Before Their Crimes

Wendy Smith, PhD, LCSW, is a Distinguished Continuing Scholar in Child Welfare and former professor and associate dean at the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. After thirty-five years of practicing psychotherapy and university teaching, Dr. Smith turned her attention to working on change at a broader level through serving on the Los Angeles County Commission for Children and Families and providing leadership to non-profit organizations serving vulnerable youth in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. She chairs the Board of the National Foster Youth Institute, and serves on the Children’s Rights Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch and the Foundation Board of the Venice Family Clinic, among others.Dr. Smith is the author of Youth Leaving Foster Care: A Developmental, Relationship-Based Approach to Practice (2011) and has published on current issues in child welfare and the justice system in The Chronicle of Social Change (now The Imprint), an online newsletter. A recognized expert in child abuse and child development, she has appeared in the Netflix series The Trials of Gabriel, provided expert testimony on early attachment in a probate court guardianship case, and is frequent speaker to both academic and community groups on trauma, child development, and foster care.

A well-researched, insightful case for the redemptive power of healing.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Prisoner at Pelican BayChapter 1: Adverse Childhood Experiences and Broken AttachmentsChapter 2: The Brain and Stress in ChildhoodChapter 3: Beyond the Front DoorChapter 4: Terror at Home: Domestic ViolenceChapter 5: Is It Part of Me? Sexual Child AbuseChapter 6: Sticks and Stones: Physical Child AbuseChapter 7: Down the Rabbit Hole: When Your Parent DiesChapter 8: Do I Matter at All? Physical and Emotional NeglectChapter 9: Murder in the FamilyChapter 10: The Lonely Chaotic Wake of Parental Drug AddictionChapter 11: Adrift in an Immoral WorldChapter 12: The Seductive Embrace of the GangChapter 13: PrisonChapter 14: The Path to HealingEpilogue: Where They Are NowAppendix A: Interview ProtocolAppendix B: Adverse Childhood ExperiencesReferencesIndexAbout the Author