Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth

Due to the busyness of Homecoming Week, it was hard trying to find free time to read, let alone start a new book. I got a little bored in the middle of this book and did not feel like continuing with reading during the twenty minutes we get to read everyday at the beginning of class. I am almost finished with this book and I'm looking forward to see how it ends.

When I left off from the last blog, I was in the middle of the book and I was yet to be introduced to a teenage criminal named Ronnie. Ronnie came from a broken home with a dad who was not present, a mom who was struggling for money and hardly ever saw Ronnie and his little brother, and an aunt who constantly abused him physically and emotionally. Ronnie would never retaliate against his aunt but whenever his aunt would hurt him he'd think, "I want to run and get a knife and put it in her stomach and watch her cry the way she was making me cry,"(Hubner 44). In order to cope, he would think of "inflicting the pain on her she was inflicting on me. It made me feel good"(44). This definitely affected Ronnie going into his teenage years. As a reflection of his violent child years, Ronnie slipped into a dark state of mind. He turned to drugs and violence. A turning point in Ronnie's life showed just how much his childhood affected him, turning a knife on his little cousin, Kenny. Ronnie "chased him around the house two or three times and then out into the yard"(129). Kenny was "screaming and crying and running"(129). Ronnie admitted that Kenny's screaming and crying "pumped him up" and if he'd have caught him, he'd have stabbed him (129). I have yet to find out how Ronnie's story ends, but I am looking forward to it.

Noam Shpancer Ph.D., wrote an article for Psychology Today about how childhood drama can affect teenagers and adults act later in their life. Shpancer states that research has shown that early trauma is a "major predictor-and causal agent-not only of neurotic-spectrum problems such as anxiety, depression, and relationship issues"(Shpancer) The article even talks about how people who experience trauma early in life have the tendency to get into more trouble than others who grew up in a solid household. In Last Chance in Texas, Ronnie, who had gone through traumatic experiences whilst still a young kid, landed himself in Giddings State School and a therapy program in order to draw some compassion out of the criminal youth. Throughout therapy, it is clear that Ronnie has some signs of depression and anxiety while telling his story. This article sheds light on the effects of traumatic situations and how the people who experience them at an early age, like Ronnie and many others of the criminals in Giddings State School, are more likely to end up in some sort of trouble.

Citations:

Hubner, John. Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth. New York:

    Random House, 2005. Print.

Shpancer, Noam. Dealing With Childhood Trauma in Adult Therapy: Facts and Fo.

    Psychology Today, 17 Sept. 2011. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight

    -therapy/201109/dealing-childhood-trauma-in-adult-therapy-facts-and-fo.

    Accessed 30 Sept. 2016.