1. pets
2. cats

PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
Nature vs Nurture in Psychology
by Saul McLeod published 2007
This debate within psychology is concerned with the extent to which particular aspects of behavior are a
product of either inherited (i.e. genetic) or acquired (i.e. learned) characteristics.
Nature is that which is inherited / genetic.
Nurture which refers to all environmental influences after conception, i.e. experience.
Nature Nurture Debate in Psychology
It has long been known that certain physical characteristics are biologically determined by genetic
inheritance. Color of eyes, straight or curly hair, pigmentation of the skin and certain diseases (such as
Huntingdon’s chorea) are all a function of the genes we inherit. Other physical characteristics, if not
determined, appear to be at least strongly influenced by the genetic make-up of our biological parents.
Height, weight, hair loss (in men), life expectancy and vulnerability to specific illnesses (e.g. breast cancer
in women) are positively correlated between genetically related individuals. These facts have led many
to speculate as to whether psychological characteristics such as behavioral tendencies, personality
attributes and mental abilities are also “wired in” before we are even born.
The Nature Argument
Those who adopt an extreme heredity position are known as nativists. Their basic assumption is that the
characteristics of the human species as a whole are a product of evolution and that individual differences are
due to each person’s unique genetic code. In general, the earlier a particular ability appears, the more likely it
is to be under the influence of genetic factors.
Characteristics and differences that are not observable at birth, but which emerge later in life, are regarded as
the product of maturation. That is to say we all have an inner “biological clock” which switches on (or off)
types of behavior in a pre programmed way. The classic example of the way this affects our physical
development are the bodily changes that occur in early adolescence at puberty. However nativists also argue
that maturation governs the emergence of attachment in infancy, language acquisition and even cognitive
developmentas a whole.
The Nurture Argument
At the other end of the spectrum are the environmentalists – also known as empiricists (not to be confused
with the other empirical / scientific approach). Their basic assumption is that at birth the human mind is
a tabula rasa (a blank slate) and that this is gradually “filled” as a result of experience (e.g. behaviorism).
From this point of view psychological characteristics and behavioral differences that emerge through infancy
and childhood are the result of learning. It is how you are brought up (nurture) that governs the
psychologically significant aspects of child development and the concept of maturation applies only to the
biological.
For example, when an infant forms an attachment it is responding to the love and attention it has received,
language comes from imitating the speech of others and cognitive development depends on the degree of
stimulation in the environment and, more broadly, on the civilization within which the child is reared.
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These Theories in Psychological History
PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
Examples of an extreme nature positions in psychology include Bowlby's (1969) theory of attachment, which
views the bond between mother and child as being an innate process that ensures survival. Likewise,
Chomsky (1965) proposed language is gained through the use of an innate language acquisition device.
Another example of nature is Freud's theory of aggression as being an innate drive (called thanatos).
In contrast Bandura's (1977) social learning theory states that aggression is a learnt from the environment
through observation and imitation. This is seen in his famous bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961).
Also Skinner (1957) believed that language is learnt from other people via behavior shaping techniques.
In practice hardly anyone today accepts either of the extreme positions. There are simply too many “facts” on
both sides of the argument which are inconsistent with an “all or nothing” view. So instead of asking
whether child development is down to nature or nurture the question has been reformulated as “How much?”
That is to say, given that heredity and environment both influence the person we become, which is the more
important?
This question was first framed by Francis Galton in the late 19th century. Galton (himself a relative of Charles
Darwin) was convinced that intellectual ability was largely inherited and that the tendency for “genius” to run
in families was the outcome of a natural superiority.
This view has cropped up time and again in the history of psychology and has stimulated much of the research
into intelligence testing (particularly on separated twins and adopted children). A modern proponent is the
American psychologist Arthur Jenson. Finding that the average I.Q. scores of black Americans were
significantly lower than whites he went on to argue that genetic factors were mainly responsible – even going
so far as to suggest that intelligence is 80% inherited.
Weaknesses in Argument
The storm of controversy that developed around Jenson’s claims was not mainly due to logical and empirical
weaknesses in his argument. It was more to do with the social and political implications that are often drawn
from research that claims to demonstrate natural inequalities between social groups.
Galton himself in 1883 suggested that human society could be improved by “better breeding”. In the 1920’s
the American Eugenics Society campaigned for the sterilization of men and women in psychiatric hospitals.
Today in Britain many believe that the immigration policies are designed to discriminate against Black and
Asian ethnic groups. However the most chilling of all implications drawn from this view of the natural
superiority of one race over another took place in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.
For many environmentalists there is a barely disguised right wing agenda behind the work of the
behavioral geneticists. In their view part of the difference in the I.Q. scores of different ethnic groups is
due to in built biases in the methods of testing. More fundamentally they believe that differences in
intellectual ability are a product of social inequalities in access to material resources and opportunities.
To put it simply children brought up in the ghetto tend to score lower on tests because they are denied
the same life chances as more privileged members of society.
Conclusion
Now we can see why the nature-nurture debate has become such a hotly contested issue. What begins as an
attempt to understand the causes of behavioral differences often develops into a politically motivated dispute
about distributive justice and power in society. What’s more this doesn’t only apply to the debate over I.Q. It
is equally relevant to the psychology of sex and gender where the question of how much of the (alleged)
differences in male and female behavior is due to biology and how much to culture is just as controversial.
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
However in recent years there has been a growing realization that the question of “how much” behavior is due
to heredity and “how much” to environment may itself be the wrong question. Take intelligence as an
example. Like almost all types of human behavior it is a complex, many-sided phenomenon which reveals
itself (or not!) in a great variety of ways. The “how much” question assumes that the variables can all be
expressed numerically and that the issue can be resolved in a quantitative manner. The reality is that nature
and culture interact in a host of qualitatively different ways.
This realization is especially important given the recent advances in genetics. The Human Genome Project for
example has stimulated enormous interest in tracing types of behavior to particular strands of DNA located
on specific chromosomes. Newspaper reports announce that scientists are on the verge of discovering (or
have already discovered) the gene for criminality, for alcoholism or the “gay gene”.
If these advances are not to be abused then there will need to be a more general understanding of the fact that
biology interacts with both the cultural context and the personal choices that people make about how they
want to live their lives. There is no neat and simple way of unraveling these qualitatively different and
reciprocal influences on human behavior.
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
Nature vs. Nurture
How much influence do you have on your baby’s intelligence?
By Craig Ramey and Sharon Ramey
Introduction
You undoubtedly care about the total range of your child's interests and abilities — creativity, social skills,
problem-solving ability, and so forth. But like most parents, you are probably especially concerned about the
skills that will enable your child to do well in the classroom — from learning to read and then memorizing
Shakespeare to learning arithmetic and then mastering geometry. Here is some of what we know:
• Parents are the keys to intellectual development for almost all children in the care and education they
provide and arrange. Many research studies underscore the links between parental involvement and young
children's intelligence.
• By the time a child turns two, many of the intellectual foundations will have been laid to support a lifetime of
learning.
• No single, short-term accelerated early learning program that concentrates on a single aspect of
development has been shown to have lasting benefits.
• Instead, a child's intelligence is shaped and influenced by his cumulative experiences over time.
• Nurturing has a profound effect on intelligence. The nature-versus-nurture debate is wrongly framed —
biology matters, and so does experience. Intelligence doesn't develop in a vacuum.
Your child's intelligence is being shaped, challenged, and expressed every day by experiences with people,
objects, and events — especially when he is an active participant. These experiences are the raw ingredients
of intelligence.
Here's more good news. These same ingredients nurture many different facets of a child's intelligence, such as
the creative, the musical, the interpersonal, and the logical, as well as the Shakespeare-memorizing and
geometry-learning kinds.
There are profound individual differences in children's intellectual profiles. They have different strengths and
weaknesses, even in the same family, even when they receive consistently high-quality nurturing and
stimulation. There is still much to study and resolve in discerning all the factors that contribute to such
variations. Expect to read a lot more in the future about how genes and experiences work together to shape
the brain and intelligence.
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
Domesticated dogs descended from an ice
age European wolf, study says
By Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff
11.21.13
LOS ANGELES – Since the time of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, scientists have argued over the
origin of domesticated dogs.
But recently, this has become one major dogfight.
Some experts believe our ancestors in the Middle East and elsewhere were naturally drawn to small,
furry wolf pups and took them as novelties. Others suggest they were raised as a source of meat in early
agricultural societies in Asia.
Yet another theory holds that early dogs were used as helpers by bands of hunters. This was long before
humankind ever began domesticating goats and sheep, the first species believed to be bred for
agriculture.
Resolving The Big Bark
Now, thanks to faster and cheaper DNA sequencing technology, the huge argument over what sparked
the Big Bark may finally be resolved.
According to a study published Nov. 14 in the journal Science, evolutionary biologists have concluded
that dog domestication most likely occurred in ice age Europe 18,800 to 32,100 years ago. That's much
earlier, and much farther north, than previously believed. The biologists discovered this after analyzing
the mitochondrial DNA of 18 ancient dogs and wolves and comparing them with the mitochondrial DNA
of modern canines. Mitochondria are tiny structures inside a cell that produce energy for it.
The study's authors wrote that dogs evolved from a now extinct species of European wolf. This wolf,
which died out long ago, followed bands of humans who were hunting woolly mammoths and other large
prey.
Initially, the wolves sought out dead animals and scraps of meat left behind by the hunters. The
researchers guess that over time the wolves began to hang around people. They filled a special role in
human hunter-gatherer society.
"The initial (relationships) were probably at arm's length, as these were large, aggressive carnivores,"
said Robert Wayne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. Evolutionary
biologists study the evolution of life on earth. Wayne is the study's senior author.
Eventually, though, wolves entered the human community. "Maybe they even assisted humans in locating
prey, or deterred other carnivores from interfering with the hunting activities of humans," Wayne said.
A Murky Early Picture
After being welcomed into human society in Europe, domesticated dogs spread. However, the European
wolf that got the fetch ball rolling left no living descendants other than dogs.
"Wolves living on the planet today are not the closest group to the ancestor of dogs," said Wayne. He
conducted the research with scientists in Germany, Finland, Belgium, Russia, Spain, Argentina and the
United States.
Until recently, many archaeologists and biologists believed that dogs were first domesticated no more
than 13,000 years ago, either in East Asia or the Middle East. One key find was a burial site in Israel. It
contained the 12,000-year-old remains of an elderly man cradling a puppy, evidence of the unique bond
between dogs and humans.
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
Tracing the exact path of dog evolution has been extremely difficult. Ancient dog bones are hard to
distinguish from wolf bones. Frequent interbreeding between dogs and wolves further complicates
matters. Add to that mankind's active breeding of dogs for specific traits and behaviors, such as
gentleness or herding sheep, and the genetic origins become murky.
In fact, Charles Darwin, who died in 1882, believed that the dizzying variety of dog breeds meant that
dogs must have had more than one wild ancestor. Genetic researchers today say this is most likely not the
case and that domesticated dogs evolved from one ancestor, in one region.
"On some levels, understanding the geographic origins of dogs is definitely more difficult than studying
humans," said Greger Larson, a bioarchaeologist at Britain's Durham University. Bioarchaeologists study
animal bones from archaeological sites.
Larson, who was not involved in the Science paper, said Wayne and the other authors had "significantly
advanced" the debate on domestication.
"I really like this paper," Larson said. The origin of dogs has been hard to pin down. "There have always
been crazy ideas about the process and the location." The new genetic sequencing methods have brought
the research to a new level.
Additional Testing Planned
There are those, however, who argue that Wayne is barking up the wrong genetic tree.
Peter Savolainen is an associate professor of evolutionary genetics at Sweden's Royal Institute of
Technology. He said there was plenty of evidence that dogs were first domesticated in China, probably as
a source of food.
Savolainen pointed out that Wayne and his co-authors published a paper in 2010 citing the Middle East
as the origin of domestic dog. They have now abandoned this view.
The Science study lacked animal samples from the Middle East or China. "If you only have European
samples, obviously you will find that Europe is the origin," he said.
Wayne said they did not include samples from outside Europe because the samples were too recent, only
about 7,000 or 8,000 years old. That's well after dogs were domesticated, he said.
The study's authors said they hoped to confirm their findings with additional testing of genetic material
from the nuclei of ancient cells. This type of DNA from the nucleus contains much more information than
DNA taken from mitochondria.
In the meantime, experts are left to think about this latest development, and why the scientists have such
strong feelings about it.
"People make up tremendously elaborate stories about the origin of our own species based on a few fossil
remains here and there," said James Serpell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of
Veterinary Medicine. He wasn't involved in the study. "I guess we're doing the same thing now to our
dogs. We view them as members of our families and we want to know where they came from and how
this relationship came about."
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
Much ado about what to do with the
nation's feral cats
By Orlando Sentinel, adapted by Newsela staff
04.07.14
ORLANDO, Fla. — When Terise Marchelos pulls up, the cats come running from all directions.
Lots and lots of cats.
Tabbies, tuxedos and tortoiseshells — about 20 of the animals greet her each evening when she arrives in
a parking lot next to the train tracks south of downtown Orlando. She brings food every day to sustain the
colony of feral — that is, wild or abandoned — cats. It is just one of hundreds of feral-cat colonies her
organization, CARE Feline TNR, supports in the state.
But the simple act of feeding hungry cats is at the center of a fierce national debate. There is much
disagreement, often angry, over how best to handle the millions of feral cats across the country. It's a
battle that pits cat advocates against bird lovers, environmentalists and even the animal-rights group
PETA.
Emotional And Explosive Issue
At issue is the practice known as TNR, for trap-neuter-return. Volunteers feed and trap cats, take them to
a veterinarian to be vaccinated and spayed or neutered, then return them to the area where they live.
When possible, kittens and friendly adult cats are adopted out.
Backers call it the best available option to compassionately deal with the nation’s 50 million feral cats.
Opponents call it a cruel practice. TNR, they say, prolongs the suffering of the cats, who can fall victim to
cars, predators, disease and human cruelty.
The issue is highly emotional and potentially explosive, with arguments on both sides dismissed by each
other as “misinformation” and “propaganda.”
Respected environmental writer Ted Williams, an advocate for protecting native birds, set off a firestorm
last year when he wrote in an Orlando Sentinel opinion column that an over-the-counter pain reliever is
an effective poison for feral cats. Outraged cat lovers protested to Audubon magazine, for whom Williams
has written for decades. He was promptly suspended and Audubon disavowed his remarks. Williams
subsequently issued an apology and was reinstated.
Government agencies can find themselves caught in the middle of the debate.
The Florida Department of Public Health said in 2012 that TNR “is not tenable on public health grounds."
It cited the "persistent threat" of "injury and disease” feral cat colonies posed to humans.
But counties including Broward and Palm Beach have policies supporting the practice. The Orange
County Animal Services department partners with CARE Feline TNR and provides hundreds of free spayand-neuter surgeries to the organization.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has information on its website about risks
to health and wildlife posed by cats. But after protests from cat advocates, it modified its feral-cat policy
to remove a reference to TNR programs as ineffective in reducing feral-cat populations.
Fierce Numbers Dispute
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
“The nature of this debate is very sensitive,” FWC spokesman Gary Morse said. “There are passionate
opinions on both sides of this issue.”
A major line of attack against the practice is the claim that cats kill huge numbers of birds and other
wildlife. According to a widely cited survey, cats kill about 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds and 6.9 billion to
20.7 billion small mammals annually.
Cat advocates fiercely dispute those numbers.
Julie Wraithnell, director of wildlife conservation for Audubon Florida, calls the death toll attributable to
cats “staggering.”
“Free-roaming-cat overpopulation is a tragedy,” Wraithnell said. “But you don’t respond to one tragedy
by perpetuating another one.”
Alley Cat Allies, a national advocacy group, has been lobbying on behalf of TNR efforts since its founding
in 1990. The organization counters that human activity has a much greater impact on bird populations
than predation by cats.
“The larger issue is that trapping and killing has not worked,” said Elizabeth Holtz, staff attorney for Alley
Cat Allies. “And we’ve certainly tried. That has been the American approach to feral cats for 40 or 50
years.”
Holtz calls TNR “the only successful approach to feral cats that we currently have.”
She argues that the anti-TNR position “assumes we have a choice between cats and no cats. We don’t. The
cats are already there."
Harsh Life On The Street
“It’s not as if you stop putting out bowls of food and the cats will go away,” Holtz added. “If people weren’t
putting out food, they would just go through the trash. We believe we should treat animals humanely, and
that TNR over time will diminish the colony size.”
The animal-rights group PETA takes a dim view of TNR on humane grounds. It also disputes its
effectiveness in reducing colony size. Feral cat populations remain large, they say, in part because
irresponsible pet owners tend to abandon animals at established colonies.
“In most situations it is cruel to both the cats and local wildlife,” said Teresa Chagrin, PETA’s animal-careand-control specialist. “I don’t think any true cat lovers would like to see cats left on the streets, chased
by dogs, shot with arrows and pellet guns, set on fire, poisoned or torn apart by coyotes. These cats do
not die kindly on the streets.”
Chagrin thinks euthanizing feral cats is more humane than returning them to a potentially dangerous life.
As the sun sets on the colony south of Orlando after feeding time, Marchelos acknowledges the harsh
realities that cats living on the street can face. She’s seen cats hit by trains, cats that have lost eyes to
disease, cats shot with BB guns.
But like Holtz of Alley Cat Allies, she insists that a trap-and-euthanize approach isn’t the answer. Feral
cats will always be around, she said, so it’s best that they receive the best possible care.
“It’s never going to go away,” she said, looking out over her charges in the twilight. “It’s not going to stop.
This is still going to go on.”
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
Pilot saves dogs by flying them all over the U.S.
By Cronkite News Services, adapted by Newsela staff
Grade Level 8
04.10.14
PHOENIX — Retired surgeon Peter Rork feels like Santa Claus with his sled pulling in.
"I've got all kinds of goodies in back of my plane," Rork said from his home in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Rork and his co-pilot Doyle, a black Labrador retriever, spend their free time flying precious, sometimes
barking, cargo in Rork’s Cessna airplane. His last flight in March included 30 small dogs traveling from
Arizona to an animal shelter in Idaho.
Rork’s organization, Dog Is My CoPilot, is one of several groups around the country that take dogs by car
and plane from one state to another. Their goal is to combat an overabundance of some breeds in some
areas, a problem that often results in animals being put to sleep.
Leaving Arizona
On trips out of Arizona, the main breed that fills Rork’s plane is Chihuahuas.
“We have so many here that it tends to be overwhelming for people,” said Melissa Gable. She is the public
information officer at Maricopa County Animal Care and Control. “Sending them someplace where they
might not have as many Chihuahuas certainly means they’ll get adopted a lot quicker than they would if
they stayed here.”
In February, Arizona Chihuahua Rescue worked with Gable’s shelter to transfer 25 Chihuahuas to an
animal rescue group in Pennsylvania.
Judy Zimet is a Phoenix attorney who also serves as the executive director of Dog Is My CoPilot. She said
the organization flies to 10 states in the Pacific West and Rocky Mountain regions of the U.S. Since the
organization was founded two years ago, Rork has flown more than 1,000 animals to no-kill shelters in
other states.
How the breeds are selected from the shelters comes down to supply and demand, Zimet said. In some
states, the organization may take big breeds from shelters and transfer them to cities such as San
Francisco that don’t have a lot of large dogs.
Maricopa County sends many small breeds to out-of-state rescue groups.
“Arizona is specifically Chihuahua country for us,” Zimet said.
A National Trend
“Before we were bringing dogs, people would go to the shelter and they wouldn’t find what they wanted
and they’d end going to the puppy mills or they’d go on Craigslist or to breeders,” she said. Puppy mills
are dog breeding centers that have the reputation for putting profits over the health of the animals. “But
now people can find what they need at the shelters, and that way we help reduce overpopulation.”
Kari Nienstedt is the Arizona director for the Humane Society of the United States. She said transporting
animals to other regions is a national trend.
“I think it really kicked into high gear after Hurricane Katrina,” Nienstedt said in a telephone interview.
Hurricane Katrina was a monster hurricane that hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005. Many pets
were separated from their owners or were abandoned. People became aware that some areas had too
many adoptable animals and other areas had too few.
“Up North there are a lack of puppies and small dogs, so sometimes they’re shipping from South to North.
Sometimes they’re shipping from West to East,” she said. “It’s a great opportunity to reduce euthanasia
(killing animals) in some of these cities.”
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
According to Michael Morefield, shelter operations manager at the Arizona Animal Welfare League and
SPCA, Maricopa County has the second-largest rate of euthanasia for cats and dogs in the country. The
first is Los Angeles County.
Morefield said Chihuahuas and pit bulls are the most common breed put down in Arizona.
In 2012, he said, 2,476 Chihuahuas were euthanized.
“It’s massive; we have a very serious problem in Maricopa,” he said.
"A Tetris Puzzle"
Morefield said his group joined with US Airways last year to transport Chihuahuas out of Arizona. Over a
few months, the partnership transported nine dogs to other states and Canada.
“One of our dogs that was taken to Canada lasted three hours before he was adopted because they’re
unique up there,” he said.
For Jonathan McDonell, director of operations at HALO Animal Rescue, working with Dog Is My CoPilot
has been tremendously successful.
“It’s something that’s been done for a while," but it's speeding up, McDonell said.
He called it "a fantastic opportunity" for HALO to get dogs that have been there awhile into communities
that really want dogs.
Leigh Carter is the director of development at HALO. She said 12 of the 30 dogs that were sent to Idaho
last Friday have been adopted.
Rork, who pays for Dog Is My CoPilot mostly out of his own pocket, said he knows the animals he leaves
behind likely won’t survive. So he tries to pack as many dogs into the plane as possible.
“It’s like a Tetris puzzle trying get all the crates in the plane,” he said. “It really is a labor of love and
money, but I enjoy it.”
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PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
Juvenile justice program teaches boys life lessons and accountability
By Dallas Morning News, adapted by Newsela staff
04.05.15
DALLAS — Most judges don't form personal connections with the offenders who come before the court. Judge George Ashford is different. Each Monday, he
meets with minority boys in Dallas County who have gotten in trouble with the law to teach, preach and live by example.
Ashford, a black lawyer, is the judge of the Diversion Male Court (DMC), a six-month rehabilitation program for minority boys. DMC is staffed by men of color
and was created in response to the racial imbalances in the juvenile justice system. Many of the young boys and girls who get in trouble with the law are black
or Hispanic, while the lawyers and judges who are tasked with helping them to reform are often white.
DMC connects minority boys in Dallas to adults with whom they can identify, and who use a variety of methods to help them improve their behavior. DMC is
unique in Texas, and there are only a handful of programs like it in the country. Boys who participate in DMC have been accused of everything from
aggravated assault to burglary, and the program is their last chance to avoid a juvenile record.
Emphasizing Life Lessons
More than simply telling these boys to stay out of trouble, Ashford and his team teach life lessons about accountability, respect, responsibility and empathy.
According to Dr. Terry Smith, executive director of the Dallas County Juvenile Department and the woman who started DMC, the program helps boys mature
into adulthood. “These men are teaching them how to be men,” she said.
University of Texas at Dallas criminologist Alex R. Piquero, a nationally recognized juvenile justice expert, said DMC has an interesting approach to helping
youths who get into trouble with the law. "We should continue to experiment with new approaches and alternatives to sentencing, treatment and
rehabilitation,” he said.
Piquero also noted, however, that programs like DMC need to be evaluated over a long period of time in order to ensure that they are as effective as traditional
court when it comes to reforming young offenders.
One mother, a volunteer minister, described DMC as “an answer to prayer.” Her son is relatively new to the program. “Him getting into trouble was real hard
for me. I need him to learn to follow the rules,” she said. “I wish they had it when my nephew got in trouble. There wasn’t anyone to show they cared.”
Know Your Manners
DMC does not sentence boys who have committed crimes with terms of detention or probation. Instead, these boys are enrolled in a multi-level program that
promotes their personal growth.
Boys in DMC have to follow a number of rules that dictate how they behave, dress and carry themselves. Whether the boys are chubby-cheeked 10-year-olds
barely topping 4 feet tall or gangly 16-year-olds sporting wispy chin hair, they are required to wear pants firmly belted around their hips and collared shirts
that are carefully tucked in.
They are also expected to have excellent manners. “No, no, no,” probation officer Herman Guerra admonishes when a boy sits down without pulling out the
chair next to him for his mother. Guerra demonstrates: “Stand behind it; with both hands, pull it out.”
Helping Them To Open Up
Ashford wears a suit and tie instead of a robe when he talks to DMC boys, and he does not sit on the elevated bench where judges normally command the
court. With one boy, he discusses boxing; with another, auto repair. Every conversation leads back to a life lesson.
When a small 12-year-old with glasses and a wispy voice sits down, Ashford asks what he did on the recent snow day. The boy mumbles a short answer, and
Ashford persists, trying to get the boy to open up.
“How are you doing now in science?” he asks.
The boy’s grades are OK. However, James Hill, a probation officer, tells the judge that other kids at the boy’s school bully him.
Ashford tells the boy that because he has done everything he’s been asked, he will be promoted to the next stage of the program, where he will learn new
character traits, perform community service and come to court every other week.
Program's High Expectations
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When Smith decided to create DMC, she approached veteran juvenile officer Mario Love.
PACKET: Nature Vs. Nurture
“I actually laughed,” Love said, describing his first reaction to the idea.
He was doubtful that the program could work, and so were Ashford, Guerra and Hill.
“I’m happy to say I was proven wrong,” says Love, who is now a passionate advocate for the program.
Since DMC began, 258 boys have been referred by the district attorney’s office, the lawyers who normally argue for probation and detention for offenders.
Some 143 enrolled in the program, and 25 more are currently under consideration.
DMC is demanding. Probation officers meet with each boy weekly to see if he is abiding by the 7 p.m. curfew and how he is doing at school. The officer also
administers random drug tests. Another officer who is in charge of making sure the boy does not skip school may call the boy each morning to wake him up,
and text him throughout the day to check on his whereabouts. Each boy must keep up with his school work and is tutored if necessary.
All participants are required to learn “character traits” such as trustworthiness and respect and to write a half-page journal entry every day documenting how
these traits affect their behavior.
Building Blocks Of Character
Overall, the program focuses on building character. Sometimes this requires adapting to the needs of each youth. When Love learned that a 17-year-old in the
program had recently become a father, he added parenting classes to the barber classes the boy was already taking.
“We know you’re here because of an offense, but we need to look at what’s lacking around you and what services can we put into play to make you a better
person,” Love said.
According to Ashford, the program can help kids who have developed bad habits and made bad decisions to turn their lives around. He described how a
youth's experience at DMC can lead to a dramatic change. “He gets some positive influences," he said. "He gets the probation officer who really shows him they
are concerned about him, care about him. They get the right kind of feedback from the judge, that, you know, we’re really trying to help you. Maybe some of
the services kick in, the counseling addresses some issues in the home that help both him and the parent."
“Those cases are deeply satisfying," he observed.
Uncomfortable, But Necessary Topic
Race is central to the structure and approach of DMC, and Smith recognizes that race can be an “uncomfortable topic." "Does that mean we ignore it?" she
asked.
Blacks make up about 22 percent of Dallas County’s juvenile population but about 44 percent of those in the county’s juvenile justice system, according to the
Juvenile Department. In other words, an unusually large proportion of African-American youth end up in trouble with the law. Experts call this "overrepresentation." Hispanic youth are slightly underrepresented, meaning that the proportion of Hispanics who enter the the juvenile justice system is below
average, while white youth are highly underrepresented.
Many experts say that these numbers do not necessarily mean that black and Hispanic kids commit more crimes than white kids do. Rather, minority boys
may be more likely to be caught and punished for the crimes they commit because they lack the resources many whites have.
Biases In The System
Darlene Byrne, a state district judge in Travis County who is president-elect of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, said that there are
racial biases in how youths are treated in the juvenile justice system.
Experts point to the case of Ethan Couch, a white teenager who killed four people in Tarrant County two years ago while driving drunk. Couch was 16 at the
time of the crash, and it was his third alcohol-related offense, yet a judge did not sentence Couch to serve jail time. It would have been very unlikely for a black
teen to receive such a forgiving sentence, the experts say.
Piquero said that it’s hard to know why minorities are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system, but argued that biases may not be the whole
explanation. “It’s real simple to look at who is in the facilities and say, ‘Oh, well the system is totally biased,’” he said. “That may be true at some level or to
some extent. We just don’t know how much.”
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