The New York Times | Richard Friedman | June 28, 2014

ADOLESCENCE is practically synonymous in our culture with risk taking, emotional drama and all forms of outlandish behavior. Until very recently, the widely accepted explanation for adolescent angst has been psychological. Developmentally, teenagers face a number of social and emotional challenges, like starting to separate from their parents, getting accepted into a peer group and figuring out who they really are. It doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to realize that these are anxiety-provoking transitions.

But there is a darker side to adolescence that, until now, was poorly understood: a surge during teenage years in anxiety and fearfulness. Largely because of a quirk of brain development, adolescents, on average, experience more anxiety and fear and have a harder time learning how not to be afraid than either children or adults. Continue reading »

By Noah Gilbert and Scott Cacciola | The New York Times | June 11, 2014

LOS ANGELES — He did not know what season it was. He could not remember two objects after three minutes. He had difficulty drawing a clock.

A Los Angeles doctor described Donald Sterling, the embattled owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, as “unable to reasonably carry out the duties of trustee,” according to legal documents filed Wednesday by Sterling’s estranged wife, Rochelle.

Donald Sterling’s lawyers disputed that characterization, maintaining that “he has all of his capacities about him” and that he should not be stripped of his control of the Clippers. Continue reading »

The New York Times | June 8, 2014 | Editorial Board

See also: Why are we putting teenagers in solitary confinement?

States are sending fewer and fewer children to juvenile correctional facilities, partly in response to research showing that locking up young people increases the risk that they will eventually drop out of school and become permanently entangled with the justice system.

This is all to the good. But dealing with low-risk children through community-guidance programs leaves behind a population of severely troubled children who often wind up in solitary confinement instead of receiving the special help they need. Continue reading »

By Richard Friedman | May 27, 2014 | The New York Times

Mass killers like Elliot Rodger teach society all the wrong lessons about the connection between violence, mental illness and guns — and what we should do about it. One of the biggest misconceptions, pushed by our commentators and politicians, is that we can prevent these tragedies if we improve our mental health care system. It is a comforting notion, but nothing could be further from the truth.

And although the intense media attention might suggest otherwise, mass killings — when four or more people are killed at once — are very rare events. In 2012, they accounted for only about 0.15 percent of all homicides in the United States. Because of their horrific nature, however, they receive lurid media attention that distorts the public’s perception about the real risk posed by the mentally ill. Continue reading »

Editorial Board | The New York Times | May 24, 2014

For more than a decade, researchers across multiple disciplines have been issuing reports on the widespread societal and economic damage caused by America’s now-40-year experiment in locking up vast numbers of its citizens. If there is any remaining disagreement about the destructiveness of this experiment, it mirrors the so-called debate over climate change.

In both cases, overwhelming evidence shows a crisis that threatens society as a whole. In both cases, those who study the problem have called for immediate correction.

Several recent reports provide some of the most comprehensive and compelling proof yet that the United States “has gone past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,” and that mass incarceration itself is “a source of injustice.” Continue reading »