Looking Back On 2024 Highlights - Happy New Year
This year has been the most exciting since we embarked on this journey in early 2020. Back then, we were two guys from dramatically different backgrounds (you can learn more about us here). Christian is more of an academic who wanted to deepen the intellectual discussion around the intersection between crime, science, and medicine. Lucas was a college student looking for extra money for beer. Christian was chasing stories about surgeries allegedly cutting criminal tendencies in the 20th century. We only knew we wanted to do something where we could explore this intersection.
After a year of reading through old books and newspapers, watching weird niche films with low scores on Rotten Tomatoes, and studying scholarly articles about lobotomies, we felt that sharing our work with the world would motivate us and give us some accountability. Otherwise, notes, summaries, insights, and half-written ideas would collect virtual dust on the cloud. We hope writing here will help us write elsewhere (i.e., a magazine or journal) while maintaining a lively substack.
We started publishing on Medium and gained momentum to keep going, but our discipline was lacking. Christian took a job as Head of Education at a new school in Switzerland and did not have the bandwidth to do both well. Lucas was also working full-time. Further, we felt that the response on Medium did not correspond to the effort we were putting into our pieces. Thus, in early 2024 came Substack. We made the mistake of importing publications from Medium rather than republishing, as the import does not seem to generate much engagement. Substack is a novel platform that gave us the power of a newsletter (something Christian still struggles with), with the possibility of building a community through various tools.
In the past few months, we made a few changes.
First, we decided to publish weekly. This meant increasing output without sacrificing quality. Second, we would continue publishing in-depth analyses and commence exploring contemporary topics that can be more accessible to the general public. Third, we began planning rather than publishing what was ready. We gained some traction, and then our subscribers grew as some key accounts started recommending us.
We have enjoyed connecting with other writers and readers. We have had lovely conversations through DMs and would love to see more comments on our articles.
“For students and teachers of psychology, Curing Crime offers a fascinating historical and ethical perspective on the intersection of science, medicine, and criminal behavior, making it a must-read for anyone interested in forensic psychology and the psychology of crime.”
Most of you are new(ish). We wanted to celebrate the end of 2024 by sharing some of our favorite articles from 2024. We hope you enjoy them. For our newest subscribers, we hope it gives you a chance to discover some of our earlier work. Writing and thinking about these subjects can take a toll, yet we believe there are some important lessons we can glean from our body of work.
Good Intentions Are No Guarantee of Good Outcomes: Understanding historical events through contextualizing them does not implicitly condone historical actors. More often than not, it seems that many of the people we studied were well-intentioned. Their desire to help, their desire to innovate, and their desire to deploy solutions often caused harm, even if they intended to reduce it. From lobotomies to therapies meant to fix wayward teens, history is replete with unintended consequences. Naturally, not all good intentions cause harm, but good intentions alone provide little to no protection to vulnerable groups.
Scientific, Medical, or Technocratic Solutions Are Irresistible: Some solutions seem logical, plausible, and irresistibly alluring. From the 19th through the 21st centuries, these solutions have been scientific, medical, or based on new technologies. These fields imbue gravitas, and proponents appear authoritative when using their language. We have seen, repeatedly, that such solutions are zealously embraced. While we think these are some of the best ways to learn about the world, the fact is that social problems are complex and that we should not expect clean and easy fixes.
Crime is Complex and Hard to Define: The more we write about crime, the more challenging thinking about crime becomes. Sometimes, nations define what constitutes a crime. Other times, State ideology affects how leaders explain the causes of crime and, thus, their efforts to combat it. The perceived causes of crimes often shape the interventions designed to curb them. These factors also affect how societies measure whether such efforts are successful. Finally, questions about the purpose of criminal justice, prisons, and how to welcome those who have served time back into society remain unresolved.
Bombed Broken Berlin:
This article sets the scene for a series that explored crime and state policing in Cold War Berlin. In this article, we provide the context, namely the utter destruction of Berlin and its significance, and how ideology was so pervasive that it even shaped how state actors understood crime. The whole series is fascinating.
A Gluttony for Lobotomy:
Lobotomies are, perhaps, the most abhorrent example in modern history of how the pursuit of technological solutions to social problems can go awry. Nevertheless, lobotomies were, until recent times, staunchly supported by experts and the press. The NY Times explicitly advocated for its uses and benefits. We explore this enthusiastic embrace of an alleged medical solution to a social problem. During this time, mental hospitals were overcrowded, and many patients appeared to be incurable until shock therapies were introduced.A Brief History of the Seed:
We all know teens can be difficult. We also know that “scientific” solutions to social problems are incredibly appealing, and sometimes, the proposed interventions do more harm than good. In a series of articles, we explored the origins of the troubled teen industry by telling the story of The Seed, Inc. This was a highly popular and controversial Troubled Teen Program that promised to transform unruly teenagers into honest, law-abiding citizens. Their methods were later described as using brainwashing, bullying, and being abusive.
Understanding the Troubled Teen Industry: Brainwashing and Behavior Modification:
This article explored the intellectual milieu that made Americans eager to embrace the kinds of solutions offered by The Seed, Inc. We covered advances in the mental sciences, which made the notion that people could be refashioned into better versions of themselves plausible. We also discuss how American Prisoners of War turned against the US and defended North Korea, thus frightening ordinary Americans about the efficacy of brainwashing.
Olympic Felon: Can Criminals Ever Be Forgiven?
The 2024 Paris Olympics came with a lot of controversy. Steven Van de Velde, a Dutch beach volleyball player, classified to participate in the Olympics, even though 8 years prior he had been convicted for the statutory rape of a 12-year-old girl. Understandably, some people were outraged. We investigated this case and found assumptions worth exploring. First, can criminals ever be reformed? We also suggested that much of the discourse was concentrated on him rather than on questioning systems and structures
Are Prisons Obsolete?:
The American Penal System needs deep reforms. We are not specialists, and in this edition, we analyzed an article in the New Yorker that claimed all prisons should be abolished. We looked at the core issues and possible explanations for the failure of American jails and highlighted the need to find solutions.
A Life Criminalized: The Romani and Vagrancy in Imperial Russia:
Our first guest author, Jovan, was the lead author this week. We used James C Scott’s insights from Seeing Like a State to analyze how Imperial Russia sought to criminalize vagrancy to make it easier for them to see the Romani. The article suggested that States may criminalize certain acts or ways of being out of convenience. Many thanks to Jovan.
Terror Threat Alerts:
The weather catastrophe that took place last October in Valencia got us thinking about ways in which states deal with threats, including terror attacks. We found that several nations have instituted terror threat alert systems. These systems are perhaps not as effective, or at least don’t seem to be effective. This month’s attacks on a Christmas market in Germany are a stark reminder that individuals can cause great harm.
We are eager to begin a new year full of research, interesting findings and a lot of new content. As our plans for this newsletter grow more ambitious, we would love to have you as part of the journey.
We wish you a Happy New Year, and a speedy recovery from last night’s celebrations.
Best regards,
The Curing Crime Team.