Hey there Shankar here. A few weeks ago we were finishing up an episode called In the Heat of the Moment.

It's about hot and cold emotional states and how certain situations can cause us to become strangers to ourselves.

If you haven't heard it yet, check it out. We're really proud of it.

Working on it also got us thinking about another episode we did a few years ago.

It's about teenagers in Chicago and a program that tries to keep kids from acting in anger, from making mistakes that could affect the course of their lives.

In other words, it's trying to help kids pull back from the brink when they're in a hot state.

We thought that episode was worth another listen, so we're bringing it to you today. Hope you enjoy it.

The fight was over a pair of gym shoes. At night, on the south side of Chicago. And this is what came of it.

One teenager faces years in prison. Another, a boy of just 15, is dead.

The incident might not have even made the news, except the victim was the grandson of a long-serving congressman.

At a press conference, that congressman, Danny Davis, did something unusual. He grieved not just for his own grandson, but for his grandson's killer.

I grieve for my family. I grieve for the young man who pulled the trigger.

I grieve for his family, his parents, his friends, some of whom will never see him again.

It is so unfortunate when these tragedies continue to occur and re-occur. And somehow or another, our society has not been able to find and exact the answers and solutions.

The solutions we do have often produce more disputes than results. Conservatives call for harsher sentencing and better policing.

Liberals want gun control and more social service programs. One thing's clear, even as we argue, people are dying.

So what can be done? One community group has an unusual idea. It believes that perhaps violence can be stopped with a breath.

A few moments, and a tiny tweak to the way we think.

Very, very often, if they could only take back five minutes of their life, a lot of these kids, a lot of the people that are locked up would have a very different life.

Thinking our way out of crime, this week on Hidden Brain.

Our story begins with another death on the south side of Chicago. One night in the fall of 2007, Amadou Sis, a young PhD student from Senegal,

was walking home after a gathering on the University of Chicago campus. He was confronted by a stranger, 17-year-old Demetrius Warren.

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