#196. Understanding the Perpetrators of Brutal Crimes, Rather than Demonizing Them as Monsters

Joseph Margulies is an attorney who has worked with death row convicts and prisoners at Guantanamo. His new book, Cast Out: A Call for a Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration, presents poignant case studies of people who were convicted of heinous and brutal crimes. Each endured an extraordinarily difficult childhood, some in a gang-infested neighborhood, most with a dehumanizing level of poverty, all of them survivors of physical or sexual abuse – circumstances, that in his view don’t exonerate them, but should call for our empathy and understanding, rather than the more typical response of demonizing them as irredeemable monsters. Margulies sums up his personal philosophy – which clearly guides his professional life – to eight words: “There is no them, there is only us.”This episode includes graphic descriptions of child abuse. Listener discretion is advised.Recorded 8/18/26.