Locked In with Ian Bick - I'm a Forensic Psychologist — Here's What I Saw Working Inside LA County Jail & Mental Hospitals | Dr. Leslie Dobson

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Dr. Leslie Dobson is a clinical and forensic psychologist with more than 20 years of experience working inside LA County Jail, state psychiatric hospitals, and court-related psychological assessments across California. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, she shares the complete truth about what the criminal mind really looks like from the inside — and what most people fundamentally misunderstand about psychology, crime, and the justice system. She breaks down whether someone can fake not guilty by reason of insanity, what it really means to be a psychopath, why people are so fascinated with serial killers and true crime, what mental health hospitals are really like, and whether inmates deserve a second chance after prison. _____________________________________________ #psychologist #criminalminds #truecrimecommunity _____________________________________________ Connect with Dr. Leslie Dobson: Website: https://drlesliedobson.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlesliedobson?igsh=MWs4M2JrZWRpd3hoOA== _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Introducing Dr. Leslie Dobson 00:22 Family History and Early Influences 03:13 Finding Her Path: Education & Adversity 07:51 Surviving Major Health Challenges 14:10 Forensic Psychology Career Beginnings 19:21 Naivety, Manipulation & Lessons in Jail 23:19 State Hospitals and High-Risk Populations 27:00 Complexity of Mental Illness in Institutions 34:00 Violence, Psychopathy, and Untreatable Cases 39:02 Staff Dynamics & Institutional Corruption 43:41 True Crime, Fan Mail, and Media Fascination 51:20 Social Media, Justice, and Public Advocacy 58:46 Sexual Abuse Laws, Inconsistencies, and Second Chances 01:06:34 Civil Work, Emotional Damages, and Lie Detection 01:14:00 Psychopaths, Social Life, and Professional Challenges 01:18:43 Second Chances: Prison vs. Sex Offenses 01:25:12 Complexities of Sex Offense Cases 01:31:00 Endless Cycle of Evil & Protecting the Innocent 01:36:03 Broken System, Court Corruption, and Podcasting's Role 01:42:06 Solutions, Screening Staff, and The Path Forward 01:42:51 Conclusion and Final Thoughts _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka

My guest today is Dr. Leslie Dobson, a clinical and forensic psychologist with more than 20 years of experience working in mental health, including trauma treatment, forensic evaluations, prison, state psychiatric hospitals, and court-related psychological assessments. I was born in Canada, and then we moved to California when I was, I don't know, an early teen. Why do you guys move? at the time, which is different now, but there was more of a financial ceiling living in Canada with taxes and things like that. And we had quite a large family business that we could make bigger in America. What was the business? Originally it was like, and I don't even really know, because my father didn't really allow women into the business. There's a little misogyny theme in my life here. But we made like aluminum cans and water bottles and then we'll feed them through

to Pepsi, things like that. And then we came over to America and we basically started buying out all the semi-truck trailers in the country. And was your mom in the picture, too, growing up? Yeah. Yeah, she was. She's Canadian. And was it just you or did you have siblings? I have three sisters. Oh, so your dad had all girls. Yes. I wonder how that made him feel. about the business. Distant. Yes. Were you closer to your mother?

Not really. I was actually closer to my father. He made more logic. He was an attorney. He is an attorney. But he made more sense to me than my mother did. And I appreciated the lawyer logic. He was always very grounded and transparent and very, very authentic.

and that's who I became, like someone who won't sweep shit under the rug. I have zero tolerance for bullshit. And so even though my dad treated me poorly when it came to not teaching me business and there was this element of misogyny, I still wanted to be with him more. Did him being an attorney give you that first taste of a courtroom as a child? I think it must have. So we were like the house where you came to party, you know? And so we had to sign contracts with him that if he goes out of town, we're not going to throw a party.

And if we do, we're going to vacuum the whole house. We're going to take the trash out. And so we had to sign all these contracts because he knew we were going to disobey him. So we signed. And then we got all our friends, you know, in the morning to do our chore list. Wow. So do you think that was a lesson in itself there? Yeah. I think it was, you know, people are going to be who they are and we have to accept that and we have to contain it and nurture it. And we need accountability and responsibility. And what I learned through that was I can do whatever the fuck I want as long as I am accountable for the outcome of it. And that took me into the direction of really good things. Like my master's degree in London, I didn't, they didn't let me.

in. So I flew there anyways. I said, I don't have a take it home. You're going to just take me temporarily, provisionally. Let's see how I do. And then they accepted me. Did you know you wanted to go into the line of work you're in now when you were a kid? No, I wanted to be a veterinarian early on. But I think I hate science to that degree. Like O-KM was really, really difficult. And psychology classes just spoke to me. It was like the language. that I already, it was what I was experiencing and it gave me the language to name it. Like when you've been the victim of gaslighting, you finally hear the word gaslight and you understand what it means.

That's what like undergrad psychology was for me. My chaotic family and just understanding adults who would sweep things under the rug when it was so blatantly obvious their behavior was bad or they were mentally ill and people would just ignore it. And I couldn't understand why. And then psychology gave me this language to really understand. And then I started to understand more people. And then I started to teach people. And it just kept going. Where did you go to college? I started at Colorado State for a couple of years. And then I did the study abroad program. And at the time, it was Tasmania or North England. Two very different places. Yes. And I was scared.

I was like an Orange County kid pretty much, Orange County, California. We're pretty naive. So I chose England because I thought, you know, at least we have English. And so I went out there in Northern England and the dorms were castles. There were no showers, just bathtubs. It was very like lecture-based. They didn't really care if you came to class as long as you came for the test at the end. And then I just traveled everywhere. And it was amazing. I had to come back to Colorado to finish the math because it's different science. And then I actually went back to get my master's degree at the University of London, like I said, where they didn't accept me, but I didn't really fucking care.

But in between that, I had a lot of abdominal surgeries and I almost died. And so it was a big deal to commit to London because I also, that meant I had to commit to getting through like eight stomach surgeries and healing myself to get. on that flight. Was that an issue you were born with? No, I had a tumor on my ovary, which is very common, cis tumors for women. And I had it removed when I was in Northern England. And it grew back very quickly because they didn't remove it all.

And so then when I got back to California, they had to do the surgery again. And what they found was that the doctors in England had left pieces of gauze. and things like that in my body. Oh, wow. And so I had the surgery again, which is like it was like a full zipper surgery, like your whole belly up, all the muscles and everything. And so I got back after that surgery and eight days later I went into a coma because they had nicked my bowel and my body was filling with bowel and blood.

It was sepsis. And so then I had, I was 24, 25, I had a colostomy for many months, which is gut-wrenching to have no control of your bowels. You're basically pooping out of a bag on your belly. That was horrible. And then I had it reversed and it staples in the stomach and you have to learn to walk each time. you're on a walker to be like 24, 25 going through this was a living nightmare. It was the first time I thought about suicide. I'd never had any kind of dark thoughts in my life.

And then I got through it and even when they took the staples out, I wasn't healed and my belly opened. And I remember my mom holding my stomach together, screaming for the doctor to come back in. He poured, I don't know if it's like this liquid glue in this massive like eight inch incision to close it. And I just remember depersonalizing and floating above my body and looking down at myself. It was just these moments where I was like experiencing things I could forever use to understand people in my life, in my career, like the depression, the suicide, depersonization, trauma. I had it all. And then I was like on this journey to heal myself, but also like learn how to heal others. So I got my shit together, and it was really hard, and I went back to

England, did my master's in Freudian psychoanalysis and dream interpretation, and then realized that no one in America was going to pay me for that. So I considered a more reputable program. I came back to California and went to Lomelinda and did a master's degree in forensic psychology, and then a doctorate in forensic psychology. Why do you think that situation didn't derail your career and going back to school to accomplish your goals? Nothing can derail me. I don't know what it is, but my mission for justice and truth and authenticity will forever be there.

And I knew that was the path that I needed to take to keep going on the mission that I'm on now. And I was glued to this idea of this future life. And now I'm 43 and I'm living it. Where do you think that came from? Was that early in your childhood? Do you think you were born with it? Or is that a learned trait? I think I was born with part of it.

And then I watched the determination of my father, you know, go from at times we feared bankruptcy to then having this massive company. But I wanted it all. And I didn't want to be run. by a man. I didn't want to rely on my father's money. I wanted it to be female first, and I was going to do it all, regardless of what anyone thought. Everyone told me I couldn't be in the LA County jail. It was too naive. I needed to just be a housewife. The money was there. Why not just do it? No, never took it. No, I'm sure you've been able to see a lot of that passion in some of the

cases you've represented, and I'm sure that goes, you know, a long way into seeing whether someone's guilty or innocent, too. It's been incredible because, you know, I've been in the jails and the prisons and the state hospitals, which I would say are the worst place I've ever been. Institutionally, it's just, it's utter fucking chaos and terrifying. But I've seen humanity, I've seen the brokenness of these institutions. I've seen people who can't be fixed, right? And I've learned ways through subjective interviewing, but also objective psychological assessments

to find the truth. Even to the point of you can have schizophrenia and be a psychopath, but are you using the voices to manipulate people? Are the voices actually a part of the psychopathy, but you still can't control them? Like, figuring that shit out to figure out if you really meant to kill someone is key to justice and understanding people before you get into a courtroom where the lawyers are just putting on theater for everyone. Why forensic psychology? Why did you pick that? It was the biggest challenge I could think of early on in my career. There wasn't a program at the L.A. County Jail, and so I went out there,

and it was probably like two to four hour drive because of traffic in L.A. if you know, if you know, it's fucking, ugh. So I went out there and I convinced one of the younger psychology staff members to start a program and how epic it would be. And they were really fearful of liability, which now I know they should have been. But I kind of manipulated him a little bit and built up his confidence. And he allowed me and three other people to be the first trainees in that facility. And it was an incredible experience for the year, but I got to see the depths of mental illness and also corruption and psychopathy and people who came there because it felt more like home than anywhere else. And so it was the complexity of humanity fascinated me. And it was glued.

What was your opinion on people, individuals that had mental illness or that were incarcerated criminals, I guess you would say, going into that experience? I wasn't yet. I was very naive. I was very naive. I didn't know, you know, a jail is not a mental health house, right? A jail is a correctional facility and I'm the visitor. I tried to not be the visitor. I tried to be more. No, no, no. So I got put in my place quickly. I was manipulated by very high-ranking gang members. I was manipulated by very low-ranking, just people who peed in a bush and were in because they were going to get a sex offense because of them. But I was put in my place quickly. And what I realized was what one psychiatrist told me was, you will see that what we are really doing is medicating the environment, not the person. And that stuck with me because of how many people were coming in. We didn't know what they had done. We didn't know their mental status, their drug status. We had to medicate them, not me, the psychiatrist. We had to snow them and slow them down and figure out what was going on.

That was the primary focus. Would you actually get enough time to talk to these individuals to, you know, find out their root cause? No. No. in and out revolving door? It would be in and out unless they were so dangerous you couldn't transfer them. Because, you know, you're supposed to be in jail for a year, right? They were there a lot longer.

But also the treatment teams were burnt out because they didn't have the institutional support. And I think some people just didn't care. I think a lot of the staff didn't care. And then I cared too much, and that led to many problems. No, you said inmates were trying to manipulate you. How would they do that? Oh, lots of ways. One epic guy, he was aware that I didn't know anything about classification officers. And he was aware that I didn't know, like, their shifts. And so he targeted me when the main classification officer of Los Angeles was not on duty. And he told me this sob story about how he had recently gotten a death diagnosis and he was being

bullied by people in his pod. And I felt so sorry for him and he was depressed. And I was like, I want to help him. Oh. So I asked an off duty officer, not off duty, but off his normal duty to move this guy to a different pod to just make his life a little better because I want to see the good in everyone, right? And then that night, he gets moved. And then everyone in his previous pod gets into a massive riot. There's stabbings of inmates and armed guards. So he had alternative gang guys that he

wanted to take out. And he was out of the picture in another pod. Now, going into this, did you think that everyone was, you know, basically good? Yeah. I was. I was. I was. I was. I I was very naive, and I still am very naive. I want to see the best in people, even though I've been burnt so many times. I don't want to lead with that cynicism, but I think you have to point it out to yourself. You have to sit back and meet people with discernment and skepticism. And it's a hard dance when you want to do good, but you've just seen so much bad. How does it feel being in there, you know, as fresh out of school or you're still in school at that point, you know, with so much passion and seeing that, you know, you might not be able to achieve what you want to accomplish in this field? I mean, first, it was terrifying, right? I had PTSD for a long time. And also because I just kept doing it and going to more of these facilities.

But, I mean, I learned words for the vagina. I'd never heard in my life. I would just walk through a row of cells and it would just be flaccid penises pushed up against the bars. I got gassed, you know, and you put pee and poo in a bag and you throw it on someone. You know, I complimented people in their finger painting when they were using their mixed feces to draw on walls. I got hit in the head with an apple once. But I witnessed, I witnessed the sheriffs brutally, brutally beat the, the living shit out of inmates, one I don't think lived. And I felt utterly powerless. And do you know what that inmate did? Yeah, I had started a group therapy for schizophrenia as

part of my dissertation. So I wanted all the guys to come who had genuine diagnoses of schizophrenia, not medication related, not substance abuse related. And so they started coming to my group. And at first they were all just very, very quiet. They didn't really know how. how to interact, we would do things like draw a picture of yourself. And they would draw themselves like in the bottom corner of this big white sheet of paper because that's how they saw themselves is insignificant. And so one of those really innocent guys who I think was in for peeing in a bush, he saw me walking up to my office and you know the stairs have spikes on them, which, you know, to prevent tripping, let's say that. So I'm walking up to my office, which is on half of a

level. You know, I have a key to my office. I have a key to nothing else. The doors are controlled by the guys in the center. And so he sees me and he's excited like he did his homework. And he starts to run at me. And that's the biggest no-no. So the officers immediately get very protective of me. And they stand up and they block him and he cold cocks one and knocks him out. And I knew we're fucked. We're fucked. Another one tries to grab him. He gets away. And then I'm a couple steps up. He grabs my ankle and pulls me down. And I'm feeling the spikes. And then it just looks like he wanted to assault me and he wanted to assault them. I don't think he really did. He didn't know what the fuck was going on. His mind was like an erratic rave and he wasn't well medicated.

So they beat the living shit out of him. I saw them cuff him, put him on his stomach, walkie their friends, waited for people to come from other levels and they just continued to beat him. And I went into my office and I locked the door and I called my supervisor. I wasn't license. And it rang to voicemail at least 10 times. He never answered. And I just stayed in there and hid. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't come up against like 25 guards. Then they took his body away. What happened to the officers? Was there any charges? No. Not that I'm aware of. Now, do you think this comes down to correctional officers not being trained properly to handle, say, mental illness? A hundred percent.

It could have been prevented. And like I say, every crime can be prevented if we listen to our intuition and red flags and we have the training. So I did have a piece in the LA Times about that. And they started implementing additional training for the officers in the county jail. I hope it helped. And do you think that also comes down to classifying these individuals properly? There's too many people coming in there. Too fast.

people are uneducated and then there's just not enough bodies to deal with it. And we, even working in the state hospital system, I mean, at a Tascadero, there are 2,000, 2,000 staff and about 1,200 inmates slash patients. You don't know exactly who's who, because you can be in there for a variety of reasons in California. I could walk around for minutes and minutes not see an officer. They're not stationed on the units. stationed in one area and they kind of randomly walk around.

You can be in that hospital after you finish a prison term and they deem you too dangerous to go back into society. Then you become a patient and you're just free to roam a two mile long hospital at your will. And there's no officers? There was so much fucking violence. Every single day, I will never forget it. Now, do you think that the environment creates,

to that violence or do you think it's the individuals that's themselves that are just violent people? I think more so the former. And then you've got the latter who, you know, like to fuck things up. You know, those real psychopathic individuals who really get off on it. They really like to cause chaos. But they weren't the majority. The majority were people who genuinely wanted to get better and get out or could not get better. The medicines weren't working. Nothing was working. They couldn't free themselves of the condition they had. And then you've got this completely erratic environment where we wore alarms on our hips.

And you pull your alarm like several times during the day. And then lights stream on the ceiling to wherever you're getting your ass kicked. And then there's an announcement. Your name shows up on other people's alarms. and everyone is just supposed to drop everything and run to the incident. It's wild to me, and that's, to me, that's underfunding. It shouldn't be like that. But I can't tell you how many times I pulled my own alarm because I was being assaulted,

or I pulled it because I witnessed an assault. Or one time I pulled it while leaping to try and stop a psychiatrist from being assaulted. And like, what am I going to do, right? You should never, we're trained to never go into an incident unless you have two people, like another colleague with you. But I knew this psychiatrist, he was my friend, I didn't care. And the guy had jumped over the table and was just pummeling him in the face. Like it was, like his arms were like the roadrunner.

I'll never forget it. And I just leapt forward with what? Like my 30 minutes of physical restraint training that I had to get the job. And then I caught air and I got thrown against a wall. And then a bunch of inmates slash patients went in and saved his life. And they got the shit beaten out of them by this by this inmate. Now why would these inmates attack, say someone like yourself or even other people that didn't put them there and are just solely trying to help? Yeah. Well, I think for this guy, he was meeting with a psychiatrist who was telling him he was going to medicate him. He didn't want medication. And so there's a paranoia, there's a mental health issue present, but also control and power. And the psychiatrist shouldn't have been alone. But we didn't know the guy. He was new to the hospital. We didn't know he was going to fly over the table and do that. Horrible. I mean, I just, I left.

I walked to my office, which was like a converted cell next to another cell. I just cried for at least two hours until it got dark. And then I just went home, talked to my husband, who was a psychologist there too, which caused problems. And then went back to work in the morning. Now, why does someone want to, you know, make that their career? I know you were just using it for the experience, but say someone like your husband that was stationed there

and made that his career. Why does a person do that? I think it started with us wanting to help. Like we really wanted to help the ones we could. But in doing so, we realized the system was so broken. And we realized the depth of mental illness that you don't see in movies. I mean, maybe the recent, not the recent Joker with Lady Gaga, but the one before,

maybe that gave us a taste of the level of psychosis in individuals that there's such a severity that it cannot be healed. And there's a group of severity. I lost hope. I lost hope after years and years of trying so fucking hard. And then I found hope in the people that could get out and had insight and found meaningful plans for the future. But the majority of people in the state hospital systems in California, I don't have hope

for. And I was shocked by that. And my husband kept, he wanted to fight longer than me, but he also wasn't feeling as threatened every day as I was. this was an all-male facility too. Now, did you transition from the jail to the mental hospitals? Yeah, jail, I did a little stint in D.C. With some White House cases, Secret Service.

And then I moved over to state hospitals, and then I specialized in high-risk sex offenders. Now, you got your degree right after the jail experience, or did you still? Right. Yeah, after jail and before state hospitals. Okay. Tell us about your time in state hospitals. It's a really disappointing place. It's, it is literally thousands of people, staff and inmates or patients, that you are amongst.

And you align yourself with people. One thing I noticed a lot was that because there were a lot of guys, in there who had done some really horrible things. You know, we have serial killers, cannibalism, pedophilia. The staff, I could see them start. And then as they went on, they started to justify those guys and there's behaviors because it made the job easier. So they stopped trying to hold those guys accountable. And then you could see like the good guys, the inmates who were ready to go and they were getting what they needed, they started to try and even help. Like, come on, set your boundary as a staff member. But it feels like we all staff and everybody held there against their

will was victimized by the institution. Now, these individuals that are at the mental hospitals, they were designated there because they were unfit to stand trial. Yeah. So California is different than other states, and I think we take it a little far, okay? They would probably get the death penalty in a lot of other states. So you can be incompetent to stand trial. The mentally disordered offender, which is somebody who did their prison time and then had to, they were placed there. They're not told that, though.

They get on the bus to go home from prison, and then they land there. Then we got some really pissed off people. You have not guilty by reason of insanity, a lot of that population. And then in California, which is unique, the sexually violent predators. And eventually, they would kind of be with me in that hospital, but most of them are now placed in northern California at Coalinga State Hospital, which is the creepiest fucking place I've ever seen in my life. Now, why wouldn't the sexually violent predators go to, say, a maximum security prison? Because they're patients. And do you agree with that or no?

Not at all. Not at all. But it's state law because they have a mental health diagnosis that without that diagnosis, they wouldn't have committed the crime. And that diagnosis is often pedophilia. Or I don't know what we would use for rape, but a lot of them are violent sadistic rapists. So it's a parapheria in the sexual disorders. Now those individuals, they are born with that or is that come about? throughout their life, something in their childhood. I think we like to say if you're abused, that's the reason, right? No.

A lot of us are abused and we don't go on to kill or rape or do these horrible things to children. The people I met, this was innate to them. Maybe it was modeled a little bit by parents or abuse they endured, but they could have chosen to turn the other way and they did. didn't. And they chose to ruin lives, to end lives, and to do it in a serial, instrumental manner. And so at that point, my job wasn't to treat them because they were untreatable. My job was to assess their violence and their likelihoodness to recidivate or do it again. My job was to tell the courts

they can't go. We're done. We're beyond that now. And at that point, will they then get sent to a prison or will they just spend the rest of their lives in these mental hospitals? Yep. They'll spend the rest of their lives there. And what do you think is worse there or a prison? Prison, in a sense, it's alarming to be living with a bunch of people with psychosis and violence because of the unpredictability. That's the fear. You never know when they're going to scream or attack. It's very, very impulsive. It could be command hallucinations. It's very, very alarming. You can never settle. And then they're bunked together. So on several occasions, one cellmate would kill another cellmate. And it would be because of a mental health disorder, command hallucinations, something.

Or some guy took the mirror, you know, those circle mirrors so you can see who's coming down the hallway and they're like up in the corner. He just ripped it off the wall and decapitated someone. Like, that was pretty stealth. Like, I was like Mr. and Mrs. Smith style, but still, that's scary to live in. So you have a little more, in prison you have a little more authority and, like, respect for the hierarchy and the OGs. You didn't have that in the state system unless it was somebody who was psychopathic, maybe not guilty by reason of insanity, somebody who slid through and they're really running the shots. And it's one of those guys who eventually actually got me out because I got pregnant and he pulled me into the visiting center, which is weird, right? Like, we're walking around the hospital together. Why are we going in the visiting center?

I was like, whatever. That's where all the officers were. And he said, you know, Leslie, we were on a first name basis because he was like such a high ranking. He was such a high ranking gang member. I was like, you know, we're. We're going to do some tradesies. You're going to keep me safe and I'm going to get you, canteen, whatever. He said, Leslie, they're taking bets on who's going to kick you in the belly and kill your baby. He said, this is the last time you step in here. Yeah. And that was.

And I left. You just quit that day. I asked for an outside office because of my pregnancy. They put me in like an asbestos-filled building because they were annoyed that I wanted to be outside. and they had to accommodate it. And I started seeing people through the visiting center, and then eventually I moved to work with our combat veterans for a while. No, someone like him, was he someone that wasn't actually insane?

Yeah. And he tricked the system and got sentenced there? I'm sure he had the capacity to be insane, and he was on a little bit of medication. Or maybe he was insane when he did all the killings he did. But, I mean, I knew him for years. and he was consistent. He told me where the drugs were hidden, where the drops for, who was going to get hit.

So there was a lot of preventing, and then I would give him things, too. We had a transactional relationship. Are there a lot of inmates that are found not guilty by reason of insanity and then become normal or mentally stable throughout that period? And if so, what happens? Yeah. Do they get released? They get released.

But, you know, I would say, and this is not science, But on average, it was like they were in for 30 years, 30, 35 years. And do you think time cures them or is it actual treatment? I think time. I think a lot of people grow out of mental illness. Psychosis becomes depression, the medication, they get it right. And then they age out. They're tired.

They don't want to do it anymore as well. The consequences feel more real. Now, do you think it's possible for someone to actually trick the court system professionals like yourself that they're insane just to avoid, you know, criminal prosecution? Yeah, 100%. 100%. I mean, I think, I don't think anyone I testified against tricked me, but I could see all those gaps where they could. Right. And it's it's not black or white. You do all these psychological assessments. You're looking. looking at their treatment history, you're really looking at the time of the crime. Did they understand the consequences?

So we need to go all the way back to the crime, collateral information, who witnessed it, what happened? You know, we have some big cases right now in America. And we don't have a lot of data around, you know, they wrote manifestos. They wrote, sorry, you know, apology letters. They wrote on bullets, right? So did they really know the consequences of their behavior or is that psychosis? And like figuring that out is very nitty gritty.

It's very difficult. And then you give it to a bunch of lawyers who have never been trained in any of this and just hope you get your word in. And you hope the jury understands your perspective. It gets muddled very quickly. No, someone that is able to trick the system and end up in, say, a state hospital, Is there repercussions if they find out, say, the week later that, you know, he was tricking the system and he's acting totally fine? You can start to push against it and have further hearings and have them moved out. But a lot of the time they're locked in.

Now, these individuals do you find that they're safer in a hospital because there's less politics or, I guess, for example, you don't find gang members killing sex offenders at these state hospitals? Is that the case? There's less politics. There's less hierarchies because they don't have as much of a capacity to have that forward thinking and manipulation. Right. Like you need to strategize your prison environment. It was too erratic for them to do that there. Although the ones that could, they owned it.

It didn't matter where you were in the hospital two miles away. You had control over whatever was happening. What about the staff? Are they better trained to deal with these individuals than, say, a prison? 100% they're better trained. The treatment teams are more aligned. They're more present. But also, like, wild shit goes down with staff.

Like, in Fresno, in one of the, was it a prisoner state hospital, they started employing more women. The women were in local gangs, and they were only employing. there to have sex with the patients and the inmates. Like, it, it, the corruption is so deep. And then we had, we had so many, we had one staff member just shoot his wife in the back of the head and then kill himself. And then all of a sudden it was like a few staff who had maybe been thinking about suicide just all off themselves, themselves. So it was, the closer you are to crime, the more you justify the crime. And I could see it. happening, their psychology was changing. And I kept saying, you know, we can't, you know, this guy

isn't following his behavior plan and I can't figure out why. We have to be aligned. Oh, you're fucking bringing him in and out burger at 12 at night because you want the night shift to be smoother. Well, you know that fucks up the entire day of us trying to control his behavior because he knows he can do whatever he wants during the day because he's still going to get his burger at night. Compare it to what we see on TV or movies, you know, when I think mental hospital, I'm thinking like what Arkham and Batman. Yeah.

How do these compare? I mean, I think at moments they're on point, like they're spot on. But there's a lot of moments of it's boring, right? When it goes off, it goes off. It's massive chaos. When it's quiet, it's eerily quiet. Is it nice, like the setup, the atmosphere, the rooms? Yeah, like during count.

During count is when I would get my steps in. Although even once I was going for a walk and getting my steps in because it's like 120 degrees out there. And I was with a friend, colleague, and then all of a sudden somebody pivoted around the corner and just cold cocked her in the face and knocked her out. And he had just gone to the phlebotomist. And then we thought, okay, like he's cool.

He'll get back to his unit. No, he had a thought all of a sudden. I want my blood back. What are they going to do with my blood? And that was the psychotic thinking. But then why cold cock hurry? It could have easily been me if I had been on that side. So it's, there's moments of calmness, which I think keep you there.

And there's moments of people healing. And then you have just utter fucking chaos and danger and violence and you're covered in blood. You're wiping blood off walls. And it's so unhealthy for everyone. And it's not advancing the healing of anyone who's housed there. Do you think it's justice for these individuals to get house there or sent there from a, you know, a criminal justice standpoint and from, say, you were a victim victimized by these individuals? Do you think it's justice?

In a sense, I mean, I think some people are too vulnerable to go to prison and they're too dangerous to get out. But we have horrible step-down programs in America. We should not be going from 24-7 institutionalization and then dropping you off where you got arrested. That is very fucked up. And we need to work on stepping people down appropriately. and if they have triggers or they feel like they're going to get in trouble again or they need help, the support's there, but it doesn't mean you get locked up immediately. It doesn't mean you're alone.

And your normal corner is just there saying, I'll give you the money, I'll get you back. Have you ever gotten to talk to some of the victims in these cases, how they feel of individuals getting sent to, say, a mental hospital or how the case concludes in that way? Yeah. I mean, through trial testimony, but also they try and, you know, there's a lot of visitation and they want to come see their family member. A lot of the times the victims are the family members if they've lived. But then there's spouses and friends or advocates or fan mail. You know, they couldn't have sex with them, but they could at least come see them in the visiting Center. What do you think about that, the fan mail and the idea of some of these individuals,

a lot of women specifically idolizing, say, serial killers. I mean, we look at like Brian Koberger and some of those other high profile cases, even what's going on with Luigi, whether what you think he did was right or wrong, there's people are idolizing them. Yes. I think of Wade Wilson too. Yeah, yeah. He's another one. To me, there is an actual diagnosis. I can't remember what it is. It starts with an age where you are infatuated by prisoners or people who do harm. But I think it's like this similar to our obsession with true crime.

Like there's a sex appeal to the power and the control and the confidence of these inmates and how they're portrayed in the media. Like Wade didn't look like that early on. Wade started to change his appearance as he was in prison. And then when trial happened, he looked really good. And he had the tattoos and he drew in certain people. Like the thirst for danger. But I don't think they, they're not thinking ahead, right? I mean, if you look at how many women have come for conjugal visits and have been killed, the number's quite high.

Wait, this is a real thing? Yeah. They get killed when they visit these individuals. Yeah. Yeah, when you're, especially their ex-wives or their current wives. But, you know, you get to a point where you can have a conjugal visit in certain facilities and you're trusted. And then that moment, I don't know, inflames the inmate and a lot die by strangulation. Wow. Now, the people that idolize these individuals, do you think that they're in their mind, they're looking past that they're actual killers and murderers and just going off of that hook of how they look and the bad boy image and they're in prison?

Yeah. I don't think there's real discernment. I mean, if you looked at Wade's victims and how they were, their guts coming out of their stomachs, he drove over one of them multiple times. know, if you look at Brian Coburgers' victims and how they were left, if you see past what the hype, the media is giving you, even if you go visit them and you talk to them and you realize their capacity or lack of capacity for deep conversation, I think you, you know, you wouldn't be a sexed up about it. And I mean, you see this with Ted Bundy and the early days of that. Yeah. I think they said that there's, oh, the Gilgo Beach murder,

there's another serial killer that is writing him fan mail, too, or letters. Yeah. I don't know how we've conflated confidence with killing. You know, the vigilanteism has a sex appeal to it. Now, Wade definitely wasn't a vigilante, but we've got other cases that are present. But again, people are not using discernment. They haven't seen the inside.

They don't know what it's really like, what these people are really like. They know the character. It's almost like they're watching a movie and not actually seeing it as real. When you're actually sitting across from a serial killer or somebody who shouldn't be in there. Like when you actually are meeting with the human human. humanity or the lack thereof, you don't think about sex, right? Sitting with a true psychopathic serial killer is the most haunting moment of your life. And then sitting with somebody who you know shouldn't be there, but you can't figure out

how to get them out because of just how confabulated their trial was or the evidence in the case. if you take it to the depth of the human being in front of you, it takes a skilled professional to really understand it. And we're not the ones fan-grilling over these guys. Do you think those individuals are remorseful or have the capacity to feel remorse? The psychopathic killers? Yeah, the true killers. No.

I don't think. I mean, psychopathy really is a narcissist. send an antisocial in a very extreme way, you know, together. So there's, there's no lack of remorse. There's callous disregard for individuals. It's not coming back. Sometimes it's literally a matter of brain functioning. Sometimes they just, their brain looks totally normal and they choose this and they're sadistic. And then you've got the behavioral impulsive part where they, they thoroughly enjoy harming people. I mean, the kill is the best orgasm they've ever had. Now, what is putting those individuals in a place like prison due to those individual's minds, won't they eventually need to

feel that, you know, capacity to kill again? Yeah. And I think they do. I mean, I think they push against, they push against the rules and the norms and they, you know, they build their alliances. I mean, I had one guy, I think I've talked about this before, but like, I should not be laughing. He came with therapy in the pod. He came to therapy. You know, it's pretty open. You're not, like, alone with the inmate. And the guards are, like, at a distance.

And we had, like, a therapy session for, I'd say, 40 minutes. And to me, it felt just kind of nice, deep conversation. And then his pants started getting really wet. And I was, like, saving an orgasm, because I know, like, in prison, like, you find different ways to get off without moving. Because you kind of, you don't want anyone to see, right? So I'm like, okay, we're going to terminate the session. I didn't say anything.

And then we go on lockdown and they find his dead cellmate. He had jumped on his head. And what was in his pocket was brain matter. And that's what the moisture was. So was I manipulated? Was I the alibi? I have no fucking idea. But he did that.

And then he came and sat and talked to me for a long time. Now, these individuals, do you find that they're afraid of death or dying themselves? Because I look at a lot of the serial killers, they'll kill easily, but then they'll take a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. Why is that? To me, that speaks so much to narcissism. Like, they're married to their identity, and that's cool if I'm a killer. But if I'm going to die, that's not so cool, right? then who am I?

Then I'm not this strong person who has the capacity to end lives and have power and authority. Like, you can be a narcissistic, psychopathic killer in prison and still love yourself, right? But if your identity gets shifted and you know that someone's going to take your life, okay. That's too much of a crack to the ego. So I think a lot of them will plea down to that they don't ever have to face the reality of who they are. Now, you take a guy like Brian Coburger, such a, you know, a famous case in present world came from a good family. Do you think he was born a killer or do you think

something, you know, that made him curious and it brought it out of him? I think he was always curious. And if you look back, and I don't remember all of the evidence that we had, but he had a fascination with death, with just true crime. He had a fascination with serial killers. He had a fascination with weapons. And I think over time, just like in pedophilia, it starts with images. It starts, well, actually, I think it starts with fantasies.

And then they seek out images. And then the images aren't enough. So then they go watch children in person. And then that's not enough. need to get a child of their own. You can't do that? Okay, well, go on Timu and buy a doll. I can't believe they fucking sell those. Well, that seemed pretty real. Now I want to get a kid. Or we're going to trade child abuse material. It's this escalation of a lack of stimulation and a need to fill it. And the same thing happens with serial killers and psychopathy, which is, we're talking

about something so extreme, right? It's like the 1% of millions. But they're in there housed with everyone else. We don't have a way to differentiate how we're housing these extremes. And then they're influencing the others. Do you think this obsession with true crime and the shows and the social media and the podcasts have awakened, I guess, some of these individuals or brought something out of someone because it's so accessible? Yes. I mean, I mean, I think for the most part, you know, shout out to my housewives who like to sit at home and watch true crime and their husbands walk in and they're like, what the fuck are you doing? And I'm doing a show with Lisa Vanderpump right now about like we're bringing true crime to the Bravo audience. Oh, that's incredible.

So I'm really excited. But I think for 99% of the people, we just watch because we're fascinated. We would never do it ourselves. maybe we've thought a little bit about it, but we would really never do it. So we would prefer to watch other people do it. We can kind of see life through their experience. Some people, I think, gets them very excited and invested and gives them ideas. And as you can see, especially in mass shootings,

when you look at the history of mass shooters, they're often mimicking shooters from before. So if you look at the case of Connor Betts in Ohio, he did the, mass shooting. He was actually copying Columbine, and he was also copying the Christchurch mass shooting that was live streamed on a GoPro in New Zealand, and he had that footage on his computer. So, you know, I don't love the true crime world, but the most extreme are the ones, the one percenters who use it as a lesson plan and permission to do it themselves. And they in themselves are so fucking sick. There's also this new world of, you know, like the discords of the group chats or the online chats where these people are able to meet and encourage each other or pass ideas along.

And you find a lot of these, say, shooters or killers are a part of that, having conversations with individuals. And I've had some cases of teens who have killed themselves and I've helped work with the parents. But groups like 7-6-4. I don't know if you've heard of that. It's another radicalized online group where they kind of enter into a vulnerable teen's world through like an eating disorder Facebook group. Like how fucked up is that? But let's find a way that somebody is vulnerable and somebody wants a friend.

Okay, so we start to trust the person we're talking to, but we don't even know them. But now we have to start to pull them away and isolate them from the people they do trust. So you can trust me more. I know how you really feel more than your parents. So the next time you feel really upset, you tell me. You don't tell your parents. And then we keep pulling that divide. And then, well, I'm not so sure I still want to support you.

You need to prove yourself to me. And with 764, the psychological torment of it, and the head guy of this is in prison. But the psychological torment was, you know, I want you to get hospitalized. I want you to go in for a psych hospital hospitalization and show me that you know how to do it. Would you be willing to do that for me? And then I'll be there for you. Now when you get out, I want you to carve 764 into your body on a live stream. Now we're really going to go for it.

I want you to kill yourself live. And they do. Now we have those cases too with the boyfriend convincing the girlfriend to kill themselves or vice versa. That was a very public case. I think in Massachusetts, there was a situation of that. And I think she was ultimately convicted. Yeah, I think Michelle Carter. Is that the one? Yeah. And it was in text messages. Yeah. Now, what's really interesting about that is we have, there's a very similar case going on right now in California, but because we don't have the same laws, there isn't the same accountability. So one thing I love to do is when I don't see that accountability because of these stupid, fucked up laws that aren't crossed. crossing state lines. I like to make an Instagram video about it and then put a lot of money behind it and boost it directly to the guy's town. Because now I want your neighbors to know. And it's coming in your phone as an ad. You can't even stop it. So I did that with a guy named Stephen Vincent Chavez

who raped his biological 18-year-old daughter. They weren't not going to press charges on him. the DA said we don't have enough, even though we have a rape kit and his DNA and his semen inside of her. Five months after he did that, she killed herself. Now we can't hold him against, now we can't hold charges because she's dead. It made no sense. So I rose hell, boosted the shit out of a video, got protesting out there. He turned himself in, took a plea to incest and giving a minor alcohol. The state wanted three years.

The judge gave him one. So he admitted he raped someone. That's how he got charged? No, he admitted to incest. So, but he felt guilty and just did that? He was put on blast by the whole entire community because of the videos boosted to them. But otherwise, they were never going to charge him if he didn't go in. Nope.

That's crazy. It's fucking crazy. And all because the family didn't want to press charges. Well, they were told they couldn't because she was 18. when she killed herself. No, before when she was raped. They tried. They tried.

Okay. But she was in such a bad mental state because of it, and she had just turned 18, that then they didn't, they couldn't have a part of it. Again, fucked up laws. I mean, California gave that case of, what was it, Brock Purdy or what was a kid's name? Brock something? Oh, Brock. Yeah.

It was it Brock Purdy? Is that his last name? The... He raped someone in college or whatever, and he only got six months. Yes. What's going on in California? Yes, I know. But then you've got the case of, like, Piper Lewis, who she was trafficked as a child,

tried to get away from the trafficker, couldn't, he strangles her, she stabs him to death, rightfully so, in my opinion. She has to pay restitution to his wife. She goes to prison. A teacher raises a $500,000 go-fund me for her. It wasn't even her teacher. She never gets the money. she gets put into juvie, which we all know is a fucking nightmare, gets raped again, escapes,

takes off her ankle monitor, comes back. The judge says, I'm done. You're getting 20 years. She's in right now in Iowa, and I text with her. That's crazy. Yes. Why is there such an inconsistency in what these judges are standing by? The people are getting locked up who shouldn't be, and people are running free who should not be. I mean, look at the manslaughter cases too. There's people that can literally drink and drive, intentionally get blasted, go behind the wheel, kill someone and get a couple of years.

Yeah. I know people that have gotten less time that I got in prison for taking lives. It's insane. And that's why I'm on this like mission. Like I left being run by the government. I didn't want the government to be my boss anymore. It wasn't because I wanted to smoke pot.

I don't smoke pot. If you randomly drug test us. But I wanted, I didn't want a ceiling. And when I took it to social media two years ago and just started saying, fucking empower yourself for what's righteous and what's justice. I don't care if you're wrongly in or you're wrongly out. We just need to find the right. We need to be transparent and genuine and tell the truth.

Like, we need to go against the social norms of returning your shopping cart, even though people want to kill me. I started to speak in that sense. Like, let's go against the script. You know, like, start, use discernment, question the world we're living in and stand for something with value. In, what, it's between two years, I have about 1.5 million followers on the platforms. Now, speaking of teachers, I'm super curious your perspective on this.

Every day I go on social media and I see a teacher being charged for having sex with a student. Even in my hometown, Danbury, there was a case of that that was really polarizing. What's going on with that? And why are we seeing this more now than ever? And female teachers. It is a lot of female teachers. You do see some male ones, but you see a ton of female ones. I think men and boys are finally reporting more. And I love that because this has been happening,

but I think the underreporting has been the problem. I've been on so many cases of men in their 40s, 50s, 60s, even 90s who finally get to a point where they want to say, you know, the priest molested me when I was a kid. or really it's any religion. It's any sport, especially water polo. It's school districts. It's people who are abusing institutional authority and their roles as important trusted figures. And a couple of years ago, we had this new bill pass where you could sue someone if you were over 40 for abuse when you were a kid. And I think it woke a lot of people up and a lot of people came forward because before we,

we didn't trust you if you were over 40 with your memory. That's offensive. So I think we've moved statutes and laws and we've given a voice and we're not judging, especially men and boys who are harmed by females. And that, I think, is beautiful. Now, do you think that some of these cases are, you know, a case of, the kid, say 17, he's in high school. You know, if I was in that position, I'd want to have sex, let's say the teacher. But then what's the psychology of the teacher actually agreeing to do

this? Well, with female predators, and yeah, I was like totally hot for my math teacher in high school, but he didn't rape me, okay? Someone else did. But he, he didn't do it. He knew he was adult enough and he was like 30. So not a giant time or age difference. But, but he didn't do it. He knew he was adult enough. But the thing is with female predators, they find one person and they don't understand that it's not real love. And they become very attached to the teen boy. And they think it's love when it's lust and it's delusion and it's illegal. And they become very focused on the boy. It's different than male abusers who tend to put themselves in positions of authority so they have unlimited access to victims.

The female is very decisive and focused on one. And then that boy is then giving that woman so much attention and validation that she's longed for because she's broken and hasn't done her own fucking therapy or her husband sucks. But you have broken women using teens to fulfill their emotional dissatisfaction. Now, do you think that's similar to, say, female correctional officers sleeping with male inmates? The age difference is different, right? But still, you're in a position of authority. And I think people get a kick out of that. I mean, you're always going to have the person not in authority giving you more than somebody,

of your age, of your stature in society, right? The inmate is always going to, well, they're never going to be fully in charge of the relational dynamic. And so the woman, the female, the guard is enjoying that. That's part of the encompassing control and authority that they have. How do you think working in the mental hospitals and the jails helped you for what you would go on to do later. Oh, I think I'm an unstoppable, fucking knowledgeable bitch.

I've been assaulted. I've fought back. I've been trained on how to assess combat veterans with some of the assessments that most people in the world don't even know how to use. I've been trained on tons of malingering testing, lie detection, figuring out of somebody as a psychopath. And then I've taken all that and shoved it into my intuition. So it's there no matter what.

You give me a lineup. I'll give you the crimes. Like I can tell now from my experience. So now if you take me into civil court, well, there aren't a bunch of experts who have my experience work in civil litigation. And most of the lawyers, they're flabbergasted by my reports or what I offer them. And then what I also offer them is an emotional damage assessment, which not a lot of psychologists do. But I'll tell you, now we have this diagnosis. We're pinpointing it to this traumatic moment because of the extensive psychological assessments I have been trained in.

This is the treatment they're going to need and for how long and how much it's going to cost. And that gives lawyers a monetary amount to add to the lawsuit to get justice for the victims. So now you went on from the hospitals to working with veterans. Yeah, I did a stint in L.A., West L.A. VA. Massive confusing campus. If anyone's been there, you will get lost 100%. And that was great. I got to work with people who are 80, 90 years old,

finally telling their stories of combat, and they've never told anyone. Some of those meaningful work of my life. And then my husband and I transferred to, we always got hired together. I was like, you know, we're not going unless the other one's coming. We got promised jobs at another VA. Once we moved there, I was told my position's budget was cut, but his was fine. Now, let's not see him as a white male, okay?

But it was actually the best gift because I was free. I was free. He still has to worry about how he looks because he works for the federal government. He still had to reply to those Elon Musk emails. What did five good things you did today? They don't get them anymore. People replied to those so inappropriately and then AI caught it and people got in trouble. Like I masturbated five times.

No, you can't. But it just gave me the free. freedom to be in media and to share stories and to fight civilly with no limitations. Like, in a sexually violent predator case, if you work for the state, you give one assessment. If you're hired privately, I can give as many as I want. I can look at malingering in five tests. I can look at your personality in a couple tests. I can do so much science to just hammer what the state limits you to do.

So now in these cases, who's hiring you? Is it the predator's team or is it the prosecution's team? It's both. So plaintiff and defense. And I have a non-refundable retainer and I tell them, you know, you might not like what I find. But if it is something you like, you're going to really like it. Now, why would the defense want to hire you in those types of cases? Oftentimes it's high-profile individuals accused of rape and they didn't do it.

And it's a cash grab. And did they actually not do it in those cases? Yeah. There's been a few where I have said I have so many doubts. I don't trust this individual. And you're sitting down with the defendant, him or herself, to find out psychologically if they had what it takes to do something like that? Yeah.

Yeah. It's, you know, you can tell when people are lying just conversationally when you've lived your life, right? but you add science and data and testing measures with hundreds of thousands of normative samples, and then you've got like your anchor, right? You can't lie to science. How can you tell when someone's lying? For me, oftentimes they would be very wordy. They would give us way too much information we didn't ask for. It would be overly linear, like a timeline. And then when I ask them to actually tell me the timeline backwards, they couldn't. They'd start to get confused. I would often engage in,

and this is a part of doing psychopathy testing, too. You really want to get into a personal conversation with someone, and you want them to trust you, because what you want is for their psychopathy to come out and for them to start abusing you, right? And so if I can catch you and those traits starting to come out, then I'm starting to see the lie is being told. So I might ask the same question in different ways several times throughout the conversation with different topics and different emotions. And if they're standing, like, if they're sitting back,

I'm going to ask the question. If they're more defensive, I'm going to ask the question. And then we're going to look at the differences and the inconsistencies in their answer, but their tone, their volume, their facial expression, how they're holding their body, how they're sitting, where their eyes are looking. And so I'm looking for patterns of inconsistency. And I'm fucking staring at them, like obsessively staring. Now, do you think someone that's genuinely guilty? would even want to put themselves sitting across from you? Well, no.

They avoid me like all hell. So then they wouldn't hire you to begin with. Those are the defendants? Well, the opposing attorney at times can force them to sit with me. And then, oh, it's a shit show. It's a shit show. They want to come in with, they want to video and audio record everything. And that's cool, but you're not allowed to record actual assessments.

Like if you recorded an IQ test, no one would ever be able to know what their IQ was anymore because it would get leaked, right? So they just come in like they want to scare me. Like we're recording everything. We're going to catch you in all of your lies and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, okay, I'm recording you too. I don't care, right? And eventually what happens is they realize I'm not a monster and they kind of like me a little bit.

And then I start to see the truth. It's very hard to keep up the wall when you're in there four or eight hours. and we're not getting a break. Do you feel like a lot of these individuals, too, that are guilty, want to confess or at some point want to, and they're kind of just putting up the defense just to try it to see if they can come out of this, you know, not guilty? Oh, yeah. I think in criminal and civil, once people realize how gnarly it gets and how long it can be

in civil, especially, and how expensive and how you might lose and be responsible for the attorney's fees, ooh, it gets scary. And that's why I say, like, you know, we've got trial courthouse footstep endings to these cases where I'm literally ready to go, which is fucking annoying because I prepare for weeks for trial. I'm getting dressed and I get a call. They settled. It takes a lot. I think a lot, and I went to trial myself, so it's a lot to stomach. Like, I think it's, it's scarier that feeling than, you know, even probably the biggest gambler on earth making the biggest bet. You know, it's just, it's different because it's your own life. And that's why most people don't have the stomach for that.

And it guts me. Like, there are cases I can't take now because we lost. I don't know if it's we, but they lost. And I really thought that it should have gone the other way, especially if kids are involved. It's it just makes me so fucking sad when a mother loses her children and I really genuinely do not think that she should. And it's the manipulation of the father who maybe he's a cop, maybe he's really, really rich. Maybe CPS is tied up with the judges, but there is genuine corruption that occurs. And when I can't be heard and a mom loses her kid, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it.

it's not worth all the money in the world. Now, how do you leave the passion out of it to keep it strictly professional and not your own personal feelings, you know, regardless of the circumstance of, say, there's a child involved or someone got killed or hurt, but this person you're sitting across genuinely didn't do it. How do you leave that personal passion away from it? Well, of course the attorneys try to evoke my emotions, but I try and, you know, I do a lot of Pilates, okay? I try and, like, keep myself calm and healthy. But I stand by what I opine to, and I choose my opinions far before that trial.

And I have them anchored in science and research. I'll have 50, 100 articles in relatable mental health disorders or crimes that I can, look at and reference. And then, and this is also why, like, my social media contents all over the fucking place, because when you hunker down for a trial, like, you hunker down, it's depressing, you're memorizing. I mean, I want to have hundreds and hundreds of pages memorized so that no matter which way cross-examination wants to twist and turn it, I got the person's back, and I can remember exactly why it wasn't reported on that day or what kind of idiosyncratic question the attorney's trying to corner me into. We always go back to the data and the science and the

righteousness behind my findings. Now, on the topic of psychopaths that we were touching on earlier, you know, people throw out the term psychopath very easily. We see it in breakups online. He or she's a psychopath. What does it truly mean to be a psychopath? You can feel it. You can feel it when you're with them. But it's somebody who has a complete disregard for human life. They do not have empathy. They are charismatic. They can get into your life without you realizing it. They can pressure you into relationships without you feeling like it's pressure. You just think it's positive. they tangle you up into the cycle of domestic violence quickly. So you're pressured in, you're love bombed, you feel so worth it. They then determine your value. And then they start to get

this building tension bubbling up because they need stimulation. They're bored. They're not like everyday people. They need high levels of stimulation to feel anything at all, if at all. And so they're going to beat you or they're going to cause you to be you to be. emotionally erratic and people are going to call you crazy or they're going to go out and kill people or do dangerous things repeatedly because of the thrill. And you can, when you're with them long enough, you see the pattern start to play out even clinically. But, I mean, I've had people in my own life who have been psychopaths and I have had to step back and be like, holy shit, I got sucked in. And then it takes me days to be like, oh my God, these are all the ways I missed the red flags

and they manipulated me and they settled these things and they weren't true. But if I look back, I can see I actually felt off the whole time. But they didn't give me a chance to listen to my gut because they kept me spinning. So it's this capacity for intense manipulation. with no regard for your health or your safety or the community, no future thinking, just in the moment I'm going to own you, and that's all I want.

What's it like to have a profession such as yours to live everyday life with interactions, holiday parties, or just meeting people or talking to people? I mean, me, I'm a podcaster. I'll find if I'm with people, then I start asking a bunch of questions just in that social setting.

So what's it like with your profession? I keep my social network very small, very small. I think I'm aware of too much, you know, 90% of people who abuse children are already in your inner circle. And I don't, people always say it's like fear mongering or I'm too vigilant, but I think I'm just aware that a lot of people. people are really bad. And the good people need to be vetted and it takes time. And then once you're in the inner circle, we have a lot of fun because I have a lot of stories. So once I trust you and you come in to my world, then I can just be at ease. But I think it just takes longer for me. Now, I put up a post the other day. I saw you commented on it. And I'm curious your thoughts on it.

And it goes back to, you know, if someone's sentenced to prison serves their time, Does that individual serve or deserve a second chance or should be given a second chance? I think it, and I think I wrote it really depends because our laws are dated. Our laws are old, especially when we talk about coercive control laws. If you can convince someone to kill themselves, we don't even have laws that say you should be locked up. So we can't rely on laws. We can't rely on sentences. We can't rely on a judge who's unaware of this specific situation and over sentences or under sentences, right?

So for me, that's my job. I literally get to see you before you are supposed to get out and determine if you're ready for the world. You know, what job do you plan to do? Are you a pedophile, but you just told me you want to start a daycare? Are you fucking serious? I can't even tell you how many times they've said that to me. Like, do you have the insight? are you ready? Can you really do this? And we have tons of psychological assessments that look at that.

But just because your time's up doesn't mean that you're ready and you won't do it again. Like did the prison do its job in getting you to where you need to be? And if not, do you have the insight to say that? Will you get support when you're out? So I think there's so much that goes through my head as a clinician that it's really hard to answer. And then I've had fucked up people in my life who should not be around me. Like I've had people I have found out later have hurt children or are drunks who have driven my kid to frozen yogurt. And I'm like, how did I fucking miss that? So I think you have to really, it's it's individualistic. You have to use such, we have to slow down and use discernment with every single

individual, but that costs money and it takes time. And most people, their response was that the exclusion should be, say, a sex offender or a rapist. What do we do about those individuals? You know, coming out of prison that maybe, you know, have, I guess, changed their ways, but they're still going to have that label on them forever and what they did is unforgiving. Well, killing to me is totally different than a sex offense, right? Like, sexual offending, actually being erect and orgasming when somebody is being violently assaulted and you are that sadistic or you're doing it to a child and you're attracted to them and emotionally think you are connected, there's no recovery for me.

And believe me, I've talked to a lot of fucking pedophiles. I don't want them in our community. I don't think they should get out. I don't care when their sentence ends. It doesn't matter. You want to be on an ankle monitor and checking in and be really close to your PO. Maybe we can try that depending on the level of severity of what you did. But I have a low threshold for hope for individuals like that.

When it comes to killers, though, I think it's really different because a lot of kills I've seen were crimes of passion were rage and people really could, people really did change. They weren't the same person anymore. And they can live a life that they themselves would honor. I also think there's multiple types of kills. I feel like the killers that actually, you know, are serial killers in a way are not released. And I've interviewed so many people that I would have considered.

you know, murderers, killers, but it goes back to what happened that caused that individual moment to occur. And a lot of it's gang related or, you know, something, some type of beef in the streets or not what you'd expect. But those people are labeled, you know, a murderer forever. But it's not what I expected after getting the opportunity to talk to those individuals. Exactly. And that, like, if I can be the person to explain that to a jury, any day, happily will do it because people don't have a chance to sit and talk to these individuals and understand the nuances of the circumstance and for years talking to them for years right like walking them to breakfast seeing them at their lunch seeing them at dinner then they have shower

time then they have like their nighttime t-be routine i'm i'm there for at all i can see and how they interact with everyone how they they take on people to help or they help others, that they murdered someone, but that's not who they are. And I find that most of these people would probably never, or if not all of them, would never murder again unless they were put back into that lifestyle, which they're trying hard to avoid now. Yeah. That is the majority.

It is rare. Most people do not mean to kill. It's an emotional crisis. It's not instrumental planned out violence. It's so different. But when it comes to sexual violence, especially repeated sexual violence, I don't think they can get better and I don't believe in treatment. Now, what about the ones that are not violent, the sex offenders? What do we do with those

individuals where I was, say, looking at child pornography or, you know, the feds are very common for giving it like a five-year sentence for that. Then they get out, but essentially their life is ruined from a public eye. Well, if you're getting off on child abuse material, there's something wrong with you. That's not going to change. I don't have a, after years of working with these individuals, I do not think they should be at large. If we have some type of a regulation around them, ankle monitors sometimes work, you know, on Halloween, you got to go inside and you can't come back out, you know, because all the kids coming to your door. Maybe if it's to that level, or if it's a very confusing crime

and we're not totally clear what happened. But when you have just outright overpowering a child for sexual gratification or an adult, I don't have, I don't care. Do you find that the system gets it right with convicting these types of individuals that there's very few instances where they could have it wrong?

I think they have it wrong often. Yeah. And that's where that moment of discernment is. So how is this guy, that's when we really need to look at like the treatment teams and even like cellmates and everybody inside. Okay. Now he's been charged. What's he like on the inside? Is he telling people he enjoyed it? Is he telling people he wants to do it again? You know, you see their person. personality come out and that's where you make the judgments. But when we just see it on the news, we don't have the details. Like, did you, did you rape her or did you think it was C&C, consent, non-consent, this weird fucking trend for online people? P.S. don't do it if you're doing it. But on dating apps where people are saying, I'm going to consent to non-consent. So right now on this dating app, this is my final objection. Once I get to your house, you can do whatever you want to me,

including rape me. Even if I say no, it doesn't mean I mean no. That's fucking crazy to me. But how deep into it does the male believe that that's actually true? Was there a safe word that was ignored? Right. Then we get really complex into whose fault is it? it's very difficult to discern. And that's why I think we need years to get to know people when we have crimes at this level. I got a ton of messages from people that have gone to prison for sex offenses in situations where it was an age gap. Say they were 18 and the other person was 16 or 17. They were dating and depending on the state laws because multiple states are different. But then they hear the stories of how like a choma was treated in prison or how a sex offender should. be treated now. And, you know, there's definitely another category of these individuals where,

you know, they send these messages of them feeling lost or not knowing what to do or they want to come share their story. And, you know, it puts me in a tough spot too because you don't necessarily want to have sex offenders on the show unless they've been proven, you know, not guilty or there's just a, it's a different rabbit hole. But it shows there's a whole other aspect of these individuals. jewels too. You know, I've, I've had cases where the guy was 18 and the girl was 17, and that's a lot harder to show, show that he's a pedophile. It wouldn't be a pedophile, but a sex offender in that way.

Now, then I dig into, well, what were the charges? Oh, is somebody actually using this as just an additional add-on charge just to get you locked up more, right? What does the actual police report say? What are the personalities of the police that arrested you? What dynamics are at play in this whole picture? So I really have to get in there and look. But if you're 30 and she's 17, that's a fucking sex offense. Like, I'm 40 years old. When I was 30, would I have wanted to fuck a 17 year old? No. Right? And what about a person like that finds the 17-year-old so sexually attractive that they're willing to break the law and do that, but not find somebody age-appropriate to fuck, right? It's that dominance and that power

dynamic and the vulnerability. And, oh, I'm sorry, she manipulated you into having sex with her. She didn't tell you her age. You couldn't tell with her maturity, her ability to communicate the way her body looks that she was that age. Well, that's your own cognitive distortion. That's your problem, not hers. And I'm not like, this happens with guys all the time, too, guys get abused all the time. But we reach a level where it's so obvious that if you think about when you were that age, would you have done that to your kid's friend? No. Something also I've realized in prison, too, is a lot of these offenders, these predators will lie about the circumstances of why they're there. You know, they'll say, oh, it was an accident or, you know, I didn't know, or I was set up. And then

you come to find out, like you were saying earlier, you want to, you know, believe the best in them and the good in them, but then you find out that that's not what happened whatsoever. Yeah. And I do. I lead with wanting to find the best in people. Even if you're a convicted murderer, I'm still going to give you a chance. It's like you start with an A plus. God, you've failed the class on your own. It wasn't the way I made my test. And that's the, that's the grace I give individuals. And that's also, you ask, like, how do I contain my emotions on the stand? Because there's so much that goes into what I believe and opine in.

So there's so much time and education and so much grace I've given them before I've come to the conclusion. Because at the end of the day, I really would love people to be good. How does it feel knowing that it's like a never-ending door or line? of individuals that are evil, that are sexual predators, that are serial killers. How does that make you feel in your profession? I mean, I'll always have a job. But it makes me want to protect the vulnerable. It makes me want to educate people on how to parent their kids, how to be aware.

This is why I'm writing the book. It makes me want to tell you that you can trust your intuition. if you feel weird, get out of the situation, apologize later if you were wrong. Go against the grain. Go against social norms because it could mean your life. Every victim I've talked to didn't think they were going to be the victim. So how do we prevent that?

We educate ourselves on, especially inmates when they get out there. I think you had George on before, but George used to, George was in for a while, and now he's out educating about race and... Oh, White George. Yeah. And he's incredible. But, I mean, he's like walked across the country, you know, to support Black Pride. And so if we can use our experiences for good, then we can start overpowering the bad.

And unfortunately, the bad is overpowering the good right now. So we have to put the fight in. We have to keep going. I think a lot of people are not quick to give individuals. say like George or like myself, that second chance, just because they're labeled a felon or, and I think especially when they are able to find success after prison, there's that bitterness that because there is that thought process of this came from,

like a crime or came from prison. But I guess there also comes to a certain point where you have to, you know, weigh the good that came out of the situation. Yeah. On my phone or your phone. Oh, that went off. I don't know. People have been in prison and have come out have so much more power than they know.

And I think that so many people who have not experienced the criminal justice system are so fucking terrified of it that they don't even know what they're scared of. But like your ability and people's ability to teach what it's like to be on the inside and how you don't want to be, right? And this is the reality of leading a righteous life. You have an incredible voice to share. And when I hear it, it's just inmates who have come out and led and shared their stories, like I think it's Clark Frederick is an incredible man. They're going to live, people are going to listen to him and you way more than me, way more because you've got the lived experience.

I kind of had it, but I could go home each night. It's different. What do you think it's a case that you worked or that you even might have heard about in your profession that will stick with you forever? There's so many. I think, I mean, there's one case that sticks with me. He's how much he was abused by a white supremacist. kept in a dog kennel, dropped in the middle of a forest in the night as a child, just ways to torment and fear like you would do if you were in combat, torturing someone.

And then he fought back and got life. And I want him out. So it's something I'm working on. I can't see his name yet. Do you think the courts in this day and age consider the back history of a person? Like, I guess they're supposed to or like they say they do. I mean, in a case like Clark Fredericks, they did. And that was warranted.

But how many of those cases is it not that outcome, you know? You know, it depends. It's more so than not. It's not that outcome. I mean, if you look at a judge's docket, they don't have time. they don't look into things. They're not kept up on changes and statutes and laws. They cite the wrong ones in their decisions.

I mean, they should probably be the ones using AI more than anyone else. But we have to fight. That's where I think social media is so fucking cool and podcasts and things where we can get in people's ears without them giving us permission. Because there are so many people with knowledge that an individual judge or an individual lawyer whose head is head down in a certain field or on a certain case, they don't know. And we can give them tips to look up and research. And they learn from us. And they genuinely do.

So I think about the Menendez brothers as a good example. Take that trial, or they had two trials, put them today, really bring forward the evidence of how they were sexually abused, would the outcome be different? Because the sexual abuse evidence in the second trial they had originally was not allowed in. Conservative judge, I don't know,

don't want to creep out the jury, but I think it directly impacted their behavior. Now if we had that trial, that information would be in the trial. If you were a juror, would you consider that heavily in making a decision? Yes, especially because more people have come out about being abused

by their father. So we have a pattern. But also, we would have more psychological assessments. We have so many advances now that we can tell if they're telling the truth or if they're genuinely traumatized. I think that's theirs. How is your view of the criminal... How is your view of the criminal justice system changed since you first started,

when you were first... first, you know, at say the L.A. County Jail. How has it changed? I see it as more broken than I'd ever known before. There's so much brokenness and it's so led by a lack of money and politics. And it shouldn't be about that. And it's really sad that there are people inside because they just didn't have the money for a good lawyer. I think that's insane to me. I do a lot of pro bono cases for that very reason. But also we need some type of consequence

when there are genuinely disruptive illegal behaviors. So it's like this, I wish somebody in our administration at some point would put forward a way to fix this. I mean, I just helped close FCI double in prison, the rape prison in Northern California, all the guards, the warden, the psychologist, the pastor were raping the inmates, the female inmates. And I went in and interviewed a bunch of them. A bunch got compassionate release and a bunch got transferred to other prisons. And then as I continued to do the interviews in the other prisons, right when they were about

to say the guard's name, the phone would hang up. So the BOP corruption, like, is still continuing, but we've at least closed one prison and freed a few. We have a long way to go. Yeah, the BOP is incredibly corrupt. Yes. It's horrifying. I mean, just, and then don't even get me started on the private prisons. And like the price to buy a fucking toothbrush, taking advantage of inmates to make money is so backwards.

me. Now, how do you fix at least that aspect, you know, of the guards abusing individuals? Does that, do you have to add in like a psychology layer to the hiring process? How does that part get fixed? Obviously, you want to weed out all the bad ones as time goes on, but how do you prevent new bad ones from getting in? There's a little bit of like an interview psychology intake, But when it comes to, like, if you want to be a cop, you got to work in a jail for a while. And there aren't always pre-employment screenings when it comes to the depth of mental health. They're starting to add that, which is really awesome. But a lot of people want to be cops, want to be on patrol, want to be on the motto, and just arrest people and shoot them.

Okay, you want that. You got to do your time in jail. How are you going to be in jail? how are you going to be with a bunch of people you don't really respect because you just want to be like a brocob. So we have to have more supervision and authority over these individuals before they're put into these places of authority. So I think we're moving that way. And we've been fighting for years for the FBI to have pre-employment screening and they've been rejecting it. Still nothing.

They don't have any type of screening? No. No. If you're a paranoid and you think someone's after you, like you want to get your own blood back, right? Like the inmate, a bunch of someone, where would you work? The FBI? The FBI. The CIA has a very intense pre-screening process.

Interesting. Why not the FBI? They need it. We need to start putting these in place. But they have an extensive background. Yes. but not a psychological pre-employment screening. Like to find out what you're actually there for and your goals and inside your mind.

Like personality testing. You know, like the MMPI is a personality test. And that was given to, there's a study where it was given to a bunch of custody officers and inmates. And the results were that you had the same personalities. So, but some get keys and some don't. What's that going to lead to, right? So we have to be aware of who we're working with before we give them the keys. Yeah, I think that's why you see a lot of corruption.

I mean, look at, say, a place like Rikers Island, a lot of people are from those same neighborhoods that are the people that are incarcerated are from. Yeah. And some are even gang members. They'll say, like, bloods or crips are working there. And those are the ones that are, you know, bringing the contraband in. Yeah. We're employing the staff. Incredible.

to fuck the guys. It's crazy. Yeah. It's all, there's a high level of corruption and it really is horrible that it, that somebody who's locked up for like check fraud has to deal with. Just don't get locked up. Well, Leslie, I really appreciate the time today. This was a very insightful interview and I'm glad we finally got to do it.

And you're still so young in your career. So I'm sure we'll be seeing you on the show as a years. go on. I'm so excited and I just want people to keep watching and learning and just using discernment when these cases trend on the news and you only hear tidbits of information. It's not the real person and it's not the whole story. And we'll have the links to all your stuff in the description of this episode. Yeah, like the Leaser Vanderpump show coming out for my true crime mommy's. Awesome.