[Music]
[Applause]
meet Darrell havens as a teenager
Darrell was a skilled car thief that is
until a dramatic police ambush left him
permanently paralyzed from the neck down
after the injury Darrell was no longer a
danger to society but he received a
prison sentence of 20 years do you know
how much it cost to incarcerate someone
like Darrell it’s about $200,000 for
each year of his sentence times 20 years
is four million dollars that’s four
million taxpayer dollars to incarcerate
a man who’s never going to walk again
let alone steal a car is this a wise use
of our resources
imagine how else you could spend four
million dollars how many at-risk youth
you could send to college turns out it’s
in the hundreds but this story is not
just about Darrell about one third of
the people in the US correctional system
are folks who given the right kind of
treatment and support will not in fact
go on to reoffending become a danger to
society so if we could provide them if
we could predict who’s actually
dangerous then we could use our limited
resources to provide the right kind of
care to the right people our communities
would become safer we all win but how
the heck can we predict who is going to
be dangerous well I’m a cognitive
scientist and that’s the question that
drives me so together with a team of
nationally distinguished scholars
especially from the mind research
network here in New Mexico and with the
invaluable support of the MacArthur
Foundation we’ve sought some answers so
tonight I’d like to share with you what
I’ve learned on this journey both and
how a better understanding of the mind
and brain can help us identify new ways
of predicting and managing problem
behavior and how we as voters and
taxpayers can build safer healthier
communities
by investing in evidence-based justice
policies okay but can we actually use
science to predict who’s going to
reoffending courts it turns out I
already try because they have to make
difficult decisions every day about who
to incarcerate who to treat who to
release and unfortunately the accuracy
of these tools that they use to make
their predictions is fairly limited
which means that dangerous individuals
are being released into the communities
non dangerous ones are being retained
hardly anyone’s getting the treatment
appropriate to their risk level and we
taxpayers are paying for these missteps
now to their credit these courts often
rely on established risk factors
information about the offender’s
criminal history lifestyle and mental
health like whether or not you have
problems with impulse control but
there’s one thing that all these tools
ignore it’s the information processing
system that enables all of these
important experiences your brain so if
we could capture how the brain behaves
while we’re saying acting impulsively
then in theory it should be possible to
predict who’s at greatest risk now
actually put it putting such a theory to
the test would be no simple task you’d
have to scan the brains of about a
hundred consenting inmates and since you
can’t exactly bring them out of prison
for a brain scan you’d have to find a
way to bring a 30,000 pound scanner to
them then once scan you’d have to wait
for them to get released from prison and
they then wait for half of that half of
them to Rhea fend them could you test
your ability to predict those rear
fenders from the initial brain scans now
all that might sound like a lot of work
and my wife will tell you about all the
dinner parties that she had to attend
without me because her husband was in
prison
but four years and a couple of headaches
later we did it so what did we find
well we found that a region of the brain
known as the cingulate cortex was
telling us something interesting we
found that the people whose cingulate
cortex was highly engaged highly active
during their scan session well over the
course of four years they were only half
as likely to get read is those with low
cingulate activity now this may not
actually be such a coincidence because
the cingulate cortex is known to be
heavily involved in the ability to
control your impulses so what we believe
is going on is that people who are
better able to control their impulses as
reflected in their brain function are
relatively protected from reoffending
now we also asked a second question
which is how well can we predict those
reoffending ‘he’s get really interesting
because we found that for about 80 out
of the hundred offenders that we scanned
we could correctly predict which ones
would ultimately riaf end
just by looking at their brain in action
now mind you this is a good ten percent
more accurate than many of the methods
traditionally used by courts to assess
risk so these findings raise the
possibility of improving upon existing
measures by harnessing the power of the
brain to shape behavior now that sounds
lovely but shouldn’t we be worried that
authorities are gonna use this kind of
technology to read our minds and lock us
up before they’ve done anything wrong I
mean that’s what the science fiction
movies have all been warning us about
right but how worried should we really
be well you can rest assured that the
research I presented to you tonight
still very much in its early stages it’s
just a proof of concept certainly not
ready for application but I think that’s
exactly the point because as the science
develops we need to be able to
anticipate its potential uses
and misuses and the fact is that many
courts today are already using risk
assessment technologies to justify
incarcerated offenders for periods far
beyond their completed prison term
it’s called involuntary civil commitment
and it removes the offenders basic
freedoms on the probability that they
might still be dangerous so given that
courts are already using such risk
assessment technologies to make these
kinds of decisions are we not permitted
perhaps even obligated to strive to do
better see the more we can draw upon
good science to inform our justice
decisions the better we can address the
unique needs of individual offenders
research has shown that when we tailor
our treatment programs to offenders
unique needs they do better and when
they do better our communities do better
so what have we learned well first I
think we’ve learned and that the people
who make up our justice system face a
daunting task because they have to make
these difficult decisions every day that
trade-off between this person’s safety
in that person’s freedom they shouldn’t
have to do that alone they can’t just
rely on a scientist because science is
just a tool one that can be used for
good or bad so we need your help
as responsible citizens and voters to
help us identify how we can best
leverage the scientific evidence to make
smarter justice decisions because
ultimately evidence-based justice policy
is really our best hope for keeping our
communities both safe and free now we’ve
also learned that a better understanding
of the brain can potentially help us to
better understand our own behavior now
does this mean we’re hardwired for bad
behavior well to the contrary see people
much like our brains are changing
dynamic systems so what if instead of
locking people up at every impulse we
invest in that change what if we took
all the money that was wasted on daryl
havens and all the money that
being spent right now on hundreds of
thousands of low-risk offenders and we
use that to invest in our communities
job training education treatment
community building as voters this is
your hard-earned money at work how will
you spend it
you
[Applause]
meet Darrell havens as a teenager
Darrell was a skilled car thief that is
until a dramatic police ambush left him
permanently paralyzed from the neck down
after the injury Darrell was no longer a
danger to society but he received a
prison sentence of 20 years do you know
how much it cost to incarcerate someone
like Darrell it’s about $200,000 for
each year of his sentence times 20 years
is four million dollars that’s four
million taxpayer dollars to incarcerate
a man who’s never going to walk again
let alone steal a car is this a wise use
of our resources
imagine how else you could spend four
million dollars how many at-risk youth
you could send to college turns out it’s
in the hundreds but this story is not
just about Darrell about one third of
the people in the US correctional system
are folks who given the right kind of
treatment and support will not in fact
go on to reoffending become a danger to
society so if we could provide them if
we could predict who’s actually
dangerous then we could use our limited
resources to provide the right kind of
care to the right people our communities
would become safer we all win but how
the heck can we predict who is going to
be dangerous well I’m a cognitive
scientist and that’s the question that
drives me so together with a team of
nationally distinguished scholars
especially from the mind research
network here in New Mexico and with the
invaluable support of the MacArthur
Foundation we’ve sought some answers so
tonight I’d like to share with you what
I’ve learned on this journey both and
how a better understanding of the mind
and brain can help us identify new ways
of predicting and managing problem
behavior and how we as voters and
taxpayers can build safer healthier
communities
by investing in evidence-based justice
policies okay but can we actually use
science to predict who’s going to
reoffending courts it turns out I
already try because they have to make
difficult decisions every day about who
to incarcerate who to treat who to
release and unfortunately the accuracy
of these tools that they use to make
their predictions is fairly limited
which means that dangerous individuals
are being released into the communities
non dangerous ones are being retained
hardly anyone’s getting the treatment
appropriate to their risk level and we
taxpayers are paying for these missteps
now to their credit these courts often
rely on established risk factors
information about the offender’s
criminal history lifestyle and mental
health like whether or not you have
problems with impulse control but
there’s one thing that all these tools
ignore it’s the information processing
system that enables all of these
important experiences your brain so if
we could capture how the brain behaves
while we’re saying acting impulsively
then in theory it should be possible to
predict who’s at greatest risk now
actually put it putting such a theory to
the test would be no simple task you’d
have to scan the brains of about a
hundred consenting inmates and since you
can’t exactly bring them out of prison
for a brain scan you’d have to find a
way to bring a 30,000 pound scanner to
them then once scan you’d have to wait
for them to get released from prison and
they then wait for half of that half of
them to Rhea fend them could you test
your ability to predict those rear
fenders from the initial brain scans now
all that might sound like a lot of work
and my wife will tell you about all the
dinner parties that she had to attend
without me because her husband was in
prison
but four years and a couple of headaches
later we did it so what did we find
well we found that a region of the brain
known as the cingulate cortex was
telling us something interesting we
found that the people whose cingulate
cortex was highly engaged highly active
during their scan session well over the
course of four years they were only half
as likely to get read is those with low
cingulate activity now this may not
actually be such a coincidence because
the cingulate cortex is known to be
heavily involved in the ability to
control your impulses so what we believe
is going on is that people who are
better able to control their impulses as
reflected in their brain function are
relatively protected from reoffending
now we also asked a second question
which is how well can we predict those
reoffending ‘he’s get really interesting
because we found that for about 80 out
of the hundred offenders that we scanned
we could correctly predict which ones
would ultimately riaf end
just by looking at their brain in action
now mind you this is a good ten percent
more accurate than many of the methods
traditionally used by courts to assess
risk so these findings raise the
possibility of improving upon existing
measures by harnessing the power of the
brain to shape behavior now that sounds
lovely but shouldn’t we be worried that
authorities are gonna use this kind of
technology to read our minds and lock us
up before they’ve done anything wrong I
mean that’s what the science fiction
movies have all been warning us about
right but how worried should we really
be well you can rest assured that the
research I presented to you tonight
still very much in its early stages it’s
just a proof of concept certainly not
ready for application but I think that’s
exactly the point because as the science
develops we need to be able to
anticipate its potential uses
and misuses and the fact is that many
courts today are already using risk
assessment technologies to justify
incarcerated offenders for periods far
beyond their completed prison term
it’s called involuntary civil commitment
and it removes the offenders basic
freedoms on the probability that they
might still be dangerous so given that
courts are already using such risk
assessment technologies to make these
kinds of decisions are we not permitted
perhaps even obligated to strive to do
better see the more we can draw upon
good science to inform our justice
decisions the better we can address the
unique needs of individual offenders
research has shown that when we tailor
our treatment programs to offenders
unique needs they do better and when
they do better our communities do better
so what have we learned well first I
think we’ve learned and that the people
who make up our justice system face a
daunting task because they have to make
these difficult decisions every day that
trade-off between this person’s safety
in that person’s freedom they shouldn’t
have to do that alone they can’t just
rely on a scientist because science is
just a tool one that can be used for
good or bad so we need your help
as responsible citizens and voters to
help us identify how we can best
leverage the scientific evidence to make
smarter justice decisions because
ultimately evidence-based justice policy
is really our best hope for keeping our
communities both safe and free now we’ve
also learned that a better understanding
of the brain can potentially help us to
better understand our own behavior now
does this mean we’re hardwired for bad
behavior well to the contrary see people
much like our brains are changing
dynamic systems so what if instead of
locking people up at every impulse we
invest in that change what if we took
all the money that was wasted on daryl
havens and all the money that
being spent right now on hundreds of
thousands of low-risk offenders and we
use that to invest in our communities
job training education treatment
community building as voters this is
your hard-earned money at work how will
you spend it
you
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