Santa Fe conference focuses on male violence
CONFERENCE EXPLORES EARLY LIFE’S EFFECTS ON BOYS, LEADING TO MALE VIOLENCE
The connection between the early childhood development of boys and why men are more likely to commit violent acts will be explored during a Santa Fe conference featuring international scholars, researchers and authors.
“Boys at Risk: Early Origins of Male Violence,” which will be held May 1-3 at the Community Convention Center, is the Santa Fe Boys Educational Foundation’s second conference on the topic. The foundation, which formed in 2013, has focused on hosting the conferences and organizing publication of research articles
relating to the kinds of factors boys face — both internally and externally — starting early in life and how those factors can lead to troubling behavior later on, said foundation president Paul Golding.
“What the conference is looking at is what’s going on under the hood,” said Golding. “What’s happening biologically and psychologically that might explain why this male predominance is so strong.”
A report co-authored by Golding for the Infant Mental Health Journal earlier this year cites a U.S. Department of Justice dataset that states that, of all of the prisoners under federal authority at the end of 2014 who were sentenced for
violent crimes, 95 percent were male.
Prisoners under state correctional authority convicted of violent crimes were 91 percent male. The report also cited research that boys in the U.S. are more likely to be disciplined or suspended from school for behavioral problems and that the juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes is four times higher for boys than girls.
A 2015 study by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education states that for every 100 girls in 9th-12th grade who carried a weapon onto school property in the U.S., 350 boys did. And for every 100 girls of the same age that engaged in a fight on school property, 206 boys did.
According to Golding, the conference’s first day of presentations will be focused on “early predictors of aggression and violence” in boys. Developmental factors relating to violence from infancy to adolescence, as well as prevention strategies, will take center stage on day two. The third day will cover public policy and intervention models for at-risk individuals.
The foundation’s first conference was in 2015. Golding said the reason for the yearslong gap between that conference and the upcoming one was that the invited speakers also commit to submitting scholarly articles based on their presentations to the Infant Mental Health Journal. The peer-reviewed journal has published two special issues on violence and boys in correlation with both conferences, Golding said.
“The idea is to try to collect people who are familiar with these issues, and also writings by those people, so they’ll be available online for academics and others interested in these subjects, in addition to the conference where people can come together and hear people prominent in these areas discuss these issues,” said Golding.
Golding retired to Santa Fe in 1996 after working as an economist in Washington, D.C. He began volunteering locally with the Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America program around the same time several books were being published about what was then being called the “boy crisis.”
He said it was the start of widespread knowledge of boys not doing as well in school, being particularly at risk for psychopathologies like ADHD, autism and Tourette syndrome and, as they get older, potentially larger issues with crime.
“It was a topic of considerable national discussion because I think suddenly people were aware that boys were at risk,” said Golding.
Golding emphasized that not all boys follow this pattern, estimating that about 20-25 percent of boys are at risk.
He began gathering his own research, started a newsletter called “Santa Fe Boys,” and after going back to school and receiving his doctorate in psychology, he started the Santa Fe Boys Educational Foundation.
Experts to speak
Though the foundation’s upcoming conference is open to anyone, Golding said it is targeted at those who work in child development, such as psychologists, counselors, social workers or people who work in early childhood programs. Psychologists, social workers and licensed counselors attending the conference can receive continuing education credit hours.
He added it may also be useful for professionals working within criminology and for “crime-oriented policy makers,” as well as those who study gender development or differences between the sexes.
“There has been a kind of belief that there is no difference between genders, and I think it’s come to the floor a little more with all of the gender fluidity issues we’ve seen lately,” he said. “I think it’s brought it to people’s attention: Are there differences? Are there not differences? And I think the conference will describe some of these in regards to boys really early in life.”
The conference has secured 12 experts from the U.S. and Canada to discuss their areas of expertise in psychology, child development, child development and more.
One is Richard Tremblay, an emeritus professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and psychology at the University of Montreal. He won the Stockholm Prize in Criminology in 2017 for his research that indicated the peak age for violent behavior is age 3, pinpointed early predictors of violent behavior and showed how targeting children with those predictors for specific support proved to reduce criminal records for them as adults.
Adrian Raine, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who will also speak at the conference, wrote “The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime” and will give a talk on the male violence through the lens of neurodevelopment.
David Olds, a pediatrics professor and director of prevention research at the University of Colorado’s Center for Family of Child Health, developed the NurseFamily Partnership. The nonprofit, which Golding noted operates in New Mexico, connects low-income pregnant women with nurses who visit them in their home and give advice on best practices for their children’s health from infancy onward. Olds will give a talk about what he’s discovered about how the early-life visits differently benefit boys and girls.
Other speakers will give talks on topics including how environmental and social factors have an effect on violent behaviors, how kids — particularly males — who had prenatal opioid exposure may be more at risk and how the issues of child development intersect with the juvenile justice system. Group workshops with both local and international presenters are also scheduled over the three days to discuss specific programs and additional research areas.
Golding described his conference as a chance to address the root causes of violent behavior — something he doesn’t think is often discussed — as well as to hear directly from the researchers trying to develop effective intervention strategies.
He expects most of the attendees to be from New Mexico, but that a “sizable proportion” will be from out of state due to the pull of the expert speakers.