I do not have sons, but the title of this book
hooked me as soon as I stepped into a library last year. I will explain why.
Let's start by saying that when I was a child, my parents discouraged me
from watching violent cartoons and movies. In fact, I abhorred those myself. I
found violent movies and cartoons revolting. My parents fostered my curiosity
about the world around me and motivated me to read and watch programs that
inspired me to reflect and think critically. They also taught me to respect
animals and the natural world. While they did consider it important to be able to
defend myself and be physically strong, they did not celebrate violence nor
promoted it in any way, so it was strange for me to see that some of my classmates
admired the violent American cartoons and movies.
Today I continue to feel confused and puzzled
when I see how fascinated with violence so many children, teenagers and adults
are.
Violence is a useful tool of fascist regimes.
It is used to generate profits while people lose their lives as a result of it.
Why? Because violence is at odds with empathy. Violence drives people to shoot
without respect and consideration for the lives of others, whether they are
human or non-human.
There are many forms of violence. Gun
violence is one of them, but it is not the only one. Yet gun violence is a big
piece of the enormous puzzle of violence that society tends to conveniently
ignore, because different forms of violence get normalized on a regular basis. This
is something that Garbarino analyses carefully in his book, so I will let you
discover his introspective examination of the problem.
I’ve always been aware of the fact that
the most vulnerable children, teenagers and adults can be heavily influenced by
the violence they grow up watching. For this reason, I’ve never understood why psychologists
and sociologists don’t do enough to raise awareness on the impact of these
influences.
Don’t they have a responsibility as
professionals to do so? Are they so used to the violence they grew up with that
they have acquiesced to it and do nothing about it?
When I visited this library and came across this title, I opened the book at once… I was astonished to discover that Dr.
Garbarino expressed some of the thoughts and concerns I had been harboring in
my mind for decades. I needed a resource like this one as an outlet to express
myself; I needed answers to my questions. Furthermore, the book also offers a
thorough approach to the problem with practical steps, ideas and recommendations
as well as comprehensive plans of action to tackle the issue at every level.
The content of Lost Boys is of value to parents, educators, social
workers, political leaders and any member of society who cares deeply about
this issue.
The last
part of the book offers a vast array of resources with contact details of organizations
and associations that provide, guidance, support and training for families and
their children.
I am dividing this post into several parts to
present the topic with clarity.
It is my hope that this post will inspire
people to raise awareness, spark reflections and effect change.
Facts and statistics
It is
well known that young men are about ten times as likely as young women to
commit murder.
Homicide rates in general and our juvenile
homicide rate remain higher in the United States than they are in other
industrialized societies, such as the countries of Europe. In America death
due to gun violence is 26 times more common than in European countries. Canada
has a youth homicide rate that is at least three times lower than the one in
the United States of America. When this book was first published, however,
in the 1990s, Canada youth homicide was ten times lower than in America.
In
the mid-1990s Boston was able to cut its youth homicide rate to zero for a
period of two years due to a number of city programs designed to address these
issues. Chapter seven of the book focuses on such programs.
Cultural
roots and how they relate to violence
The
patterns of violence associated with slavery left their impact in the Southern
states of the United State of America. Dr. Garbarino highlights the work of
social analysts who explain that the highest homicide rates are in the states
that constituted the Confederacy during the Civil War. These are the states
with the highest homicide rates. On the other hand, the states with the lowest
rates are in New England and the northern Midwest. For example, in 1996
Louisiana’s homicide rate was twelve times that of South Dakota. This pattern
was as true in the nineteenth century as it is today.
The
effects of exposing kids to violent screen content
Dr. Garbarino puts into words the concerns
that I harbored in my mind for so long. The book was published in the 1990s and
nothing has been done to address the roots of it. It is important to emphasize
that guns are the first cause of death of children in the United States of
America. In fact, the situation has become much worse since he wrote the book. My
first goal here is to highlight the roots of the issue because they have been
consistently ignored and even denied. Dr. Garbarino validated my concerns by
exposing the research on this, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post:
“Many American kids watch hours and hours of
atrocities, day after day, week after week. While some may label it
entertainment, it is—from the point of view of a child’s development—a
documentary of atrocities with the potential to traumatize and corrupt.”
He also analyses the effects of violent video games carefully, but I will let
you dig into that yourself.
Aside
from this book, I share recent research done on almost two thousand children
which clearly shows the influence of television on violent behaviors. I share a
link at the bottom of this post. Dr. Garbarino’s book looks into the
research that was already available when he published the book back in the
1990s, and one cannot help but wonder why nothing has been done over this…
“Analyses of television content reveal that
a typical American child can witness more images of death and destruction from
the comfort of his living room than any cop or soldier witnesses in actuality
in the line of duty in a lifetime. An analysis for the American Psychological
Association highlights some important elements of this exposure: ‘good’
characters or heroes commit 40 percent of the violent acts, more than a third
of the bad characters are not punished, and more than 70 percent of the aggressors
show no remorse and experience no criticism or penalty for their violent
actions.”
Psychologist Leonard Eron and his colleagues
researched the effects of the negative influences of violent images by
following a group of kids from childhood into adulthood. “Just as some people
are more vulnerable to developing cancer from smoking than others, so too are
some children more affected by television violence than others.” If you take a
moment to reflect on this, you may compare the situation to other problems that
were ignored at the expense of human health. For example, the effects of
exposure of children to violence has been treated like the effects of cigarette
smoke on human health. Deniers have tried to deny the effects until they cannot
hide the evidence anymore. For at least three or four decades, physicians and
medical institutions ignored and downplayed the effects of cigarette smoke on
human health. Tobacco companies took advantage of this by promoting cigarettes
as “healthful” and “safe”. I am sure the readers of this blog will think of
other analogies here.
Recent research supports the claim that
exposure of boys exposed to violent screen content in the preschool years are
more likely to become antisocial and violent themselves a decade later.
I appreciate how Dr. Garbarino raises awareness
on another critical aspect of the issue: the way shallow materialism dominates
some of their violent behaviors. He makes it clear and easy to understand.
A
comprehensive approach to the problem
The
author says he could have ended up like one of the violent kids himself, but he
had a strong social network of support: his family and his teachers provided
that.
One
important aspect to pay attention to is the need to have a person in their
lives that they can fully trust. Also, having a life purpose has been
shown to help these boys turn away from violent crimes and behaviors.
The need for social programs that
should start working even before the kids are born is paramount. The author provides
examples of mothers who get guidance on how to deal with their children even
before their babies are born.
There are also specific programs to teach
children and teenagers how to develop skills to manage their anger and interact
in meaningful respectful ways:
“The skills include nonaggressive tactics for
expressing a complaint, responding to the feelings of others, recovering from a
stressful conversation, responding to anger, keeping out of fights, helping
others, dealing with an accusation, dealing with group pressure, expressing
affection, and responding to failure.”
Furthermore, Dr. Garbarino suggests the
incorporation of spirituality and he details how. Many lives will be saved by taking the
recommendations in this book seriously.
Access
to guns is also part of the problem and he delves into this issue as well.
I strongly encourage you to read Lost Boys.
Share it. There is a long list of resources at the end that I hope will be
helpful.
The book, however, does have some flaws and
weaknesses.
Flaws and weaknesses
1) One
aspect he glosses over is the role of sexism in some of these dysfunctional
social situations. He does acknowledge how the boys consider girls weaker and
that behaviors of girls are viewed as less than those of boys. He points out
the problem but he does not offer a plan to address this distorted view the
boys have. Likewise, he conveniently ignores sexual violence. Why?
2) Not every traumatized child becomes violent
and abusive. Yet Dr. Garbarino presents the information in a way that suggests
this is the case, which may lead to generalizations and prejudices. Dr.
Garbarino shares details about their lives to explain their dangerous behaviors.
He inveigles the reader into believing that the reason for their violent
behaviors has to do with their survival, for example, or with a sense of
impending danger that is a threat to them, but his argument does not hold water
when he refers to how some boys torture or kill animals who are in no way
threatening to them. Animals are the most vulnerable beings and they are not a
threat to the boys’ safety, so in these specific cases we may be dealing with a
psychopath instead.
3) Dr.
Garbarino should have devoted an entire chapter to psychopaths to help people
identify them. He only wrote two lines about psychopaths. I find this deeply
disturbing.
4) Another aspect of the book that I found
troubling is the fact that he is so obsessed about the lack of compassion
toward violent boys. Really? Strangely enough, I perceive lack of compassion
toward victims instead. He is so invested in giving the violent boys second
chances that he forgets the potential victims of the boys “who fall through the
cracks.” As far as I know, violent boys can grow into men who are allowed to
become presidents, members of the Supreme Court and Congressmen. The violent
boys can be easily forgiven and empowered while the victims continue to be
bullied, retraumatized and easily forgotten by society.
Conclusion
I recommend Lost
Boys, but I do acknowledge that it has some serious flaws and weaknesses
that should be addressed with an expanded version of the book.
I read an old edition because my local
library system does not have this specific book. I decided to purchase it
second-hand. I will pass it on to share it with others and raise
awareness.
Relevant
links:
Recent
research shows clear link between early exposure to violence and violent
behavior:
https://research.chusj.org/en/Media/News/2025/Violence-on-TV-what-happens-to-children-who-watch
A case of
severe bullying and the trauma that results from it
The Trump
administration is cutting funds to programs that help to reduce violence
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/31/trump-federal-funding-cuts-crime
