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Article snippet: LEBANON, Conn. — Rob Sullivan still remembers the gun and the sound of his mother’s high-pitched pleas. Two thieves had burst into his parents’ Hartford home. Demanding his father’s dope stash, one of the men placed a gun to Rob’s right temple. “Just give it to them,” his mother begged his father. He was 6 years old. The incident, charred in his memory, was an early trauma among many he recalls from his childhood. He watched his father beat his mother for not having dinner ready on time or for not cleaning the house, he said. Often, she fought back. Sometimes when he got home, his parents were too drunk or high to let him in. Truancy charges landed him in juvenile detention in his early teens. “Chaotic — there is no other way to describe my childhood,” he said. “I always felt alone.” Given his history, it perhaps comes as no surprise that he has spent as much of his adult life in prison and in drug rehab as he has spent out. Mr. Sullivan acknowledges that he has “made my own trouble” and “done stupid things.” But in a justice system built upon the idea of choice and personal responsibility, experts say the path to trouble may begin long before an individual has any say in the matter. What happens to people in childhood can make a difference in whether they end up in a prison cell, or whether they are even wired to make rational decisions. “Childhood trauma is a huge factor within the criminal justice system,” said Christopher Wildeman, a sociologist at Cornell Un... Link to the full article to read more