Background
- In 1980, my sister had just been born when things in our family started to
change. I was only five when my sister was born, but I remember her coming home
from the hospital. I don’t really have any memories before that; at least, none
that weren’t implanted through stories and pictures (photograph albums). Things
changed that year - my father changed. One day (several years later), I asked
my mother if “my father was always like this” and she explained, to me, that my
father was not violent when they first married: he became violent when he
started using drugs. That is he displayed “Psychopharmacological traits” (Mockery,
Lecture). So, what led to the drug use? Why did his behaviors change? What
crimes did he commit and what does the future hold for him?
Adolescence
- Vincent
Quaglietta, my father, was born on February 28, 1954. Sandy Quaglietta, his
mother, had to have open heart surgery when she was pregnant for him. So, he
was addicted to morphine when he was born.
He was raised by both of his biological parents: in a middle class
family. He had only one sibling; which was abnormal for an Italian Family. The
family went to church on a regular basis, and they participated in community
activities. He was reported to be “a good kid, no trouble with the law, and
smart” by his mother.
Vincent Quaglietta started to lift
weights. He was six feet four inches tall and had a “mesomorph” physique (Siegel,
2009, p.122). His cousin started to “hang out” with him, and he introduced Mr.
Quaglietta to cocaine. One time was all it took – Mr. Quaglietta was hooked. Sandy
Quaglietta believes it was because his body remembered the morphine. The brain
is complex, and the reality is, that it is possible the morphine had a
neurological impact to the structure of his brain. But one thing is certain
-Vincent’s attachments to and with others changed from that point on. His moral
bar was eroded/ lowered, and things he once found inappropriate were
acceptable. I.e. Drug use, pornography, and prostitution became acceptable.
Crimes
- According
to Siegel, “Delinquent friends cause law-abiding youths to get in trouble” and
Vincent changed his associations (p.201). Cocaine was the first drug that he
used, but it would not be the last. The intranasal cocaine and crack caused
irritability, aggression, and physical violence: Vincent started to violently
assault his wife and children. Debbe, Vincent’s wife and my mother, is
independent and assertive, so it is possible that in Vincent’s mind these
traits triggered his violence. I.e. She argued with him about using drugs
(confrontation); therefore, she deserved it. “Victim precipitation theory”
suggests that she was “active” in precipitating the events, because she
provoked him (p.73). On the other side, “Deny
the victim” (a neutralization technique) suggests that “criminals sometimes
neutralize wrongdoing by maintaining that the victim had it coming” (p.207).
The violent behavior that was displayed by Vincent was never corrected,
so it escalated. Mr. & Mrs. Quaglietta, my parents, divorced and Mrs.
Quaglietta took the children to Minnesota for two years, then to Westport, N.Y.
Mr. Quaglietta requested and was granted visitation privileges. Mr.
Quaglietta’s children were conditioned to base their behavior on their father’s
behavior. I.e. If he appeared angry, they would avoid him or give the answers
he wanted to hear “Yes, I am sorry, I will take care of that” and so on so
forth. But, if he was relaxed and smoking marijuana his children were able to
relax a little and they could go upstairs and not stay in the basement. The
basement was partly finished and there was a couch, games, and television. The
children that were males were expected to go to work when they were not in
school, and the female children were to clean the house, make supper, and be
presentable by the time the males returned. Some household jobs were not for
“Women,” so the boys took the garbage and did the yard work. Mr. Quaglietta
felt that Sundays were family days and he would do things on that day with his
family; however, the activities for the day might include his friends joining
us and some form/type of drugs.
He worked to support his lifestyle, and
when his lifestyle started to dwindled he became creative and created other
ways to stay in the middle class lifestyle. He started to “underreport his
income” and created a false set of books for the tax consultant (Tax
Evasion/Fraud: Siegel, P. 382). Vincent started selling drugs, and selling
items he owned (later he would report them stolen).
Vincent Quaglietta moved in with his aunt,
in 2004. His substance dependence had impacted all aspects of his life to the
point where he wasn’t able to function. He applied for and received SSI;
however, after a short while he realized that the income he was receiving was
insufficient to cover his expenses. As a “problem solver”, he came up with a
way to get some money. He pretended to be his father and ordered a credit card
in his father’s name. Then, he persuaded his aunt into putting him on her
credit card account. He misrepresented the reasons for which he would use the
card, and he hid the credit card statements for an extended period of time. His
father passed away in December of 2007, and he moved in with his mother. She
was left with enough money to live out her life and not want for anything. It
took less than a year for Vincent to be in charge of all of the financial
transactions and estate. He committed property crimes – he started out
committing “Fraud” and progresses to “Embezzlement” (Siegel, p.359-360). The
money taken from his mother and aunt depleted their savings.
As of 2010, he has never been arrested
for anything other than failure to pay child support. Mr. Quaglietta
participated in activities with people that held positions, within the legal field,
which provided him with knowledge of criminal techniques and information
(Differential Association Theory, p.203). The information that he gathered was
for his own personal use, so it could be argued that he was “high risk” to
violate the law, and he used his “criminality traits” to decide which crimes he
was going to commit, and how he could get away with the crime (p.94).
Mr. Quaglietta has been married seven
times (is currently going through a divorce), and he has eleven children (only
two whom speak to him). The subordinate/degrading viewpoint, and the substance
abuse, held by Mr. Quaglietta lead to spousal abuse with his wives (my mother
fought at first, but after a few visits to the hospital she was conditioned to
submit to his authority). The child abuse was both physical and verbal. The
effects on the children have varied (I can only attest to the first five). The
oldest, David, received the most of the physical beatings, and he mimicked his father’s
physical aggression towards women for several years, until he went to see a
psychiatrist. He was arrested for substance use and forced into treatment. The
second oldest, this writer, didn’t tolerate the drugs and the people that did
them, so there were many verbal altercations. There was physical violence, but
not while I was around after I found my voice, because I told him that, “I
would call the police and show them every mark and everything I knew.” Our
visits were far and few between, unlike the other siblings I never went to live
with my father when I was disagreeing with my mother. The fourth child, Greg, doesn’t
remember his childhood, but has nightmares that make him wake up screaming. Up
until a year ago, he drank* so that he didn’t have to remember. The youngest,
Sondra, hasn’t spoken to him in ten years, and she has no intention of making
any effort to see him. (Side note* Mr. Quaglietta never discouraged the use of
drugs, but he would not tolerate smoking cigarettes in his home and drinking to
intoxication. He didn’t care if people had a drink, but they needed to know
their limits.)
Conclusion
- There are multiple reasons for the criminal behavior that Vincent
Quaglietta displayed. His behaviors were deviant and some were illegal, but “not
all deviant acts are illegal” (Siegel, p.5). The criminal justice system did
not catch him, thus he was not deterred and he progressed/evolved as a criminal.
Social Reaction theory points to his “interactions and interpretations” to
either encouraging or discouraging behaviors: behaviors can be either effective
or ineffective in our lives (Siegel, p. 214). Modern trait theorists would say
that there are multiple biological and psychological reasons for his behavior (Siegel,
p.123) This writer doesn’t know if Mr. Quaglietta’s mental health was within “normal” parameters
before he began his drug use, but it is reasonable to assume that being born
addicted to morphine impacted his neurological functioning in some way. After
thirty-one years of using and abusing drugs, both his physical and mental
health has been impacted. He would be labeled “Dual Diagnosis/co-occurring
disorders:” meaning that he would be hard to treat and the chance to reuse
would be high.
Could anything have prevented this?
In my opinion, substance abuse is a disease. Yes, Mr. Quaglietta made the
choice to use, but the interactions it created within his neurological system
triggered a response, and that response caused an exceedingly complex
relationship. That relationship grew – the first use- a snort of cocaine progressed
into 10 grams, because that’s what it took to get the original high; the first
use of marijuana- a hit here and there turned into 5-6 joints a day. The
relationship intertwined in such a way that when Mr. Quaglietta did try to stop
his body reacted: physiological symptoms presented making him believe he needed
to continue with use, and each time he used and stopped the physiological
symptoms appeared. His future is grim, because his body can’t take the
substance abuse anymore and he doesn’t believe treatment will help.
References
Siegel,
L. (2009). Criminology (10th
ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
