Listening to Killers: Lessons Learned from My Twenty Years as a Psychological Expert Witness in Murder Cases

James Garbarino’s new book, “Listening to Killers” offers additional insight into how abusive caregivers, parents and a toxic society create people who kill. It is astonishing that policymakers do not react in a proactive manner to what Garbarino details in this chilling but highly moving account of what makes a person become a killer. Garbarino is one of nation’s leading experts on emotional abuse and how it affects our nation’s children. Garbarino uses the metaphor of a killer as basically a scared, traumatized child living inside a scary looking man. Using an ecological perspective on human development, Garbarino offers the reader insight into how context plays an important role in human behavior – something to often overlooked in a state system which is essentially reactive to crisis instead of proactive. And what the author writes about are people at the tip of an iceberg who become killers. The silent majority live out lives of misery and suffering below the surface. As Henry David Thoreau so famously stated in his book Walden, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” He was writing about men who have been ignored, rejected, isolated, degraded, terrorized, exploited and corrupted and who often have little if any awareness that they have been mistreated. They are homeless within themselves and operate with no sense of self. This can lead to devastating consequences, the most tragic being what Garbarino writes about in Listening to Killers. To bring about change parenting and emotional literacy classes need to be taught within our public school systems where each student would earn a parenting certificate upon graduation. With each parent attaining knowledge and skills of childhood development and an understanding on how to apply those skills, the abuse of children can be greatly diminished, and this, over time, would bring an end to the structural inequality that is so prevalent in our society today. Listening to Killers is an indispensable account of how our society fails children who are most vulnerable to abuse, and the bloody price we pay for allowing it.

Working as a victim and child advocate, I found Garbarino's observations very challenging and enlightening. I consider myself a compassionate person by nature, but the histories of the killers outlined in this book compelled me to think of true compassion as something much more intentional than empathy. True compassion is a willingness to suspend our disbelief that we ourselves are capable of atrocities.Garbarino presents a reasoned and studied opinion that killers often have a myriad of complex social, psychological, and personal experiences that drive them to certain behaviors and beliefs. Perhaps the biggest "takeaway" for me was the understanding that the American penal system could and should do more to help both juvenile offenders and adults to work through to rehabilitation.

Dr. Garbarino is spot-on. I have an ACE score of 9. I can deeply relate to these young people and children who have killed. A society concerned only with individual self-interest ...which can show no empathy for the plight of abused and abandoned children..would be well served by self-examination and a mindful contemplation of what to me is a predictable outcome of callous, and unconcerned societal neglect of our most abused and terrified children. I see our group failings in caring for these vulnerable children to be no less abhorrent than the killings of these young people. That said, this is an absolutely excellent book. It is full of lots of very valuable information. Also this book gives us hope. Killers are made by us... we too can seek redemption and forge a peaceful world!

This book was intense. I am glad I read it, I have learned a lot from it and plan on doing more research now.

This was an ok book. I have read better ones involving serial killers

I purchased this book as part of a graduate school class. There is some good information, but a number of chapters contain irrelevant, unsubstantiated claims of racism and guns as the cause of crime. The author all but removes any accountability for the actions taken by those he interviewed. After reviewing the interviews and cases, it is much more likely that the absence of a father and community ties are to blame than what the author proposes.

This was required reading for my Criminal Justice class at Missouri State University and I totally think it was a PERFECT book to assign.THIS AUTHOR IS SO AWESOME THAT AFTER READING THIS BOOK I ORDERED ALL HIS OTHER RELATED BOOKS.This book gives you a pretty objective perspective of what goes on in the minds of a killer, but more so, WHY they became killers.A MUST READ for any criminology student or someone fascinated with crime in American society

I was assigned this book for my criminology class at Edinboro University and I absolutely love. Garbarino shares his personal interactions with killers in this book. He shows a compassion towards these killers that I don't think I personally could ever do. BUT from reading this book I have a new insight on people who commit crimes, more specifically violent ones. Overall 10/10 recommend this book.

Great price and great delivery

This book is so important for everyone to read. It helps to understand the backgrounds to people who end up perpetuating violent crimes. Garbarino says of a 35 year old extremely violent prisoner accused of murder who had been in and out of prison since he was 15. "He is a very damaged person emotionally, morally and spiritually." "At the end of the interview I ask him a final question." "What can you tell me about that people would be surprised to hear?" "He pauses for a moment and then replies" "I cry myself to sleep at night." "Afterwards I check out his story: he does. Inside this big scary dangerous man is a frightened and hurt little child. You wouldn't know that by seeing him. You wouldn't know that by his prison records. You have to listen to him." There is a compassion in the writing of "Listening to Killers" which is truly courageous and human and important. I highly recommend it to therapists or psychologists particularly but also to anyone working in the prison system who may be interested in offenders and their motivation. Five Stars!

An accessible insight into the traumas which have contributed to the warped development of individuals who use violence to try to cope with their lives.I'm delighted to read something that isn't using theoretical terminology all the time. A very humane approach & has really set me thinking.Thank you to James for undertaking this book.

Brilliant

Deeply moving, a man passionate about understanding people in society call 'misfits' or 'outcasts'. A great insightful glimpse through the eyes of compassion.