Transforming Trauma: Episode 129

Without early-stage therapeutic intervention, many at-risk youth face a higher likelihood of becoming adult inmates within the ill-equipped and wildly expensive US prison system. Two advocates, operating at opposite ends of the institutional spectrum, believe that change is possible, especially when we extend trauma-informed support to the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society. 

 

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth welcomes David and Katya Dow to provide their observations regarding trauma care deficiencies within the juvenile and criminal justice ecosystem. David founded The Texas Innocence Network and is the director of TIN’s Death Penalty Clinic at the University of Houston Law. Katya is a lawyer receiving her Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from NYU. In 2014, the pair established the Juvenile and Children’s Advocacy Project, which provides legal and social services to at-risk, disadvantaged, traumatized, and marginalized youth.

 

“I became cognizant of some real gaps in understanding in these systems about how behaviors that stem from trauma are misinterpreted and treated as delinquency or misbehavior,” says Katya. “Nobody really understood what was happening with these kids or how trauma played a part.” 

 

When the root cause of a child’s early trauma and adaptive survival patterns are ignored, the failure reverberates beyond that individual. “I’ve represented maybe 120 guys, and I can count on one hand the number who I think came into this world broken,” notes David. “The others ended up on death row not because they came into the world with a gun in their hands, but because of trauma that happened to them.”  From this perspective, trauma-informed approaches for children, families, communities and systems is urgently needed.

 

The pair emphasize that providing trauma-informed care is cost-effective over the long-run, not to mention more humane. “When it comes to the [US] criminal and juvenile justice systems, [we] can’t do math. We don’t want to spend $50,000 today, and the cost of not doing that,” asserts David, “is gonna be an enormous multiple.”  So many individuals, families and communities are being devastated by the lack of adequate resources and effective trauma-informed treatment.  Both David and Katya are passionate about changing this.

 

Transforming Trauma is grateful to David and Katya for their heartfelt commitment to bringing trauma-informed care to all levels of institutional advocacy.   

 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

 

Lessons From Death Row Inmates – David R. Dow TedTalk

The Texas Innocence Network

Juvenile and Children’s Advocacy Project

 

GUEST CONTACT AND BIO

 

David R. Dow

 

David R. Dow is the Cullen Professor at the University of Houston Law Center. He and his wife, Katya Dow, established the Juvenile and Children’s Advocacy Project in 2014. Katya will complete her M.A. in counseling psychology from NYU in December.