> 01:03:39,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh gosh, there's so I hate that I have

998
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:42,039
a doctor's appointment, I have to get to you right now,

999
01:03:42,039 --> 01:03:44,000
and you have a life that you have to leave too.

1000
01:03:44,199 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 2: But it's fun to talk about. I think I want

1001
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:49,239
your job right you read books and talk to people about.

1002
01:03:48,960 --> 01:03:54,559
Speaker 1: It so great, And I mean, I really really hope

1003
01:03:54,559 --> 01:03:58,119
that the folks listening today, you know, pick up this

1004
01:03:58,119 --> 01:04:00,920
this book and dig into this even if it is

1005
01:04:00,960 --> 01:04:06,239
a you know, even if Chicago feels far from your consciousness,

1006
01:04:06,039 --> 01:04:10,400
it's a slice of something that expands your ability to

1007
01:04:10,480 --> 01:04:13,519
then shift your frame and shift your paradigm. Like I

1008
01:04:13,559 --> 01:04:18,079
do think that this kind of work can be paradigm

1009
01:04:18,119 --> 01:04:20,480
shifting work because it can change the way that people

1010
01:04:20,519 --> 01:04:25,239
engage and think about their place in society and think

1011
01:04:25,280 --> 01:04:28,840
about how they became who they are, why the people

1012
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:30,599
around them are the way they are. I mean, this

1013
01:04:30,800 --> 01:04:33,320
right here is an empathy machine. I really think it's

1014
01:04:33,360 --> 01:04:40,159
important for our development as responsible citizens to expand our

1015
01:04:40,199 --> 01:04:43,119
thinking in this way. And the work that you've done

1016
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:48,239
really these are the tools that we need to improve empathy.

1017
01:04:48,280 --> 01:04:51,920
And so I'm a grateful for that, and I'm grateful

1018
01:04:51,920 --> 01:04:53,760
for you spending the time with us to talk about

1019
01:04:53,800 --> 01:04:57,800
the book. Tell me, is there like a name to

1020
01:04:58,079 --> 01:05:01,480
the ongoing study if people want to read more about

1021
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:04,559
it beyond the book, what would they kind of search for?

1022
01:05:05,519 --> 01:05:08,960
Speaker 2: Well, the study is called the Project on Human Development

1023
01:05:09,079 --> 01:05:13,079
in Chicago Neighborhoods. That's what started in the mid nineties

1024
01:05:13,119 --> 01:05:17,480
and it's still ongoing. We're planning to do more work,

1025
01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:20,440
crazy as it sounds, and so there's a website for

1026
01:05:20,519 --> 01:05:24,760
the project that can be found on my website. It's

1027
01:05:24,760 --> 01:05:27,800
devoted solely not just to my work, but to all

1028
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:31,440
the work that the project has been involved with over

1029
01:05:31,440 --> 01:05:33,800
the years. So if people search on Project on Human

1030
01:05:33,840 --> 01:05:37,800
Development in Chicago Neighborhoods on the Harvard website, they should

1031
01:05:37,800 --> 01:05:40,039
be able to find it. And we hope to keep

1032
01:05:40,079 --> 01:05:44,039
going because there's a lot of change surely to come

1033
01:05:44,199 --> 01:05:45,519
that we want to capture.

1034
01:05:46,639 --> 01:05:50,880
Speaker 1: And obviously your previous book was the Sorry not the

1035
01:05:51,079 --> 01:05:55,000
but Great American City, Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect,

1036
01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:58,679
and this book is called Marked by Time. How societal

1037
01:05:58,760 --> 01:06:02,599
change has Transformed Crime and the life Trajectories of Young

1038
01:06:02,679 --> 01:06:06,559
Americans by doctor Robert J. Sampson. Robert, rob thank you

1039
01:06:06,599 --> 01:06:07,960
so much for being here.

1040
01:06:08,199 --> 01:06:12,159
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for speaking with me. It's been a pleasure.

1041
01:06:12,239 --> 01:06:14,920
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and everybody listening, thank you for coming back week

1042
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:17,519
after week. I'm really looking forward to the next time

1043
01:06:17,519 --> 01:06:21,199
we all get together to talk. Mardy