The value of “empathy” as the primary criterion for selecting judges must be eradicated, as should the practical application of that value, which usually means emphasizing race, sexual preference, gender, and political affiliation over basic qualifications and standards. So long as this subversive trend continues, President Obama’s judicial nominees should receive a heightened level of scrutiny from senators.
========================
The value of “empathy” as the primary criterion
for selecting judges must be eradicated
==============
With the possibility of additional Supreme Court nominations in President Obama’s second term, he must square with the Senate and the American people about his view of a judge’s proper role.
State laws and school-district rules may help curb bullying on campus, but many researchers suggest a better way is not to raise a bully in the first place
In Athens, future leaders were brought up in a more nurturing and peaceful way, at home with their mothers and nurses, starting education in music and poetry at age 6. They became pioneers of democracy, art, theater and culture. "
======================== Just like we can train people to kill,
the same is true with empathy. ==============
Just like we can train people to kill, the same is true with empathy. You can be taught to be a Spartan or an Athenian — and you can taught to be both," says Teny Gross, executive director of the outreach group Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence in Providence, R.I., and a former sergeant in the Israeli army
After Justice David Souter retired from the Supreme Court in the spring of 2009, President Obama launched a brief national media freak-out by putting “empathy” at the top of his wish list for his first Supreme Court nominee. Empathy, Obama said, was an “essential ingredient” for arriving at “just decisions and outcomes.”
============================
Empathy, Obama said, was an
“essential ingredient” for arriving
at “just decisions and outcomes.”
==============
When he named federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill Souter’s seat, his “empathy standard” was widely debated and derided by those who saw it as code for every imaginable judicial evil, including bias, sentimentality and, quite possibly, generalized female-ness.
Theoretical models of the role of empathy in sexual offending agree on five components relevant to the experience of empathy:
- a respectful and compassionate orientation to others,
- perspective taking,
- affective responding,
- the ability to manage personal distress,
- and situational factors.
We identify overlap between these components of the empathic process and established risk factors for sexual offending and create a model detailing potential blocks to the empathic process during sexual offending. The model has external consistency and useful implications for interventions with sex offenders.
======================== create a model detailing potential blocks
to the empathic process during
sexual offending. ==============
Viewed in the light of this model, we argue that current sex offender treatment programs spend a disproportionate amount of time examining empathy for past victims. We recommend, instead, that treatment aims to enhance offenders’ abilities in relation to the components of the empathic process more generally, using creative and engaging techniques akin to those used to develop “victim empathy”.
Highlights
► Providers may consider devoting less time to victim empathy work in treatment
► Deficits leading to lack of empathy at the time of the offense become the targets
► Tailor treatment to an individual's blocks to empathy
► Deliver empathy work in a way that is creative and engaging
► Empathy work should respects individuals’ rights and dignity
If the ability to empathize with another plays an important role in regulating and controlling one’s anger, empathy could ultimately be the key to avoiding violence in certain situations. Thus, it is easy to surmise that aggressive individuals or violent offenders must not be able to empathize in the way others are able.
In a recent study in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, author Dr. Andrew Day investigated this very question by examining the presence of perspective-taking abilities in violent prisoners and comparing them to a student sample with regard to anger and aggression.
============================ If the ability to empathize with another
plays an important role in regulating and
controlling one’s anger, empathy could
ultimately be the key to avoiding violence
in certain situations.
==============
By Lauren Vieaux
Image: Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime, by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
The initiative comes at a particularly important time given the alarming statistics that reflect the inefficiency of the criminal justice system, mainstream domestic violence and sexual violence programs, and the inimical zero tolerance policies...
During last night’s debate, empathy was on display from the beginning. In his opening statement, Romney invoked various struggling women he’d met on the campaign trail: a woman in Ohio who has been unemployed since May and asked ‘can you help me?’; another woman with a baby in her arms who had just lost her home. He was replaying Clinton, implicitly telling middle class Americans that he feels their pain.
============================ During last night’s debate, empathy was on
Restorative Justice is an alternative to the judicial system that is proving successful around the world in keeping youth offenders out of jail and reducing ...
The last prosecution witness to testify against the man who held Elizabeth Smart captive for nearly a year was a psychiatrist who said Brian David Mitchell met 17 of 20 criteria for diagnosis as a psychopath.
Evidence of psychopathy, characterized by a lack of empathy and ability to control impulses, is often seen as a "double-edged sword" in the criminal justice system, because judges could use it to justify shortening or lengthening a felon’s time behind bars. In Mitchell’s case, a federal judge ordered him to prison for the rest of his life for kidnapping and raping the Salt Lake City teenager.
How do conflict resolution professionals describe empathy? What are the connections between empathy and healing conflict? How do coaches and mediators build empathy for their clients and themselves? How do forgiveness and empathy connect? These eloquent, distinguished experts in the field have a free ranging discussion of these and other related questions.
Topic and Questions
The general topic is the intersection of conflict resolution and empathy. I'm thinking of questions like-- - What does empathy mean to you? - How does empathy fit with the work you do? - How do you help clients/parties find empathy for each other? - How/why does this help heal conflict? - What makes finding empathy challenging? - How are empathy and forgiveness different/the same?
I have seen over and over in mediations and communication coaching sessions, that people need to be listened to, to believe that their opinions and feelings matter, before they are open to change or negotiating through differences. We have to find a way to listen and respect the perspective of others, including kids.However, parents and professionals who work with teens must not to accept abuse from them, thinking they are fostering good communication or being understanding.
“…But you’ll have to find another way of saying it.”
To explain the etiology of conflict therefore requires us to gain a deeper understanding of how the brain responds to conflict.
All conflicts are perceived by the senses, manifested through body language and kinesthetic sensations, embodied and given meaning by thoughts and ideas, steeped in intense emotions, made conscious through awareness, and may then be resolved by conversations and experiences, and develop into character, nurture a capacity for openness and trust, and contribute to learning and an ability to change.
To explain the etiology of conflict therefore requires us to gain a deeper understanding of how the brain responds to conflict. This should clearly include the ways distrusting personalities are formed, even among primates; the sources of aggressive character traits and the “fight or flight” reflex; the wellsprings of spiritual malaise and hostile gut reactions; and the neurological foundations of forgiveness, open-heartedness, empathy, insight, intuition, learning, wisdom, and willingness to change.
Teaching empathy may not seem possible in classroom settings.
However, a growing number of law professors recognize the importance of teaching to the whole person and encouraging students to develop an integrated professional self capable of drawing upon both intellectual and emotional insights to support empathetic understanding. Among those is Patti Alleva, the Rodney and Betty Webb Professor of Law, former Faculty Development Fellow for Teaching and Learning at the School of Law, and a two-time recipient of UND’s Lydia and Arthur Saiki Prize for Graduate or Professional Teaching Excellence.
Restorative justice, which encourages young people to develop empathy for one another, is increasingly offered in schools seeking an alternative to “zero tolerance” policies.
The approach now taking root in 21 Oakland schools, and in Chicago, Denver and Portland, Ore., tries to nip problems and violence in the bud by forging closer, franker relationships among students, teachers and administrators. It encourages young people to come up with meaningful reparations for their wrongdoing while challenging them to develop empathy for one another through “talking circles” led by facilitators like Mr. Butler.
======================== reparations for their wrongdoing while
challenging them to develop empathy
for one another through “talking circles” ==============
Restorative Justice programs are also being developed by some therapeutic boarding schools, and seem to be quite effective in helping struggling teens. -Lon
The distinction between “empathy” and “sympathy” in the context of ethics is a dynamic and challenging one. The eighteenth century texts of David Hume and Adam Smith used the word “sympathy,” but not “empathy,” although the conceptual distinction marked by empathy was doing essential work in their writings. After discussing the early uses of these terms, this article is organized historically. Two traditions are distinguished.
Empathy is severely lacking in law firm recruitment, says Motive Legal’s Mark Brandon, who has come across partners who take three months to make a decision - and even those who go as far as to blank their HR manager
Mark Brandon
Having just observed the grotesque failure of yet another senior recruitment process - happily these days without any skin in the game, as it were - I have refined my conclusions as to what might be missing from much of the recruitment process in senior law: empathy.
Empathy is related, directly or indirectly, to important elements in criminology such as the enactment of harsh penalties for repeat offenders, antisocial behavior, feelings of legitimacy toward the law, and attitudes toward the death penalty. Although empathy is beginning to find its way into criminological discourse, it is still not well understood nor often incorporated into quantitative research. This is likely due to issues regarding the conceptualization and measurement of empathy as well as the lack of measures of empathy incorporated into contemporary data sets.
============================ This study discusses the importance of empathy for criminology and uses a set of research examples to exemplify the relationships between empathy and outcome
important to criminology.
==============
This study discusses the importance of empathy for criminology and uses a set of research examples to exemplify the relationships between empathy and outcomes important to criminology. Empathy emerges as an important predictor of criminal behavior, support for harsh laws, and perceptions of police effectiveness. Future research should incorporate measures of empathy when seeking to understand individual feelings and behaviors as they relate to important facets of criminology and criminal justice.
President Obama has repeatedly stated that he views a capacity for empathy as an essential attribute of a good judge. And conservatives have heaped mountains of scorn upon him for saying so—accusing him of expressing open contempt for the rule of law.
This Article seeks to offer a sustained scholarly defense of judicial empathy. Empathy is properly defined as the cognitive ability to understand a situation from the perspective of other people, combined with the emotional capacity to comprehend and feel those people’s emotions in that situation.
=========================== This article seeks to offer a sustained scholarly defense of judicial empathy. ==============
This is an essential characteristic of a good judge. Legal doctrine, at both the constitutional and subconstitutional level, is permeated with reasonableness and balancing tests and other doctrinal mechanisms that cannot possibly be employed effectively unless judges are able to gain an empathic appreciation of the case from the perspective of all of the litigants. A judge can neither craft nor employ legal doctrine competently if she is not willing and able to understand the perspectives of, and the burdens upon, all of the parties.
Distracted driving, victim empathy and community outreach were the topics of a lecture given by Anapol Schwartz equity partner, Joel Feldman.
Anapol Schwartz attorney Joel Feldman spoke about distracted driving at the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association 2012-13 Luncheon Lecture Series on October 10. Feldman’s lecture, called “Distracted Driving - Litigation, Victim Empathy, and Community Outreach,” is part of an effort to educate attorneys about the nature of grief and mourning so they may better represent clients and be more empathetic and understanding members of the community.
======================== The lecture discussed how a more
compassionate approach with clients can
help lawyers discover fuller details
of a client’s unique story of loss
so that they can better represent
the client when arguing damage ==============
The lecture discussed how a more compassionate approach with clients can help lawyers discover fuller details of a client’s unique story of loss so that they can better represent the client when arguing damages. Feldman gave practical suggestions concerning how to speak with, listen to and comfort someone who is in mourning.
This is a question that was presented to men in The Last Mile program at San Quentin. This response is from Darnell Hill.
My first response to this question is: where there are humans: empathy, love, and compassion exist. This being my first time in prison, I too came in with the notion or assumption that prison is not the place to display the characteristics or emotions like trust, love, empathy, and compassion. I am 44 years young and have spent half of my life incarcerated, therefore I have the experience and insight as to why emotions like love, trust, empathy, and compassion are necessary emotional stimulants to overcome persecution, guilt, shame, and emotional abuse.
We live in fear of our children. Any society that fears its children will not long thrive. We have allowed enormous distance to develop between ourselves and the children of others. We have not come to know them sufficiently and we have not invested emotionally, materially and spiritually in their well being. We have not taught them by example to understand the interconnectedness of all things and the need to always understand the impact of our actions on others...
We have raised an entire generation without the prerequisites for developing empathy and then are outraged when they seem not to care about the impact of their behavior on others. We did not consciously decide to raise them without empathy, but that is the result of significant changes in our social behavior.
The development of empathy requires:
1. regular feedback about how our actions are affecting others, respectfully communicated
2. relationships in which we are valued and our worth is validated
3. experience of sympathy from others when we are in pain
1. How do you all think restorative justice helps build empathy? Do you have a story of when you saw it or felt it? 2. When you are sitting in a restorative justice process how do you know when empathy is happening? 3. What ways do you work to build empathy when doing restorative justice? 4. What else would you like to say about restorative justice and empathy?
I’m Deb Witzel, the Executive Director for the Longmont Community Justice Partnership and CO-producer of the Colorado Restorative Justice Summit set for August 9, 10 and 11th in Denver.
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”—Winston Churchill
What does it take to sit down and listen to someone we disagree with, instead of dismissing them as the enemy or turning to violence?
First we must accept that they are full and imperfect human beings, just as we are, not cardboard characters in our own personal or professional drama.
Second, we must understand that good people can hold different beliefs and opinions. We may find their views wrong or event abhorrent, but must not equate that with believing they are themselves evil.
by Lorraine Segal Culture of Empathy Builder Page: Lorraine Segal http://bit.ly/y0Mvf3
Novels Can Promote Empathy: So, as a devoted novel reader and mediator/conflict coach, I was delighted when I read a blog post on the Harvard Business Review Network by Ann Kreamer, called “The Business Case for Reading Novels.” In it, she cites a number of studies that show novel reading can stimulate empathy and increase our understanding of people who are different from us.
Why is empathy so important in communication and conflict resolution?
We each have our own story, our own history and narrative about our lives. But we often know little about the narrative and history of other people in our personal or professional lives. Even with people we feel close to, we operate far more from assumptions rather than genuine understanding.
by Lorraine Segal Culture of Empathy Builder: Lorraine Segal http://bit.ly/y0Mvf3
As an English teacher, I know appreciating literature takes empathy, something foreign for most of my students, as it was for the Athena boys who didn't recognize Klein's tears as a sign to stop taunting....
What happened to Karen Klein was tragic in every way, and the boys’ sentence was just. Though it was kind for people to open their pocketbooks and donate to a much-deserved retirement fund and vacation for Klein, money won’t erase the pain she will forever feel, nor will money fix the real problem. It can help prevent it - funding is desperately needed for programs like mine, which can and do change villains to victors. Empathy education is needed now more than ever. It starts with us. Every child, no matter what they’ve done, needs to know that at least one person has a vested interest in their future, someone who cares for them unconditionally. Perhaps someone like you.
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