So, we were basically talking about displaced aggression when we met last. So, today we will know continue with that. Our focus now is to go towards that end of aggressive behavior, which invites the intervention of the experts, which invites the individual who is actually displaying aggression in that form to get into touch with people who specializes in certain form of maladaptive behavior handling, so that he or she can get some benefit out of their expertise. Basically what we had done was that we had been talking about how an individual becomes aggressive, what could be the strong correlates of aggression. What in fact triggers aggression, how it can become very brutal, we took a long spectrum and now we are going towards the end of that end of the spectrum of aggressive behavior, where the behavior is not considered to be normal, that form of aggression is not considered to be normal. We will debate at two points, because certain form of aggressive behavior you would realize that although clinically it is considered to be a pathological form of aggressive behavior, but somehow culturally it is still accepted, culturally people do not consider that to be an act of a pathological aggression, so that also we will debate. So last time we had talked about the displaced aggression, just I thought I will once again begin with it, because here you find the reference of bullying, finding a scapegoat, finding a weaker member of your own community whom you can thrash and in psychology you will find whole lot of literature on bullying behavior. Today what we are trying to primarily do is to look at the pathological form of aggressive behavior and here also we will move gradually, you remember our first module where we had started with a normal set of behavior and then we had come to borderline defenses and from borderline defenses we went to a pathological form of behavior. Here also we will exactly do the same, till now we have talked about the normal form of aggressive behavior, we would now be talking about the borderline cases of aggressive behavior and where it takes a turn where it becomes pathological. Now aggression is also considered to be an outcome of compensatory behavior or reaction formation, you remember we had talked about compensation, we had talked about reaction formation when we were talking about defense mechanisms, you remember task oriented reaction patterns, defense oriented reaction pattern, there we had talked about it. If you look at the compensatory behavior, it is usually of two types, one is that there could be a compensation in kind or there is another form of compensatory behavior what is called as compensation by substitute. Now, what happens in the case of compensation in kind, one has an unusual drive which finally makes him or her achieve in the area where the short coming lies. So, I as an individual realizes my deficiency and put excessive effort in order to overcome it. Now, why it is called compensation is that usually say it is something like you have a small pit in the ground and you are told to fill it, the moment you realize that your lawn has a small pit and say you dig out much more of mud to compensate for it, fill the gap, what you finally do is far more compared to what was actually needed. So, compensation in kind refers to that type of thing, usually what happens in the normal situation you will be told that say you are deficient of certain score say for example, say you are in your school days and the report of one of the test comes which suggests that you are weak at mathematics for example. The moment you realize that I am weaker in my numerical abilities all you do is that you will more effort parents will look at it they will try to make you more make more effort in that area maybe you are given a private tutorship in order to fill that gap, but it is not that say you start only and only working in the area of mathematics because you want to fill the gap that does not happen. So, that is a normal way of handling deficiencies, but in compensatory behavior what happens you realize the gap the deficiency and you try to compensate for it and that compensation usually is very, very you know vigorous type of an attempt. So, it would be something like you know majority of your time that you devote for academic activities is dedicated only to numerical abilities. So, that is now compensation in kind. So, it basically is an intensification of something which is otherwise considered to be normal. So, when you try to know come forward with the mechanism which will help you overcome the problem the short coming that you are experiencing it is a normal behavior when you make it excessively intense it becomes compensation in kind. Usually people who are you know trying to compensate for a deficiency that they have realized you would realize that if you touch them on that issue suddenly become very aggressive. Now we come to compensation by substitute this is a different mechanism here also you realize a deficiency, but then you know that it is beyond my purview you know I cannot handle it. So, what you do is that you develop ability of some other kind to compensate for what you do not have now usually take the same example in your school days you get your test results and you realize that you are extremely you have done extremely bad at mathematics. The very realization that you have been under performer in your mathematics test makes you recall that over last couple of years since class fifth or sixth you have been not terribly performing in your mathematics test or later on you realize that I am even you know bad at physics I have difficulty memorizing all those long long reactions. So, you cannot do well in my chemistry tests, but then you realize that somehow you play hockey very well you play football very well you play cricket very well and then comes the you know situation where you start realizing that I am excellent and at something, but I have been consistently poor at something. Compensation by substitute would be that you use the skill that you have you maximize it so that it can compensate for the loss that it is being incurred. So, I know that I cannot do good at my numerical things and therefore, I compensate it by becoming the best player of my school team. I realize that my school does not have a choice, but to keep me you know holding with themselves in most of the schools you would realize that you have a set of students who are academically weak the school would have otherwise not entertained them in their school, but still they take pride in doing that because these are the students who are very good at track and field events at sports and they bring all those laurels to the school and therefore, they are still retained. In jobs in most of the institutions of higher education you find certain seats which are reserved for students who have been exceptional players in their school days. So, you realize that there is a possibility that if I do not have an ability and my all my best effort still cannot make me compensate for it. Let me know extra achieve in areas where I am very good, where I am excellent and this is compensation by substitute. Now, this is a common means of adjustment to failure and frustration. I have failed in something, there is something has been a great source of frustration for me and then I try to compensate it and compensatory behavior usually boosts your ego and it positively affects your self-steem. So, if you are successful in terms of compensating the deficiency that you had in the past, it further adds to your ego strength, your self-steem increases and that means that overall you are far more stable, far more happier. Compensation as a mechanism has nothing wrong in it. The reason why we are discussing compensation in kind and compensation by substitute is that there is certain degree of frustration and aggression which is attached to the compensatory behavior. So, as I told you sometime back that in compensation in kind because you put much extra effort in trying to plug in the deficiency that you have realized, what happens is that the moment you are touched upon the softer issue, the issue of deficiency or the extra effort that you are making, it makes you aggressive. Similarly, if you are trying to compensate by substitute, you would ensure that nobody should point finger to the area of your original deficiency. Everybody should point finger at the area where you have developed at a strength and you have achieved. The moment somebody points finger towards the original area of deficiency, it perturbs you, it makes you very aggressive. This is how this compensatory mechanism fuels aggressive behavior, but as such this behavior is not considered to be pathological unless you take certain attempts which does not make you pathological, but can make others realize that you are perhaps doing something which otherwise you should not have done. Very recently last week when we had this medicine research, there was a news of women volleyball player from Lucknow. She lost one of her foot sometime back. So, it was a national level player of volleyball, well known player and some thing took place in the train and she was thrown out of the running train and finally one of her foot was imputed. This means that she can no more play volleyball. The reason I am quoting her example is that last week there was a news saying that she has taken training in mountaineering and this week perhaps she will be making an attempt to climb Mount Everest. You realize your deficiency, one of your foot is imputed and you realize that you can no more be seen in the field of the court of volleyball.  This is a form of compensatory behavior. I know of somebody who has the clubbed fit, you have seen the fit people instead of our foot are like this, but some people have fit like this. So he had this clubbed fit and that too his toe was somehow like this. So this means half of the fit will basically bear the whole body weight and in certain months of the year when you have reduced level of moisture in the air, when you would walk for long because of the dry skin and because the whole body weight was on that part of the fit, the skin of the fit will crack. I have seen it myself, it used to crack and it would not be a profuse bleeding, but some amount of blood at times used to come, but otherwise it would hurt because the skin would crack even though it is not bleeding it used to hurt him. And because we do not have shoes for people like this, so he was forced only and only to wear sleeper and I have seen him he was very active. He was the one who would go to the field very frequently meet the clients to all type of staffs very active and would ensure that he walks where rest all others walk. He was always given the choice that why do not you take a scooter somebody who is on a scooter or a bike, why do not you sit at the back and he or she can make you reached that point and he will always ensure that I will walk, he will have cracks in the evening his wound would hurt like anything he would apply ointments and all those things, but he would ensure that I would walk. These are compensatory mechanisms, I know of another interesting person very well known person who was at one of the famous institutes in our country, he was a faculty there and at some point in time during the process of negotiation for marriage, he was made to realize that you do not have the wealth of my proportion and therefore, you should not have even thought of coming to our house for a relationship. The reason was that he was somebody in the teaching capacity and had gone to a grooms place probable grooms place who was from a very very affluent family very rich family all those into trades diamond trade and stuffs like this. And after this episode within very short span of time he decided to leave India he went abroad again remained in the same profession but went abroad and I am told I have not heard from the primary source I have heard from the secondary source that several years later he came back went to the same person whom he had initially gone to for negotiating marriage he went there with his passbook and he said that now I have left this country I am there and this is my passbook I will not ask you how much you have in your bank account but now you can see my bank account. These are different types of stories you will here know hundreds and hundreds of such stories where you would realize that see at the surface it looks simply like an action of compensation. But imagine somebody who has a child of a marriageable age would have crossed certain age know and at that time at that point in your life you decide to leave a country go to a place where the exchange rate will certainly be you know much much higher for compared to your own currency you go earn like anything. You know how much you know agitated that person would have been within that I have to achieve this target and how and this entire you know the boiling within would have continued that finally made him you know come back after certain number of years go to the same house meet the same person and say this is my passbook know you may like to have a look at it know and these are the know things which makes compensatory reaction. Fuel aggressive behavior like anything you know you keep on keep on boiling within in fact the last part of this very module today when we come to the end the last slide would have something where you would see that finally aggression is inflicted on the individual know so I myself become the source of my own anger I become a victim of my own anger will come to that also. Now over aggressive behavior might be a reaction to fear it is quite possible that one is experiencing or the anticipation of fearful situation might also trigger over aggressive behavior usually you would realize that people who are caught in certain type of situations you remember the movie Titanic when the safety boats were supposed to be sent to the sea there was a security guard who had initially open fire you remember that sequence now when you have situation like that where you realize that situation is of an exceptional nature where life and death runs parallel and you do not know which step will lead you to what when you realize that things are beyond your control and you anyhow you have to struggle your best to hold the situation those are the time when you would realize that many people become extremely aggressive in nature this guard on the Titanic in that episode shows that type of a behavior you I am sure none of you have met people who have experienced communal violence if you get a chance if you talk to them they will tell you what finally made them do what they did so you would realize that now when you experience the fear that your survival is at stake the survival of your near and near ones are at stake then you realize that most of us were turned extremely aggressive now this is basically a situation of reaction formation ideally you are extremely scared and you should remain scared but in turn you become aggressive you remember when we were talking about defense mechanism we had talked about reaction formation that inwardly you feel something else and outwardly you express it in a different form now such type of reactions basically are considered to be the borderline cases that now your aggression might any time cross the limit of the clinical acceptance limit of aggressive behavior inability to control one's impulse of course we see this also in people and which is otherwise considered to be a disorder that if you repeatedly realize that you are unable to contain your anger then this inability might be actually a form of disorder we will come to that if you look at the whole description of psychiatric disorders different type of behavioral problems given by the American psychiatric association which is considered to be the Bible for clinical diagnosis no it is called diagnostic and statistical manual DSM popularly it is called DSM the version that is available right now which is being used worldwide is DSM for TR TR is text revision so fourth edition of DSM the fifth edition of DSM will very shortly it will come and there are interesting ways know how these committees are constituted you would be very amused to know that for small of behavioral problem or psychiatric disorder there would be a very big team of the experts who have been working in that area and they choose experts from around the world so say for example say panic anxiety for example so for panic anxiety there would be a whole board those would work for years would know look at all types of behavioral symptoms that has been reported to clinics across the world they will compile them do all types of things and finally come with a diagnostic criteria right now we will come to some other diagnostic criteria now many psychiatric disorders such as antisocial personality disorder for example there is something called conduct disorder substance related disorder where you go for abusing substances mood disorder they all include certain degree of inability to control your impulse those who have strong urges for abuse of substances this also reflects certain degree of inability to control your desire your impulse but then American psychiatric association has put another category named impulse control disorders and this includes know many types of problems such as intermittent explosive disorder, kleptomania, pyromania, pathological gambling, trichetylomania and impulse control disorder which is not otherwise classified now these are classified disorders there could be impulse control situations where it has not been classified into these categories what we will do is that we will know look at each of them and then the first three will further go into the details of it looking at the diagnostic criteria for it intermittent explosive disorder basically reflects the inability of an individual to resist aggressive impulse that results into serious assault or damage of property. So, you have that inner impulse which you realize that you are unable to control and finally what it results into is a serious assault to somebody know you apply punches here and there at the softer parts of the body make the person profusely bleed or all types of know deformity that can take place or you commit extreme damage to the property of the individual and all this is guided by basically your inability to not having the your inability to control your impulse you have that impulse and suddenly gets converted into action and definitely from a social view point if you look at it it is a disproportionate reflection of your anger somebody say for example who commits an error of a lower magnitude usually even in the court of law you would realize that the punishment the quantum of punishment is also lower. So, usually more and more grave is the more and more severe is the nature of crime that you have committed more and more intense becomes the quantum of punishment, but in the case of intermittent explosive disorder irrespective of the severity of the problem the quantum of the punishment maximizes. Then comes kleptomania this is a very interesting type of a problem where one shows inability to contain the desire that impulse of a stealing objects remember this is difference this is completely different from theft and robbery. Here what happens you steal objects which you are not going to use personally and you are not even going to use that object for monetary benefit monetary benefit means that you steal an object you do not use it yourself rather you sell it in the market and derive monetary benefit out of it kleptomania is completely different no you steal things which you are not going to use which you are not going to sell and make a monetary benefit, but you have that inner urge to steal those objects and you take pride in doing that. I do not know if you are aware of a very famous actress of Hindi cinema of yesterday years who had this kleptomanic tendency of stealing spoons so whichever hotel wherever she would go around the world she had the tendency to take minimum of one spoon from the table she had she had a huge collection and because she was a very well known cine actress therefore her name was never brought to limelight no no one would say that wife was just for a single spoon why to no say that you have stolen one spoon so you allow doing that. Somebody from one of the royals family from Europe also had this tendency and because he was from the royal family and the case would might be blown out of proportion in the media therefore he always was scotted by a secretary who would just keep following him. So this man would no keep stealing things and that secretary will keep making a list of the objects which were stolen by the prince and once the prince leaves out with his cavalcade this man will make the payment that fine so that the fact that the prince is kleptomanic is not known to the rest of the world. So this is kleptomania this is again a problem where you have difficulty containing your own impulse then we come to a very peculiar type of an impulse control disorder what is called as pyromania pyromania is an uncontrolled desire in an individual to put things on fire. So you just know out of nothing you simply tend to keep some put something on fire and when it burns it know you are extremely amused to look at it usually it is very rare to find people who would show this type of a tendency but it is not that exceptional also you will find people who derive pleasure out of setting things on fire something and then immediately you set that object on fire and you derive pleasure out of it. Small adaptive gambling of course is another interesting feature where you go for gambling to the pathological extent sometime back we had an invited lecture where only seven eight of you had come there was a whole one hour long lecture on pathological gambling and then we come to another type of impulse control disorder what is called as trichotillomania here an individual you will just know coil the finger around the here and pull it out. So you derive gratification out of pulling out your own hairs know and this is an impulse know you cannot control. So you just do like this and then you pluck one here another third and keep on doing that and usually if you look at the scalp of people suffering from this you will find that they have very minimal hairs know and there would be no wounds of plucking the hairs because they keep on keep on doing that. Now onwards what we will do primarily we have understood know the five different types of impulse control disorders now what we would do is that we would take the first three and exactly look at the diagnostic criteria for that remember that these are the diagnostic criteria which has exactly been taken from the DSM-4-TR we first come to intermittent explosive disorder. A several discrete episodes of failure to resist aggressive impulse that results in serious assaultive acts or destruction of property. So basically you have discrete episodes know means one today another one tomorrow after a week fifteen days twenty days. So there are discrete episodes of the inability shown by the individual to have control over the aggressive impulse and it has always resulted into certain forms of assault.  These are disproportionate type of reactions or you cause excessive damage oh it is so much of you know heat and this room seems to be little stuffy why this is AC is not working and you will find such type of episodes also being reported in many of the boarding schools. How many of you have been to boarding schools? None oh then talk to your friends who have been into boarding schools they will tell you that usually it is you know eighth ninth tenth eleventh that is the usual stage when you know students in the boarding setup they usually take pride in you know committing damage to the property of their own boarding set school. Now such behavior usually do not qualify to be intermittent explosive disorder because there are not frequent episodes of it know there are not too many episodes of it. But even if you find somebody who has been doing it whenever he or she has got this opportunity then it invites the care of specialized. Then be the degree of aggressiveness expressed during the episode is grossly out of proportion to any precipitating psychosocial stress and also your reaction will be disproportionate know somebody is taking a chair and if you shout if you hit the individual all these are disproportionate reactions. The aggressive episodes are not better accounted for any another mental disorder now there is a rider that you should not be actually suffering from any other type of mental disorder and are due to the direct physiological effect of a substance or a general medication condition. So, say if you have been intoxicated if you have been know given a drug which makes you much more impulsive then in that know under the influence of that type of psychiatric disorder or substance intake if you commit such type of behavior then it is not considered to be intermittent explosive disorder. If you are not a sufferer of a psychiatric disorder if you are know not suffering from a substance abuse or induction of certain type of chemicals in your body and still you have a tendency of repeatedly know showing your inability to control your anger where your reactions are disproportionate and you commit damage to the property of the individual or to the physical well being of the individual then it is considered as intermittent explosive disorder. We need to think really know because you would find many such cases where the individual concerned has not been actually put to scrutiny for diagnosis of what actually he or she is suffering from. We have repeatedly been taking example of know that gang rape episode in Delhi last December even today morning I was listening to the 7 o clock news and there was a news of somebody being gang raped in Delhi last night. I guess perhaps this weekend there was crime bureau report suggesting that I do not remember the exact figures but it was more than 100 percent increase in the crime against women in Delhi right from if teasing to rape everything was more than 100 and 123 percent increase in something 111 percent increase in something but it was always more than 100 percent increase. Now, when you catch hold of an individual of committing an act which violates the acceptable code of conduct from the legal view point from the social view point from both the view points unfortunately in our country such people are not subjected to a rigorous type of scrutiny. Clinical diagnosis which will tell you that fine you actually belong to this category and hence instead of getting punishment you should get a treatment the reason I am saying this is that our conviction rate has been lower in our country conviction time has been very long 10 year 12 years and then somebody is convicted and after people have come out of the jail it has been realized that this most of them most of them not all but most of them commit same type of crime again in their life. This somehow know should make us rethink that is it that the whole system of giving punitive know measures to others in terms of refraining from certain type of social acts you realize that it is actually not working all you have been able to do is to segregate that individual or those set of individuals from the society for certain period of time. So, you put them behind the walls they are not into the regular interaction with the society but then once this time frame is over of the say whatever quantum of punishment was say 3 years 5 years 7 years when you go back mingle with the main stream of the society after certain time you once again repeat that act this means that punitive measure are actually not worked. In fact I want to go into the details of it but if you are interested read about know reward and punishment in psychology there is a whole lot of very rich literature on this which primarily suggest that punishment as a module will never be effective in terms of reforming you and that is the reason say I do not know if you have seen the drivers here when they drive in the city they drive without the seat belts because here in this part of the country there is no in no enforcement of this rule when these taxi drivers take you to Lucknow throughout their highway they would be without their seat belts before of certain crossing in Lucknow all of them will suddenly know put the seat belt and when you ask them why have you done this say nae nae here put chalan kate jatae this means that the usage of seat belt has nothing to do with your personal safety and security it has to do with the fear psychological literature suggest that punishment works like this and therefore if you have immediate presence of the deterrent the person will not commit the act but in the absence the person will certainly commit that act because he is guided by the force that you are putting there in turn if you convert it into you know certain forms of positive reinforcement then you realize that it works like anything you would still find people driving in places where the seat belt norm is not at all followed somebody even for a shorter distance from his main gate to the parking area again he will know use the seat belt and then only go and therefore know it makes sense for everybody at right from the smallest levels say for example here where I have seen some of you coming late by 10 minutes 20 minutes throughout the semester but I have never ever thought of saying that no see the watch what time are you coming to the class 50 percent of the class time is over and then you are making an entry there is no point saying that according to me following this reward punishment model if you find it interesting people who find it interesting say right now we had know this kumbh Mela in Allahabad you would find people who are 70 80 years old in the chilled December winter know for the Mela they will know go for a kalpas which is basically staying for the one full month on the banks of the river Ganges 4 o'clock in the morning before the sun rises you take off your clothes you go and take a holy dip you are guided by certain things which you find very rewarding okay very sorry pop do okay now getting rid of the sin is so rewarding for you that you are able to pay any price that you have to pay for it coming late to the class okay you do not find it rewarding and therefore you come late by 20 minutes or you decide only to come for mid-seminates and which is fantastic okay so in terms of containing such type of intermittent explosive disorder also there is a need where you need to actually filter out that was this a single episode because law will not look at whether it was a single episode or repeated episode one single episode if you are caught then there is a defined quantum of punishment you will have to suffer the brunt of it but then is there a way of no going for a long-term handling of such problems as of now we do not have that we go to kleptomania okay here there is a recurrent failure to resist impulses to steel objects that are not needed for personal use or for monetary value so you are not going to use that spoon you are not going to sell it off okay increasing sense of tension immediately before committing the theft so have you have extremely of you know tension within you and once you are you know doing that act you have a sense of pleasure and gratification in great degree of relief when not after but at the time of committing okay the stealing is not committed to express anger or vengence and is not in response to any delusion or hallucination no so in your full sane state of mind you have attention which rises within you you commit the act and commitment of the act is pleasurable remember usually for most of the things for most of us post act is more gratifying okay say pre act there is a tension which is true for most of the things peri act peri means during the commitment of the act the tension is still there but actual gratification comes after the act is completed in case of kleptomania you realize that gratification pleasure comes while you are committing that and therefore you feel more and more repeating the same act okay and of course this is stealing the rider is that the stealing is not better accounted for by any conduct disorder manic episode or antisocial personality disorder so if you are an antisocial psychopath if you have a conduct disorder conduct disorder is basically your inability to comply to norms okay and if you have been the sufferer of manic episodes if you are suffering from any of these things then you cannot be classified as kleptomanic and then we come to the last one that is peri mania okay there is a deliberate and purposeful fire setting on more than one occasion tension or effective arousal before that so tension is there okay before you put the thing on fire fascination with interest in curiosity about or attraction to fire and its situational context so in what type of situation are you putting things on fire a repeated episode you will find some type of unrest people shouting slogans and one very very small subset of that crowd which will deliberately try to put the police vehicle on fire so that situational context in which you know perform your act gives you extreme degree of pleasure pleasure gratification or relief when setting fire and when witnessing or participating in its aftermath okay so while you commit that act you derive gratification out of it you derive pleasure out of it once the act is over when you look at the aftermath of it oh great this whole building know how beautifully it has burned know everything has collapsed rubbles fume ashes all those things you still find it gratifying for normal people you know you feel very sorry about it the fire setting is not done for monetary gain the rider here as an expression of socio-political ideology or to conceal criminal activity to express anger or vengeance improve one's living circumstances so basically you have the full set of riders here that you should not actually be under the influence of these conditions the E and F okay these riders should not be there then only your act qualifies to be considered as an act of pyromania again I would say that most of the violence that you would see okay because people are not tested for whether they are pyromaniac or not and therefore they are all clustered as mob behavior so when you face the court of law it said that no this thing happened and then this group of you know students were caught by the police force when they were putting certain things on fire okay but I am sure if you really make all of them undergo clinical investigation a small set will still be qualifying for pyromania okay and we then we come to one of the slide which we had seen earlier when we were we initially started our discussion on aggressive behavior that there could be situations where aggression is inwardly directed no and therefore the entire destructive aggressive behavior that you usually see which is usually no inflicted on others there could be a possibility when that aggressive behavior the whole destructive tendency in that aggressive act is inflicted on the self okay the image that you see here is of a Tibetan student in New Delhi okay when Chinese delegate was supposed to come to India okay there was a massive protest by the Tibetan community here in Delhi and all out of sudden this boy suddenly had put himself on fire if I remember correctly he was brought to the hospital with 84% burn most probably and in next three days he finally succumbed to his injuries he died but imagine situation when somebody would decide to show that manifest that entire aggression on one own self okay the common ones that you can see at times it is not very common but usually in a larger population you will find a small number doing that I am repeating that example no you smoke cigarette and then you hurt yourself with the cigarette but okay this is once again a self destructive behavior okay when you finally decide to self emulate yourself you know the consequence okay once the consequence is known now paramedia is fine you are at least putting something else on fire okay but you know finally what this fire will lead to the consequence is known to you the aftermath is known to you here you know the consequence and still that act of aggression that extreme sense of destructiveness is inflicted on one own self okay so this was all about the aggressive behavior.


So good morning. It's nice to see you. I appreciate the combination to allow me to come in with my friend Judge Edwards, his wife Stacy. The travel story I think I should let them tell you, but the thumbnail sketches they were supposed to fly into Burlington on Sunday wound up with the planes canceled into Burlington Sunday and Monday. We were exchanging email early Sunday morning. I got an email. I think it was from Stacy at 1230 in the morning, our time, and they had just heard that the flights were canceled. And we started immediately talking about rescues. The judge and I have been talking about him coming here for MLK Day. He's speaking at the law school to set up for a couple of years now. And I won't go on. But I want you to know our relationship goes back a few years. Jimmy when he was a judge started a this very unique school that I think you all have seen in the materials that I sent over called the Innovative Concept School. It's a it's the only school of its kind in the United States. Received this is the first time we met was about four or five years ago when the judge received an award in Washington at the U.S. Supreme Court that is delivered annually by the Chief Justice John Roberts called the William H. Rehnquist Award. And it's a it's a it's an award that's given to a celebrated state court judge. No federal judges are included. This is only for state court judges who have who have done outstanding things as judges. We have been talking as members, common members of the board of directors of National Center for a few years about him coming for an OK. So I am just absolutely thrilled. I am humbled by your tenacity. And so let me stop talking and introduce the judge to you. Thank you very much. Thank you, representative. It's Chief Justice Ryber. When he introduces me, I start to feel really, really small because I know that it's very difficult to live to people's perceptions about you. But I am just very honored. I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude to have the opportunity to visit and to especially have the opportunity to talk to the law students at Vermont Law School. So I'm very, very excited to do that. I sit on the bench for 25 years in the city of St. Louis with all of his issues and all of his problems. Problems that include in equities, race and gender, to fairness for children and all of the family issues that exist in any in any big state. I'm from St. Louis, born and raised in the city of St. Louis. Every single thing that I remember, every single thing that was ever given to me was from the generosity of strangers. I grew up in a public housing complex, so therein was public housing, food stamps, public education, single mom, four siblings who taught us that the most important thing that I could ever do was to get an education. The first time that I ever slept on a mattress I was six years old and a friend of my mom gave us a mattress to get us off and so it's from there that I believe that my sense of duty, doing for others, most important thing that anyone could ever do and so when I got an opportunity to sit on the bench and I was appointed by a friend of mine that I had met early on who was just very kind to me. A young man by the name of John Ashcroft who became a United States senator and then thereafter became United States Attorney General and John and I still have an opportunity to chat and I have an opportunity to talk. He put me on the bench knowing that I was the most liberal person he had ever met in his life but he put me on the bench not understanding all of that and we talk and we don't necessarily agree all the time about all of the legal issues but we're friends and that's what matters to me and so after 25 years following the Mike Brown case in 2014 in the city of St. Louis that made our state iconic for all of the wrong reasons and after the Ferguson violence and after the Jason Stockley case where a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man in the city of St. Louis and where protests was happening in our city every single day you see Ferguson is about two minutes from St. Louis city and so we're sitting in a county where all of these areas are continuous to each other and so after all of those things and daily protests and destruction of private property and an arrest and distrust of police officers dysfunctionality at its highest because our officers had stopped policing because they no longer want to be vilified we had the national media all over the place in our small city it exposed us but it made us better it was I believe the genesis of the Black Lives Matter movement movements all over this country some would argue that all lives matter but it gave us an opportunity I believe to be on the cutting edge of changing the world certainly changing the US because remember it was in 1857 that Dr. Scott was in the city of St. Louis it was in in in 1947 that that Shelley v. Kramer it restrict with restrictive covenants came out of the city of St. Louis I believe in 2014 and 2015 and 2016 and 1718 and 19 it will be where St. Louis will again become a leader on doing the right thing so when the man asked me if I would consider being the public safety director for the city of St. Louis it was from that backdrop that I had to consider all of that it was it was obfuscation it was that 25 years on the bench I'm the most senior judge I'm probably the most popular judge in the state of Missouri I should I take this responsibility on in the city well I started to think about what I was taught when I was a child just generosity of others what can I do to make somebody else's life better and that was more important to me than my own self-worth my value see my wife understood that early on she knew that we would never ever be wealthy because everything that I ever got I gave it away she she understood that and she understood that when and then I was a young lawyer at AT&T on a fast track and when they asked me to take over the South African telephone company and I made a decision that I wanted to stay in St. Louis you know she didn't like that very much but she understood that it was more important to me to be at home and to save the lives of the people that I could touch than to be too concerned about my own and so I took the job as public safety director in the city of St. Louis because I needed to stop that protesting I needed to stop the property damage I needed to to to stand in the middle of police distress in the community I need to fix our city and so I took the job and I met with protesters and I met with police and I hired a police chief I talked to my fire department I talked to my building department I have nine departments and I'm responsible for the jails the police the fire building excise oversight paramedics EMS at 4,000 employees I have about a billion dollar budget and I have the responsibility to equalize life chances for everybody in our city irrespective of who they are or where they come from and so I believe that is my job as that one person standing in the gap to change the culture to engage our community and always try to do the right thing and I can tell you that we're moving a needle in a very positive way so I'm very happy about that but my first love is always education certainly it is the key to all of life's rewards it's a key to a stable paycheck we all want that but with education comes the opportunity I believe to change a person's life and to help our community and so it gives me a great honor to know what you're doing and all the work that is happening here in Vermont I know what's going on in Vermont I knew I was coming to Vermont so like any decent and responsible lawyer I researched everybody here I knew what I was walking into I understand what happened last year with the African-American legislature I know all of those things yet I believe that we have to be present that you have to be at the table if you're going to change the minds and the hearts of people you see we're in all all of us we're in this together we all are in this together and so I come here to deliver the morning and I come here because I was invited by a friend my Justice Riper I come here because we've developed a wonderful relationship a respectful relationship I come here because in my heart I believe that he thinks that what I have to say matters and so when we look at all of the things that I've tried to do I've tried to be an example it's easy to have a conversation but I've tried to be an example and I had a chance to do that and this and to share our message not only with you but with Chief Justice of the Supreme Court you would think that Justice Roberts being appointed by Republican being very very conservative and and having this legal ideologies that he would be so forth to the right that that he didn't get the human side of it but when I received the Rehnquist Award which is the highest judicial award in our country it was Justice Roberts who said you know what I kind of like this guy from the Midwest I kind of like what he's trying to do and so I'm in a very small footprint and I know that maybe we'll change the world from that small footprint just like Dred Scott just like Shelley V. Kramer just like Plessy versus Ferguson Plessy versus Ferguson just like all of those wonderful cases and you guys are here making laws in Vermont you know Justice Roberts showed me the wonderful mirror on the wall when I walked through here and the battle and I looked at it and immediately it just just takes us all the way back those of you probably want my mirror every day and never look at it but I looked at that mirror just for a split second and I saw it to wonder about all the bloodshed on that day in that battle for you to be here for me to be here it's just an amazing thing when you're in internalized that time it has great value it has a wonderful historical vibe just look how far we've come women in the state house three women on the African-American having a conversation at this table with you and just reflect by for some of us this is a long reflection back just reflect back could this have happened 50 years ago or 75 years or a hundred years ago we're making progress we're making wonderful wonderful progress and we have to stay the course it was Dr. King that said that in order for us to achieve we have to do it together and we'll perish together as fools and that's really what it's all about so thank you for looking at my Ted talk I appreciate it hopefully you had an opportunity any of you to look at for our team which is a little different you don't have the the big population of African-Americans you know that are suffering in school fighting every day to be relevant fighting every day to accomplish something and so it makes me smile when I think about those children because I think about my own siblings my own situation I think about the fact that I was there I think about the fact that I know that there's no measurable difference between them right now today and me when I was a child and I think about that housing complex that implicit poor I go housing complex that was even segregated that we had to implode because we were stacking people on top of each other the fact that my mother struggled there in an apartment find people no bigger than this room that we struggled there and so when I had a chance to to establish my school I established it right across Central Street from that building now because it reminds me every day of my obligation it reminds me every day of my duty to give back so my whole life is about what can I do to help that's the question it's never ever about the degrees that we have on our walls not about it's not about how much money we have in our bank accounts because the only person that cares about that is your kid it's not about that it's never about what's written on our tombstone it's not about that it's about what did you do to help somebody else and did you instill in them the right energy did you instill in them that desire for them to help somebody else I think those of us that are intellectual we just call it cascading mentoring so I am honored I'm so honored to have this opportunity to come here to talk to you to share with you a little bit of about me and so if there are any any thoughts I I was one of those judges that always gave the lawyers the last word and always listen very attentively and carefully because I was one of those judges that was not afraid to change my ruling because you know your minds are much better than mine I see these young legislators here and I'm just I'm just amazed just I'm just real pleased and very very proud that you guys can be my children I'm proud of that proud that you're here and proud that you're carrying on and I'm proud that you allow me to come in here and visit so be happy to answer any questions it's hard for me to express my gratitude and just how you really have showed us the importance of our common our common humanity and those are words from us from our Supreme Court case that I'm sure your board read in our Constitution but really it is so important to celebrate our common humanity and that really they are all our children as I was watching the the trailer and sing to you they really are all our children and and so I thank you for reminding us to leave from our heart and how important that is I so appreciative to the to the Chief Justice and I have a 14 year old son in ninth grade and they're currently studying in global studies revolutions and leaders and suggest that they watch watch them learn about your school and and those ties right yeah I mean I just love that the empowerment of how those students those young men felt listened to and respected and how and how you have the vision to just take all of that and give these kids a chance and that's great thank you thank you for the invitation so I'll just open it up to you I won't try to echo what our chairwoman has said but I share those views and I really enjoyed watching all the trailers and links too and the one thing that really struck me is how many spheres you've been active in with the school and with the role in municipal governance and then the role in the judiciary and someone who's not a lawyer who's sitting on my second term here I wonder you know it's a big question but those three different spheres how do you see them as working together at the end of the day when you reflect back on what you did in each one what do you come away with I believe that the common denominator in what we all do should be love that's that that's the common denominator and so where I come from unfortunately we have to teach people to love I don't believe that we are innately born that we we know how to respect one another or that we know how to love and one of the the programs that I have at my school is a stray dog training program you might ask yourself why a stray dog training program what is so significant about that well I know that from where I come from you know nobody really taught me how to be a dad or taught me how to love another African American man in an appropriate setting and so I knew that a lot of my kids they didn't know what love felt like from their parent from their community from their family so I had to teach them how to love and what better way to teach an individual how to love than to find something that they can identify a stray dog a stray dog left on the street to fend for itself a stray dog been kicked out nobody cares about a stray dog and you put that stray dog in that environment and you bring that child who's been kicked out who's been harmed or hurt and you put them together and before you know it the kid is loving on that dog and that dog is returning unconditional love to that child not cursing the child to get up in the morning to get out of the house not yelling or screaming at the child and the child in return is stroking the dog and holding the dog close and before you know it the child has learned how to love another living thing and be receptive to another living thing loving him loving her and so when we look at all of the things everything that I've ever done has been to say listen we have to find a way to love each other we have to find a way to live together our life irrespective of how young you are and you never think about death irrespective of you think that you're gonna live forever none of us will and so in this very short period of time what did we do what did we do to make the world better see you can't be angry every day you can't go to work angry every day some days you have to smile and some days you have to take risks and some days you have to reach across the aisle and say you know what it makes sense some days it doesn't matter whether you are a Republican or whether you are Democrat whether you are lesbian whether you are gay male whether you black or whether you like some day it won't matter if you land in that emergency room and somebody that you love the most is dying you can care less if the surgeon is black only thing you care about is if he's confident you don't care whether the surgeon is a lesbian or whether gay or even whether the surgeon is a Muslim only thing that you care about is somebody saving this person that I love the most saving their life and so if we can get past all of the those things that only constructs anyway if we can get past all of that can you imagine what a great life we would have can you imagine coming to their Vermont house and having a party every day and not having to like you or not having to dig in can you just imagine coming here and everybody able to listen respectfully able to talk things out and able to arrive at solutions that make sense for the betterment of our state can you just imagine what a great day or what great days we would and so in my mind it's really about love it's not about all the other things that don't matter it's what's in our heart that matters most to me but I'm not telling you anything that you don't know I don't have a specific question but I just want to thank you for coming here a lot of what you're saying resonates with me and I wish there was a way you could deliver this conversation to every single committee in this building and to the entire legislative body so I just want to say thank you very much thank you representative you don't look at you and look like you know my oldest is 42 you're not 42 and I look at you guys I'm like you know what you can be my kid and I appreciate you have no idea I appreciate I don't know what your political affiliation is but at the end of the day you hurt me and maybe you'll go back home and you reflect on something that I said just maybe there's a time for many many reasons one of the things that we're doing on Thursday is we're having a hearing on fair and impartial policing which is a topic of conversation here in Vermont for many of the leaders in the room and for others and and we don't have a there's not a piece of legislation there's no you know any but more really just a conversation to have and I've tried to include the help of many of the committee members and also taking leadership but really having voices come to the table and listen and then hopefully together public safety law enforcement advocates we can really move the conversation forward and work together because right now it's being played out in the press and you know all things like that and so all over the country yeah we have to we have to we have to acknowledge that we do have some issues in policing I acknowledge it every day we're trying to engage some culture changes for my police officers were indicted just last month I spent a lot of time with Attorney General Sessions of the civil rights type case just making sure that that we don't have power and practice issues that we're just looking at these officers and asking them to change the culture I mean we have culture issues all over this country and so I want you to de-escalate as opposed to escalate I want you to get home every day I want you in life to be important and valued so you have to get home every time but I make it very clear to my officers if you go out there I know you're brave and I know you're tough we expect for you to protect and serve but at the same time I want you to go home so if you go out there and you kill somebody and it's justifiable you don't have to worry about where I'll be I'm gonna send you home and I'll stand in front of the media and I'll answer the questions but if you kill somebody and it wasn't justifiable you don't have to worry about where I'll be I'll be sitting with the FBI because we're going to indict you but I can say that today because for 25 years I worked with them I didn't have to establish a reputation or credibility with the officers and so when I walk in the room and I say we have to have equitable policing irrespective of the community and who's in a particular community equitable policing is the most important thing that you can do so if you're engaging in implicit bias then fix it because we all have it so fix it but if you are racist then you need to let me know so I can write you a recommendation for another job we can't have equitable policing understanding that we have to treat people fairly understanding that your community is a little different but when a police officer encounters an African-American kid boy with dreadlocks and pants down it doesn't give you license to kill no African-American mom should ever have to ask me the question judge what my boy encounters the police will he always go to jail or will he die those are questions that I want to hear anymore I can't have that in our community and so when I say we're moving the needle a little bit we are in 2017 there were 28 police involved shootings in the city of st. Louis with 14 dead last year I had six police involved shootings last year with one day one is too many a hell of a lot better than 18 or 19 or 20 or 24 so we're working we understand and so I don't envy the position that you're in I know it's tough I know it's tough in every community is different and I pray that God gives you the to will to do the right thing always and the confidence that what you do will make a difference that's my prayer for you I just have one question sir when it comes to changing the culture came on the base level for any police department whether it's in the break room or wherever it is how do you what recommendations do you have what advice do you have on how to slowly shift that culture towards equitable policing as you described well I think it starts from the top and then it starts in the academy so when we are teaching when our academy teachers oftentimes around the country their police officers themselves and so when a police officer teaches another police they're teaching what they know and oftentimes what they know is the culture that was instilled and ingrained in it it doesn't matter whether they're black white in the end it doesn't matter what they're teaching isn't what they know and so one of the ways that rich wanting to change the culture in the city of St. Louis is to go to the law school and get the professors from the law school to teach constitutional law to teach first amendment to teach equal protection to teach new process so that they're getting a different approach to those types of things that are so important in policing we still need the the expert shooters we still need them to be able to to protect themselves on the street we still need all of that but to change the mindset and to change the culture is to change the education and so we do that by enlistening the support of the law schools and we do that by looking outside of police training the police in those critical areas of first amendment and fairies and new process we bring in we bring in mental health professionals because our officers are strong and they're brave and no one wants to admit you know I was at a scene today and I was tough but when I went home I bought up in the field position and I cried see that officer can't have that conversation with with his or her peers because it makes them look weak why do I want to ride in a car with an officer that cries but they go home and they cry and then they beat the crap out of their their partner and they yell at their kids and they do all of those things we have problems with domestic violence in our police departments all over this country we have problem with mental health with police departments all over this country but that facade they have to they have to be strong and so we have to look at the mental health issues doesn't mean that they should be terminated it means that it should be fixed we have to look at the implicit doesn't mean that they should be terminated it means that it has to be fixed we have to look at all of those issues and we have to look at them fairly and we have to look at them without being derogatory or demeaning at helping and so if you can you can change the culture simply by changing the teacher you can change the culture by by admitting that you know what we're gonna address this mental health issue and we're gonna do it and you're not gonna lose your job and we can change the culture simply by doing those those health things because right now as a police officer we expect you to be tough we expect you to do all of those things you know what I tell our officers I said you know I'm I know you guys get a lot of accommodations you get them and we have these big ceremonies and everybody's proud you know we have we have police officers you know they can blindfold and they can shoot with both hands and get 300 a perfect score and we give them give them an accommodation and you wrote the most traffic tickets we give you an accommodation you made a great arrest and we give you an accommodation I'm like why that's your job you're supposed to do that if you want to impress me tell me the names of the people that live on the block that you're patrolling in then I know you've engaged in community policing you know the people on the block and if you really want to impress me and get an accommodation tell me the names of their pets because now I know that you've had some conversation you've engaged your community that's how we change the culture we have these expectations of our officers that are wrong with expectations of our police officers that we shouldn't have we have to take some of that pressure off them we have to ask them to be equitable you have to eradicate all that social media that they do have a social media policy if my officers say anything on a personal social media site they're terminated because at four o'clock in the morning you don't think anybody's reading that stuff and you say whatever you want to say and then in the sunshine you said something that was inappropriate something that was racist sex is something that you should not have said I don't know you can't have a negative attitude about African Americans and you say it on your social media and then I expect you to go down there and patrolling in African American community it opens us up for lawsuits and it tells me that you got some other issues so you can't use racial epithets at the kitchen table at home when the public is not looking and expect that I will respect you in your better moments when the public is looking you just have to be consistent whether we're at home or whether we're in the sunshine of the public we have to be consistent not because it's the right thing to do not even because you think it's the wrong thing to do but you have to do it so your kids are respecting you at the end of the day so your kids are respecting you you can't say stuff in the car in front of your kids and use the racial epithet and then turn around and go outside and get out of the car and you the nicest person in the world your kids are totally confused mom dad you just said this that's on us that's all of us that's our police officers once you lay the prescription and once you give the expectations it's easy it's easy they'll adjust and they'll change this police department and they'll change the communities and the next thing you know the public will be telling you how much they love their police department because that's what we really want they'll tell you how much they care about the police how much they respect the police department we can get there it's not as daunting as you might think it is you will get there just by doing other stuff it's really not all about the police it's about the other stuff and so if you're focusing only on the police and changing the police you're not going to get there you got to do the other stuff the mental health stuff the bias stuff you got to do all of that stuff and then before you know it the officers will start to tell you how much they appreciate you you start to hear the stories about how they cried how they couldn't handle a situation they'll start to tell you stories about how they're better people and how they are now deescalating and how without putting themselves at rest they have the ability to disarm someone just by being kind just by being kind go back to this love thing I think thank you I represent city in Vermont with a growing but very small african-american community two years ago we hired our for two years ago we elected our first african-american woman to our city council last year we hired an african-american gentleman to be the superintendent of our schools but they're really the only two minority public figures in my community and so what I would ask you in regards to advices a community that has you know a small number of african-american mainly children teens 20-somethings and we want to include them in our community we want them to feel empowered our community we want them to feel you know a legitimate part of our community but we want them to be comfortable in their own skin but when they look at city leaders when they look at their teachers when they look at our police force you know they don't see people who look like them so my question will be what can we do people like myself who don't know what it's like to spend a day in their skin what can we do to include this small group in the entire fabric of our community and thank you I think that's a terrific question it's just a matter of just being welcoming and I mean you have a very very small percentage of folks just being welcoming and just really understanding or trying to understand that there will be different struggles and so you know an example of that is just being culturally confident which we wish may require you to do a little bit more work in terms of some African-American history you know you can't you you should at least be cognizant of some of the things that are that are going on you in a unique position because now you have to you have to learn a bit about their struggles and a good example of that I was the first year law student out of the public schools setting and it never been in this this big white environment before in my life and I thought that I was a smart kid and the whole nine years and the the fact situation you know the fact situation in law school was about golfing golfing I had no idea about golfing and so the the torch situation was you know the golf ball kept kept kept going over the fist and and and dinging somebody upside the head you know what was the what was the cost avoidance of all that you know I'm like okay golfing ball hitting somebody upside the hair what do I do I'm like build a fist hire right you know because I'm thinking it's like baseball first base is always down this line third base is always to the left the pitch is always in front of me and the professor says why don't you just move the whole okay that makes sense but I didn't know you can move the whole in golf being culturally competent and so not asking kids to engage in something that is a cultural event you can expect them to know that the square root of 2 is 1.414 in the square root of 3 is 1.73267 you can expect that because that's we expect that in math but you can expect me to know that the golf hole could be moved in such a way that it would not require me to hit the ball in that direction and so cultural competency puts the onus on you as a leader to know a little something and so when you're in the first grade classroom or you in the fourth grade classroom or you in the seventh grade classroom always find something that the kids can identify with or point or a fact that the kids can identify with because the kids will go home and they'll say you know what there was a representative at my school today and he was talking about Harriet Tubman or he was talking about this or he was talking about fact and you have a voter and a supporter for the rest of your life because you did it with them and they went home and they talked to mom and dad about what you said at their schools doing it from the bottom up not a lot of good things happen from the top down from the bottom up if I want to sell a car now I go and I talk to your kids about you know what your mom and dad really should buy this big old SUV and the next thing you know the kids are telling mom and dad you really should buy a big old SUV and they'll get angry and they'll keep telling mom and daddy buy this car before you know mom and dad they bought that big old SUV so I think that's how you do this you know if you become culturally confident enough just to be able to talk to the kids I don't think that you have to do anything that is over the top and be sincere about it I think you're fine that that community will become so attached to you that it's amazing because sometimes you won't find African-American police officers I'm having that problem in the city of San Luis being able to retain African-American police officers maybe you don't need an African-American police officer in this region but what they do need is for you to represent all of them and be culturally confident they have you maybe that's all they need well thank you and Chief Justice, thank you so much for this incredible opportunity we're in the very beginning of our session and so we have a number of new members we have five new members to this committee and some folks this wasn't their first choice and others of us said you're gonna love judiciary it's an amazing committee and I think this is an excellent example of how the opportunities that that we have new Chief Justice and really really brings out how fortunate we are to be here thank you thank you madam chair thank you thank you so much you know and I can just really just really feel the commitment your commitment to this so thank you so very much