Boys at Risk conference to explore roots of male violence
The topic of male violence will come under scrutiny at a conference in Santa Fe, where academics, authors and researchers in the field will be asking ‘what makes men violent?’
What is at the core of the problem? What has been overlooked? Why are 90 per cent of people in federal and state prisons for committing violent acts male?
“I think it behooves us to examine not just the sociological issues that we usually examine, such as poverty and race, but also look at a very complex intermixing of biology, psychology and society,” says Santa Fe Boys Educational Foundation President Paul Golding.
Golding’s organisation is hosting the 2019 Boys at Risk Conference from 1-3 May, with presentations to be made by University of Pennsylvania professor and author of The Anatomy of Violence, Adrian Raine and Richard Tremblay, a University of Montreal Professor and winner of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology.
The conference will examine the links between early childhood development and violent crimes committed later in life.
According to the Santa Fe Boys Educational Foundation the juvenile arrest rate for boys for violent crime is four times greater than for girls.
Adult statistics on incarceration for murder, rape, robbery and assault show that men are 20 times more likely to be locked away for these crimes than women.
The Boys at Risk Conference will ask whether research can show the association between violent tendencies later in life and “the origins of developmental psychopathology and regulatory behaviour problems early in life.”
“Are boys more vulnerable–more at risk–to the interplay between evolutionary processes and experiential influences on gene expression that begins prenatally and progresses during infancy and early childhood?”
Strategies will also be presented for dealing with boys at risk of developing a violent pathway and preventative interventions through early childhood and middle school years.
TAKE ACTION FOR MEN’S HEALTH
View the 2019 Boys at Risk Conference agenda