In Season 15, Episode 3 of The Explainer podcast, Craig Trocino, director of Miami Law’s Innocence Clinic and associate professor of clinical education, explains the recent research into the connections between traumatic abuse and propensity to commit violent crimes.
Earlier this summer, a 54-year-old death row inmate in Florida’s prison system was executed for committing several murders. As a teenager, Michael Bell had spent time at the state’s notorious Arthur G. Dozier school for boys, the subject of the St. Petersburg Times 2009 exposé, “For Their Own Good,” and “The Nickel Boys,” a fictionalized work by Colson Whitehead, adapted into a twice Oscar-nominated 2024 movie.
Numerous studies, including a major one sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, found that childhood abuse and neglect significantly increase a person's risk of future delinquency and adult criminality. One study showed maltreated children were 59% more likely to be arrested as juveniles and 30% more likely to be arrested for a violent crime as adults. Listen to the podcast here.
Before joining the law school, Trocino was an Assistant Capital Collateral Regional Counsel for the Southern Region of Florida, where his practice focused on representing death-sentenced inmates in postconviction and habeas corpus proceedings. He is also an experienced AV-rated appellate litigator, having been counsel of record on more than 200 direct appeals and extraordinary writs in state and federal courts.
Trocino served as the co-director of the Florida Innocence Project from 2002-2004 and has taught classes in postconviction litigation and federal sentencing.
