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President Obama Visits and Speaks to Nation of Ghana; Virtual Out of Body Experience; How to Help Children Break the Cycle of Violence

Aired July 11, 2009 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Many thanks, Ed Henry, on your travels over there. We hope you have a good trip home yourself. I'm going to look for you back in D.C.. Thanks very much.

Detroit June 30th multiple gunshots are fired into a crowd at a bus stop, at least four student are wounded. Baltimore, July 2nd, a five- year-old girl is walking home from a store with a cousin, a bullet seemingly out of nowhere hits her in the forehand. Canton, Ohio, July 3rd, two armed men enter a house and begin firing hitting a two-year- old girl. She is pronounced dead at the hospital. Those are some of the examples and all this hour we are taking aim at youth violence. What needs to be done to reduce the bloodshed. We're looking for solutions, answering your questions and reading your comments.

Listen to this, the Centers for Disease Control just released data showing that in 2006, almost 6,000 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 were murdered. Take it a step further, in 2007, at 18 percent, almost one in five high school students admitted carrying a weapon in the past 30 days. It is, of course, shocking news and it's not just about individual places, it's all over the country.

But we begin in Chicago where they're using phrases like tidal wave to discuss recent violence. Seven school age children have been killed in Chicago over the past month. There have been more than 200 murders in Chicago so far this year, many of them involving young people. Back in May, CNN's Abbi Boudreau spent some time with one family torn apart by all this violence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBI BOUDREAU, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATION UNIT (on camera): There are so many people who are watching this who don't understand truly how it feels and no one can really know, but can you try to explain it?

PAM BOSLEY, VICTIM'S MOTHER: It feels like somebody just took a knife and stabbed you in the heart and they don't stop, they just continue to stab you in your heart, but you're still living, you can't die.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): Pam Bosley's son Terrell was shot in 2006 in this church parking lot, just before band practice. The police still haven't found the killer. Terrell was not a gang member. He wanted to play the bass guitar in a gospel band. Instead he was killed for no apparent reason and died a painful death.

PAM BOSLEY: The bullet destroyed a lot of things - it destroyed a lot of things in his body. My baby was suffering, he could not breathe. He did not deserve this. It was horrible.

BOUDREAU: Pam and Tom Bosley feel people have become desensitized to all the killings because there are so many.

TOM BOSLEY, VICTIM'S FATHER: It could happen to anybody at any time. I mean,

BOUDREAU: Tom remembers how he told his other two sons, their older brother had died.

TOM BOSLEY: I told my sons, your I said, your brother he won't be coming home. I just looked at them and I told the them, he won't be coming home. And they looked at me with - they just stared. And I told them, I said, we'll get through it. I said we'll get through this. And they just looked at me.

BOURDREAU: Though nearly half of the cases have not been solved, police believe most of the killings are gang related. We went out with members of the Chicago Police Department's gang task force. The unit expanded in January.

CHIEF ERNEST BROWN, ORGANIZED CRIME DIVISION: I think whenever the availability of guns and there are certain systemic ills in this generation, generation next or whatever you choose to call it where their behavior is just inconsistent with civility. And when you have that circumstance you're going have people who act outside of the norm.

BOUDREAU (on camera): So how bad is it?

DTECTIVE REGINA SCOTT, ORGANIZED CRIME DIVISION: I mean this is an inner city, we have crime, as other inner cities do. We're not unique to this in this United States, you know. You got Detroit. You got New York. You got L.A. We have a gang issue. And we're dealing with that. But we are out here every day actively trying to make a difference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're fed up, you know, we want a future and not a funeral.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): We also gave Ronny Mosley a camera for a couple of weeks. He's a senior class president.

RONNIE MOSLEY, STUDENT LEADER: Greg was a freshman here.

BOUDREAU: Earlier this year, his classmate, freshman Gregory Robinson was gunned down and killed. Police say Robinson was doing nothing wrong.

MOSLEY: The car was gunned down by AK-47. It was a car full of people. And when they looked back and they told him to get up, you know, he was crouched over his family members, one who was a 10-month- old baby and another was four years old. You know, when we got up, he was just breathing like - and you know, they saw him take his last breath.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you care?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you care?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Part of the solution to the gun violence is our street and our neighborhood starts with gun laws.

BOUDREAU: Mosley has fought for years for stricter gun laws. He's had limited success.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: put the guns down!

MOSLEY: This is like genocide in our own backyard. You know, I see in the U.S., we are always the champions, we go overseas and solve problems but yet, you know, we still have problems here that, you know, we can't deal with.

BOUDREAU: Mosley isn't like a lot of other 17-year-olds. He knows he's not invincible.

MOSLEY: Every day I get up thinking about the work that I do and you know, if this could be my last year.

BOUDREAU: Ten-year-old Trevon Bosley shares the same fears.

TREVON BOSLEY: I'm afraid that someone will shoot someone else in my family.

BOUDREAU (on camera): Do you feel like that could happen? I mean is that the kind of thing you think about often?

TREVON BOSLEY: Yes.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): And it's the last thing he this about before going to sleep each night.

TREVON BOSLEY: Please don't let anybody get shot. Amen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: Since Abby filed that story, investigators tell CNN one more Chicago public student was murdered before the school year ended. That brings the total to 37 students killed this past school year and as they said Chicago is not alone. Many of you are weighing in on youth violence.

CNN's Josh Levs is monitoring the tweets, blogs and Facebook entries. Josh, what are we hearing so far?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're are coming in so fast. It's just a matter of minutes ago that I was here with you, saying go ahead and send them and now they're coming in like crazy. I think we can zoom in quickly, this an interesting one. It just popped on our blog from Trey from being a young man that grew up in Chicago who has been shot five times and stabbed three, I find it heartbreaking that this issue of violence in Chicago teens has not been resolved. I do not want to see a young man go through the pain that I went through. So that's an example from Chicago.

But we're getting examples from around the country. We're getting your stories and your questions. Here's where you can send them in. Go ahead and get in touch with us there at the NEWSROOM blog, cnn.com/newsroom. Also we got Facebook and Twitter, it's /joshlevscnn. Really easy to find and I want to emphasize what we're doing this hour. Tom, as you know, we're going to be getting people a lot of answers, some of the trickiest questions. We're getting questions about the role of parents, the role of the media, the role of the church and religious institutions. There's really no holds barred. We're going to ask the experts.

FOREMAN: And we want you to join us here and be part of this conversation. Because really we want it get to the nuts and bolts of this whole thing. Because you know, josh, we both know we've been working on this problem for 50 years in this country and a lot of the pat answers that people roll out really have not worked. So in the next hour we're going to look very hard at what those have been and what might be different now if people can simply come up with these ideas and try them. Stay around with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Here is a revealing and frankly horrifying picture of youth violence in America. The CDC reports among 10 to 24-year-olds homicide ranks as the leading cause of death for African-Americans. It's the second leading cause of death for Hispanics and the third leading cause of death for Asian-Pacific islanders and Native Americans.

Well, our next guest says to tackle youth violence, you have to address problems with gangs. John Hagedorn is a criminal justice professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has studied gangs and violence for the past 20 years. And I appreciate you joining us here. And you start off in the hottest seat of all, I suppose. Because it seems we've been talking about gangs and the need to address this forever. Why have we made so little progress?

JOHN HAGEDORN, CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROFESSOR: That's a good question. Chicago has had the same gangs for - since the 1950s, for more than 50 years. The gangs have become very entrenched here and clearly that's one of the issues of why rates of violence are high.

FOREMAN: When you talk about gangs becoming entrenched there and you studied gang violence. Is most gang violence these days, and we hear so much about the criminal part of it the drug running or anything else, is most of the violence related to any sort of endeavor like that or is it simply violence for violence's sake?

HAGEDORN: Oh, no, what I think we've learned especially where the rates of violence are the highest in black communities, the gangs, the drug trade really is a major contributor to the high rates of violence. But what's important is that and I saw you showed Mayor Daly earlier talk about well violence is everywhere and that's true, but the issue is why is Chicago's rates of homicide two to three times higher than New York City? Different cities have different levels of homicide and cities I think have to look at their own policies.

FOREMAN: Well you've raised that question -

HAGEDORN: We have to figure out why.

FOREMAN: You raised that question, answer that question. Why do you think the differences is? Why are some cities better at this than others?

HAGEDORN: Well, I think one of the issues, certainly Chicago's gang problem is more entrenched. But the other really when you look at Chicago and New York, you need to look at something that's not - doesn't come right off the surface and that's housing. In New York in the '80s and the '90s, right when the homicide rates were rising, they invested $5 billion in affordable housing and stabilized communities. Like in the South Bronx, people came back and lived there.

In Chicago in the same time, the projects were ripped down, schools are being closed. The mayor's policies here have contributed to destabilizing those black communities and we know from looking at violence internationally when you have a lot of displaced people communities that are shattered, rates of violence go up. So that would be where I would start.

FOREMAN: There's certainly evidence of that but then how do you answer other communities where you've had cities that have been around for a long time and their violence has gone up and there has been no displacement of people? What do you do about that? I'm thinking about what I heard in that report a moment ago, where somebody said there seem to be systemic ills with this generation. That somehow we've crossed a threshold where there are simply too many young people who think this is something they can do and that it's acceptable somehow to do it. How do we address that?

HAGEDORN: Well, first of all, you know, you have to look city by city. You're right about looking at other cities have different conditions. Detroit's rates of homicide are among the highest in the world. As there's Baltimore and Philadelphia. This is, there's some serious problems of desperation in those communities. So you do have to look at it city by city. You know, given that, I think that one of the major issues has to be to figuring out how to build communities up and to give resources to communities particularly black communities because this is like in Chicago, two-thirds to three quarters of all homicides are in the black community.

So one of the things, the major things that have to be done is figure out how to strengthen those communities, not eat away at their fabric, displace them, that's a crucial factor in high rates of homicide in this country.

FOREMAN: Well, I want you to stick around because I want to push you a little bit on that. I'm a little -

HAGEDORN: Great.

FOREMAN: I've heard that statement many times in my life and the question has constantly been what does it mean to build up a community? And how do you not build up a troubled community into a bigger troubled community as opposed to making it better? So we're going to get to that and we're going to get to your many questions about it out there. Keep your comments coming in.

Josh is standing by over there with some more of your tweets coming in, your messages coming in. We'll get back to that with John Hagedorn in just a moment and have him answer some of your questions directly as we try to get to the bottom of what's going on with youth violence in this country.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: We're taking a closer look at this hour at youth violence. A new CDC report says 668,000 young victims of violence were treated in emergency rooms for their injuries in 2007. We're putting your questions about this to our guest. Criminal justice professor John Hagedorn and Josh Levs is monitoring your comments and questions about this.

Josh, one of the questions - we're going to break this down a piece at a time. Because as I was saying to you a minute ago, professor, I feel like I've heard the same arguments a million times. So let's go through them one at a time and see what actually goes somewhere. Josh, a lot of the questions are about guns.

LEVS: Yes, this is interesting. Thanks, Tom. And thanks professor, for doing this. There's already a debate going we're just inviting questions minutes ago. And there's already a debate going. Let's zoom in for a second. I can give you a sense, here's one example. And this saying the places with heavy gun control always have rampant gun violence. The police cannot be everywhere at once, especially not in Chicago. If the citizens of Chicago were allowed to bear arms. People also weighing in on the other side. Professor, help us out here, what's your take on that?

HAGEDORN: Well, there's way too many guns in this country. There's a gun for every other person in this country. We would be doing well to get rid of the guns completely. So the issue of firearms everywhere, not just in Chicago but internationally it's a huge problem. Countries like Honduras or El Salvador where there was civil war and a lot of guns and they don't get rid of the guns, creates another problem.

LEVS: Sure. Go ahead, Tom.

FOREMAN: But professor, you raise a very valid point here. There are lots and lots of guns in this country, even gun control advocates recognize that if you shut them all down tomorrow, it would still take many years for that to trickle out of the system.

HAGEDORN: Right.

FOREMAN: In the meantime, what do we do?

HAGEDORN: Well, one of the things that, you know, I think you're right when you said before about a lot of the solutions had been tried before and they failed and we have to be looking at some other things. One thing that contributes to violence in Chicago is that the city has been at war with gangs since 1969. And I don't know how war is a policy that leads to peace. And so recently in this last year in Chicago, the police are trading in their shotguns for M-4 military assault weapons. That shoot up to 1,000 rounds a minute. And are lethal at two miles.

I don't know what kind of message that sends to communities that we're arming like a military and there's many people within black communities like Lawndale and Inglewood that say that the police are like an occupying army. I don't think you can have war and peace at the same time.

FOREMAN: Well, I just fear, professor, that all we're doing though is further defining the problem when we talk about whether we should have more gun laws or less gun laws or bigger guns or smaller guns. It seems like we're defining the problem and not so much working towards solutions.

Josh, what are some of the other things that people are asking?

LEVS: They're asking one quick thing about that. Professor, you teach criminal justice, can you tell us factually - is there a clear correlation, a clear correlation between stricter gun laws and keeping the community more safe among youth or does it go the other way? Is there any obvious clear correlation someone can point to and say look, these laws do that?

HAGEDORN: No. Gun laws don't - cities and states with strict gun laws don't have lower homicide rates, no.

LEVS: Exactly. That's going to allow them to keep raising it. Let me quickly toss another point actually that I think is very interesting, something else that people are weighing in on. It's right here behind me. One of the posts that we're getting from Facebook and it's about the media. A lot of people saying similar things. What are the latest findings about the correlation between exposure to violence in the media; therefore, desensitization and violent behavior of youth today? Professor, have you seen clear correlations there between the exposure to media that contains violence and violence on the streets?

HAGEDORN: Well, it's not a very healthy culture that we live in. Violence pervades everything, from Hollywood to, you know, rap music. So it's certainly not a helpful thing. To say that that's the reason why there's higher rates of violence, that's a little bit of a stretch, I think.

LEVS: Again, nothing concrete you can point to and say clear correlation there?

HAGEDORN: Right.

FOREMAN: So, professor, if you looked at this and if we say that with gun laws we can't seem to as, as a society, reach a conclusion on what will make a difference on this. And I know plenty of you out there are on either side of that issue coming unhinged right now because it's a very explosive issue. We're not trying to take a position on that but we're just saying that's one that's been intractable for us to deal with. The question of violence in media and exposure to children has been brought up and kicked around a lot. I guess my question is what do you know that does work, professor? When you look for the most successful community out there and say here are some keys as to why it did a better job. What are those keys?

HAGEDORN: Well, I think it's, on a micro level, it's clear that programs that are able to reach and talk with gang members and people that are involved with violence and attempt to prevent the cycle from continuing, that those things are necessary, but they're not sufficient. So we really do need to be able to go out and talk to those perpetrators, the people in the organizations that are doing violence and not treat them like they're the enemy.

But try to use reason and that is an important component but that's not the whole story. You really can't let people get away with murder. And you talked about the homicide rate in Chicago, that so many are not cleared, Chicago has had a long history of that. The most shocking statistic in Chicago is the gangland slayings that took place from the outfit. There were over 1,000 killings from the 1920s on to the '60s and only two were prosecuted, and successfully prosecuted. That kind of stuff has to stop.

FOREMAN: And for our viewers, of course, if you're not aware of it, in Chicago, the mob is referred to as the outfit. That's the name for them. Thanks for joining us, criminal justice professor John Hagedorn. It's good having you here.

Josh is standing by to take more of your questions and comments about what is going on here. And we're going to keep working on this because I think one of the real issues we have to talk about a great deal more is culture. The overall culture of our nation and of our young people and what we are doing or not doing to move that toward a society where it truly is unacceptable to all of us for this sort of thing to happen. Sit tight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, President Obama is on his way home this hour after his visit to Ghana. During his time there, the president addressed parliament, and he and his family toured a fortress that once used to house enslaved Africans being shipped to the new world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Particularly important for Malia and Sasha, who are growing up in such a blessed way, to be reminded that history can take very cruel turns.

And hopefully one of the things that was imparted to them during this trip is their sense of obligation to fight oppression and cruelty wherever it appears. (END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: In the Florida panhandle police are asking the public to be on the lookout for a red van they believe carried three men involved in the deaths of a husband and wife. They say the couple was shot in their rural home while eight of the children slept.

The couple had 16 children total, 12 adopted. The ones at the home at the time of the killing were not hurt.

In Hattiesburg, thousands o mourners gathered to say good-bye to former NFL quarterback Steve McNair. Funeral services were held at the University of Southern Mississippi. Police in Nashville, Tennessee say McNair, a married father with four children, was killed by his mistress on July 4th in a murder/suicide.

Youth, guns, and death -- who could believe the culture of violence has become such a way of life for so many Americans? This hour we're looking for solutions, answering your questions, and reading your comments about all of this.

After Chicago tallied 11 fatal shootings over the Fourth of July weekend, a newspaper headline asked "Where's the outrage?" You can ask that in a great many American cities.

Dawn Turner Trite is a columnist with the "Chicago Tribune." And let me ask you something, Dawn, where is the outrage in all of this, because I must say, when I started in this profession a long time ago, even one child's death did provoke a great sense of outrage, and it doesn't seem to be there anymore.

DAWN TURNER TRICE, COLUMNIST, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE": Absolutely. It's amazing. When we looked at Chicago last November right after the election, Chicago was just stage set. It was beautiful that night. And I mean the skyline was beautiful. And we saw all of the people in Grant Park, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, hugged up, and it really made the city look wonderful.

But when you think about what's happening in terms of the violence, it's almost like shining on the outside and rotting on the inside. And there should be outrage.

Even if no more than for a very pragmatic reason in that crime often, or this violence doesn't just stay in one area. There's always the chance that it can migrate.

And so it's not just the problem of a community like a West Garfield Park or Englewood. It should be the problem of everybody. And I'm afraid that we're not seeing it. We're not gearing up that way.

FOREMAN: Why do you think that is, Dawn? Because, you know, as I said, there was a time when community really did react in a big way. I almost feel sometimes as if people have simply grown so fatigued by it happening that it's just easier for people to shrug and say, I guess that's just the way it is. TRICE: Well, I think, every time I hear when something bad happens in a community, a more affluent community and when I hear people say this wasn't supposed to happen here, it just makes me cringe, because the reality is that it's not supposed to happen anywhere.

And I think that people really, I mean we've drawn these borders and these -- we have these very stark dividers, and it's almost like if it's not happening in my neighborhood, then it's not happening to me. So there isn't this sense of interconnectivity.

And I think -- what happened? I don't know exactly when it happened, but I know that there has, over the years, there seems to be this kind of, there's a distance, and there's this great chasm that's growing between the people who really understand and who want to get in and solve these problems, whether you live in these types of neighborhoods or not, the embattled ones, and people who just kind of feel like, you know, I've got so many other things on my plate. The economy is bad, and I'm worried about my own house, and I don't have time right now.

TRICE: Dawn, let me ask you the same question I was just asking the professor a short while ago, then. You've traveled around, you've been to many of these places, you've talked to these people.

In the neighborhoods where is it is getting better, or at least not getting worse, what's the difference between that neighborhood, and the other one where it's hopeless?

TRICE: I tell you, I recently wrote about a young man named Kelwin (ph) Harris who runs a program called the "Beloved Community." And he's a kid who grew up in a pretty embattled neighborhood, went to a fabulous high school locally, went off to Cornell University, then to graduate school at Harvard.

But then decided to come back to the community and work in the community and help make a difference.

And one of the things about his story that absolutely love, and it kind of dove tails into what you're talking about, what's making a difference, is that he understands that not all of these kids are dying in the way that calls for burying.

When you are a kid who sees another kid who's gunned down, that has a tremendous effect on you.

So what he's doing is he's gathering up a bunch of kids, and a few weeks ago he took them on a trip to tour a group of Ivy League colleges, because it's so important for a lot of these kids to get out of the community. Oftentimes their lives are just so narrowly defined by a few blocks.

TRICE: So, Dawn, is the issue here that those kids were exposed to something outside the community? Do you think that's what made the difference? Or do you think the difference is that somebody within the community took an interest in them? TRICE: I think it's both. And I think that this is such a complex problem that it takes so many different -- we've got to hit it from so many different sides. And so it takes a person who is able to get out, who comes back and who makes a difference.

It takes that person exposing young kids who have seen things that, you know, we have not seen, and we're adults and we haven't seen some of these things, we haven't grown up in environments like this.

And it takes them to -- it's important to get them out of this environment and into places where they can see another side so that they do have the balance, and they can get out and experience something and understand that there's something much bigger than what they may see in front of them.

TRICE: I remember a very interesting study years ago about small towns. And the question was, why does one small town survive and not other economically?

And it came down to sort of what you're talking about. If they can get one or two or three people there who said I will make this better, and they truly did something about it as opposed to complaining about it, it tended to make a difference.

So sit tight for a second, Dawn. We're going to come back in a moment with more of your questions out there. We want to hear what you're asking, what you're discussing about this issue. We're going to direct them to Dawn and to Josh Levs, who's listening.

Please stay with us. We want to hear from you and continue our discussion about youth violence in country and in all of our communities.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: We're talking all about youth violence.

Dawn, I want to get back to you with a quick question here. We have Josh Levs standing by and a child psychiatrist as well to help us out here.

When you talk about the neighborhoods that have made a difference -- we mentioned this idea of key figures who might play a role in making things happen there. Is there also a sort of a sense of critical mass? Is there a point that the universe of a neighborhood has to feel like it's possible to make progress, or do you see people just wither away from it and say it is hopeless?

TRICE: Well, I think that that whole notion of the village and people working together to that very specific end of hopefulness is extremely important.

But you, it has to start somewhere. So it is a piece by piece process, or person by person process. And I think that that's -- it takes people like Kelwin (ph) Harris or other people whom I've met in the community, who really feel that they can make a difference. And, I mean, without that, the community continues to implode on itself.

FOREMAN: All right, thanks very much for joining us, Dawn.

Tony Charuvastra is a child psychiatrist whose specialty is post traumatic distress in children. He's joining us now from New York to answer some of these questions about how much, I guess these really are cultural question. But Josh Levs has a lot of questions about and the impact on these people -- Josh?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And it's really interesting, the kinds of questions we're getting. And Tony, thanks for joining us here.

Let me tell what we're going to do. We're hearing from a lot of people with a lot of question, some who don't want their names used because they're concerned about their neighbor's kids, their kids friends, that kind of thing.

I'm going present you some of their questions now. I want you it talk to me about the warning signs. If you see some behavior either in your own child, your neighbor's child, your child's friends, what are you looking out for that they may have been exposed to violence?

DR. TONY CHARUVASTRA, NYU CHILD STUDY CENTER: That's a great question. I think the first thing to say is that parents often don't know their children have been exposed to violence, and so it's very important for parents to take an active interest in who their kids are seeing and what their kids are doing after school and with their peers.

With post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, the signs can involve either kind of being too hot or too cold. So either a child who has a change in their personality where they suddenly seem like they are more angry or more irritable, jumpier, or, alternately, they're too cold, that they are withdrawn, that they more sullen, that they're keeping to themselves.

LEVS: The thing is, a lot of parents are going to do that, but they're just going to think maybe I'm reading too much into it, maybe things are tough at home. Should you always say something just in case, or does it really need to cross a line to the point that you see a certain behavior that might be violent in that child?

CHARUVASTRA: I think that a lot of parents try to downplay the significance when they see their children being aggressive towards their siblings or towards their friends.

And I think that, in general, parents want to not see problems. But when you see your child being more aggressive than usual with their sibling or with their friends, that's an important sign.

LEVS: OK, so you think you've seen this. What do you do?

CHARUVASTRA: Well, I think the first thing is to talk to your child. And I think that the most important thing that I stress to people I work with is that parents are the most effective agents of change.

I think the second thing is that to find out, are you living in a community where your child is exposed to violence or exposed to threats? If you think your child is suffering from psychological distress, it's important to reach out to help to a mental health counselor or psychiatrist or psychologist.

Most children won't tell their parents they've been traumatized or experiencing symptoms of PTSD.

LEVS: OK, we can talk about therapy in a second, but let me ask you something, because the one thing I think you said to me earlier before we got on air is even before you go to a therapist, move.

CHARUVASTRA: The best example from recent times is that for the kids who lived in New Orleans, and at lot of them developed PTSD symptoms after hurricane Katrina. But you wouldn't start treating those kids before the floodwaters receded, or before those kids had homes to live in again.

And so the paramount principle for helping traumatized kids is first making sure they feel safe.

LEVS: The next logical question here -- it's kind of like that old joke about psychiatrists. How many psychiatrists does it take to a chinch a light bulb? One, but the light bulb has to want to change.

CHARUVASTRA: Right. That's my favorite joke.

LEVS: So you get this kid to a psychiatrist. What makes you think that this child, whether he's six or ten or 16, is going to want to go through whatever change is necessary to deal with that PTSD, get past it, so as not to become violence.

CHARUVASTRA: That's a great question, and I think that really dovetails with the previous speaker, the columnist from Chicago, that children's work is to grow up, to be strong, to be effective, to be competent. And often they use role models, they need credible role models to know how they're going to grow up.

And so helping a child choose a goal that's more adaptive often requires that there be a credible role model for them to emulate. And so having someone from the community who's gone out into the world and has made something of themselves and come back is a huge asset for someone like me.

LEVS: I think you told me there were times you took rappers, right, with kids to therapy, kids that they trust as role models, that they kind of listen to that therapist better.

CHARUVASTRA: Yes. As role model, coaches, teachers. I'm optimistic that President Obama could be a great role model for many youth in this country.

LEVS: He probably no available to go to therapy with every child.

Coming up, we're going to be talking to you about a few more things, including the difference between boy and girls. Also, there are a few questions from people who are comfortable having their names used. They're on the board behind me. That is coming right up.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: This is the view of the world from outside your body as seen in the movie "Ghost."

Swedish researchers are creating a similar experience in their lab. Using 3-d goggles and cameras, researchers enable participants to see themselves from above or even feel like they are the dummy in this room.

HENRIK EHRSSON, KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET: It's quite amazing. You're in your body for all your life, and you think your brain should know what your body looks like. But in those ten seconds it can completely reevaluate the situation and accept the body of a different individual, a different gender even.

TUCHMAN: So how does it work? First, the subject wears a head mounted video unit. Then researchers play video they want the person to see.

When she looks down, this is what her eyes see. The researcher then touches her body and the dummy simultaneously. With this view the test subject's brain makes a connection, and presto, she's the dummy.

To test the connection, the dummy is cut with a knife, and the test subject reacts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels like you tried to slice me across my stomach.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you experienced being a plastic man.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TUCHMAN: Harrison said the possibilities are endless. Cameras could show how you appear to others and help improve low self-esteem. Amputees could use the therapy to give their new prosthetic limb a sense of feeling.

EHRSSON: If you new body, maybe a different gender or a different group or race, that could change the way you think about yourself, feel about yourself, and think and feel about other individuals.

TUCHMAN: Gary Tuchman, CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) FOREMAN: Here's one more fact on youth violence we want to share with you. A new CDC report among homicide victims 10 to 24 years old, 84 percent were killed with a firearm.

We're back talking now with Tony and with Josh over here about what's going on. Tony, let me ask you one question about this.

CHARUVASTRA: Sure.

FOREMAN: You mentioned a little while ago the idea that people ought to move.

Look, I reported in New Orleans, I reported in Chicago. I've been in a lot of these places. There are many people in these places who would move if they could. And after someone gets shot or their kid sees somebody getting show, they still can't afford to move.

What are they supposed to do? They certainly can't afford to psychiatrist. What are they going to do?

CHARUVASTRA: I think it's a good way of making the point that the community, that we need community leaders to work in these communities to help make the communities feel safer. And that involves rebuilding churches or rebuilding those social connections.

I think you asked the question earlier, why are some towns or cities successful and others not successful? And I think there is evidence that communities that have more social capital, that have more social leaders who have credibility are more successful at implementing violence prevention programs.

There are a number of violence prevention programs that have evidence to support them, that are shovel ready, but just need to be disseminated into communities.

But we know that communities are more likely to implement these programs when those community are more cohesive, have trusted leaders, have better relationships with institution that are implementing them.

The question -- and your point about how people can't afford mental health counseling I think speaks to the other important debate going on right now in this country about health care reform.

LEVS: That's actually what some people are weighing in on, big time. They're saying that in their messages today. They're saying there isn't access to all of these things, and the government, in a lot of people's view, the government needs to step in, but also these community organizations getting in some more.

We have limited time. Let me just toss something at you quickly, if I may, because I promised I would. We generally think about boys, teenage boys, guys in this discussion, but there is also violence affecting girls in America. How different, how is it the same among girls?

CHARUVASTRA: Absolutely. I mean, I think the first thing to say is girls in general, and particularly in these kinds of communities, are subject to sexual violence at much higher rates than boys, and that it's often underreported and under-discussed.

The second thing is that girls more likely to develop PTSD and other psychological problems following trauma, but that also girls are just as capable of getting trapped into the cycle of violence as boys.

LEVS: And following up what we were just talking, I have a post here that I'm looking at from Facebook from Liz, who is asking whether there's any clear sign about the role of youth involvement in faith- based activities.

And this is one place where some people are writing us to say hey, if the government won't do it and people don't have the money, right, to move or get help in the sense they need, maybe you can get something through churches.

Have you found that involvement in faith-based organizations is helping these kids when they are facing PTSD from violence?

CHARUVASTRA: I think the answer is yes.

A very interesting study from the south just came out last year showing that involvement in activities that give youth a sense of meaning and purpose can serve as a resilience factor or protective factor against developing post traumatic stress disorder when living in many of the circumstances that we're talking about today.

I think the other thing is that -- there's a Jesuit saying that give me the child when he's seven and I'll give you the man.

I think that the timeframe that we have in this discussion is often far too short, and that what we should be focusing on are earlier interventions starting at birth, going through preschool, and investing in the minds and the brains of these young people for their whole lives.

Society and culture imprinted themselves onto the brains, and I take care of people's brains as they develop over the course of a lifetime. And I think that this spike in youth violence, even while we see in other forms of violence decline in adults, really reflect the underinvestment in youth in this country over the 20 years.

FOREMAN: Doctor, I think that's an excellent point that we are going to have to leave you on, because I want to get very quickly as we wrap u here to Teo (ph) Hardaman (ph), a community activist up in Chicago who has been looking at this for quite some time.

And Teo (ph), I know we had a little trouble connecting with you. Before we go, give us a thought -- we had Teo (ph) for a moment, and now we've lost him again, I afraid. We had a little trouble with our satellite there.

So doctor, I guess the last comment will come back to you then. In the end, if you could right now reach out and touch the single biggest thing that would make a difference -- you mentioned very, very young children out there.

What do you think would really help so that maybe ten years from now, we have a somewhat better conversation instead of all feeling like we're throwing up our hands saying we just can't there get there. What do you think?

CHARUVASTRA: If President Obama is listening to this broadcast I would say universal preschool education and universal health care access.

FOREMAN: I'm sure there will be a lot of debate about that as well. Thanks so much for joining. Josh, excellent questions over there. We appreciate all of you joining us for this conversation about this today.

It's a pretty simple equation. The simple truth is being a parent is hard, being a part of a community is hard, being a teacher is hard -- that's no excuse for not trying, especially when something so bad happens as a result when we let kids run the neighborhood instead of the adults. It seems how it breaks down.

Thanks so much for joining us today on this weekend. We hope you had a good time. We'll keep you up to all the news. Stay with CNN for everything that's happening out there. I'm Tom Foreman.

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DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Right now in the "CNN Newsroom," President Obama's emotional trip to Africa, his father's homeland.

Plus, new information about the cemetery plot scam in Chicago. It is an unbelievable story. Many parents can't find the remains of their own babies.

Plus, I just got off the phone with the LAPD, and I have new details about the Michael Jackson death investigation, the rumors, the truth, all of the information you need right now.