Term Paper on "Children Who Kill"

Term Paper 10 pages (3413 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Kids Who Kill

The growing social phenomenons' regarding violence among children and especially such heinous crimes as murder is beginning to startle the culture as a whole. The world, not the just the United States is desperately seeking answers for this growing problem. The problem has gained international recognition as similar crimes are becoming evident in other nations, such as the killing of 2-year-old James Bulger in the U.K. By two very young boys. Yet, when one looks at the statistics in the United States alone they are made painfully aware that such events are increasing in number and in severity.

In the United States,...between 1984 and 1989 the number of youths arrested for murder nationwide in the United States more than doubled from 1,004 to 2,208. One study showed that youths under eighteen years of age now make up about ten per cent of all homicide arrests in the United States.

Lowenstein)

The current question has become the big, WHY? Why are these children violent, angry, and why do they feel like the consequences of their actions are minimal to either the victim or themselves.

There is a great deal of evidence that the media plays a role in the situation as its increasing glorification of violence creates scenarios and scenes that then become mundane and commonplace to a child. Children imitate that which they see, and they are made aware through the media that acts as heinous as graphic sexually motivated murder are punished by a bunch of people wearing plain clothes asking the killer questions in a room with a one way mirror, conviction in these dramatic representations are not shown and sentencing is a mystery. Children are intelligent enough to understand that the fate of the killer is bad but on the screen it doesn't look like anything to be afraid of. Additionally, the representations of the actual crimes, where they occur often leave the child believing that they are easy to commit, staged punches and kicks are something anyone of any strength and size can manage with one dramatic groan or maybe even in silence. Weapons are easy to weald and even look cool in the movies and on television, constantly present in most homes.

The minimizing of the consequences of violence the constant torrent of the embellishment of violent acts and violent people; the idealization of lawyers and doctors; the acceptance of dysfunctional families, sexual abuse and wife battering -- all these have become a subliminal brainwashing

Hausen 169)

Yet, a single causation cannot be isolated in a vacuum. The media does play a role in the fundamental increase in violence committed by children but there are also other factors worth exploring as well. There are several new rather intriguing theories. A few individuals believe the reason is associated less with violent media expressions, though the seeds of possibility are often planted by the media, and more with individual kid's feeling of cultural isolation and lack of personal control. This work will explore this theory through an analysis of literature both primary and secondary in association with murder committed by children.

We have heard a great deal about the recent high school massacres yet the focus of this work is on younger children. It will focus on crimes which have been given less airtime, yet also dealing with kids killing other kids. Examples such as, Joshua Phillips who killed an 8-year-old neighbor and then hid her body under his bed for several days.

Moffatt 112) the case of Mary Bell and Norma Bell, (not related) 10 who committed two murders against young children in the UK in 1968, and were flagrant show offs about their crimes. The case in Britain where 2 boys age 10 brutally murdered 2-year-old James Bulger, basically they said to see what it was like to kill another human being. Michael Hernandez 14 killed his best friend of many years, in a conscious bid to become a serial killer ("Dark Ambitions: A Born Killer?" Court TV crime library website) and the Recently released Lionel Tate now 17 (12 a the time of the murder) who killed 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick, he said while imitating professional wrestling moves he had seen on TV, this claim was later discredited when prosecutors claimed Eunick had been brutally beaten to death. (Associated Press "Convicted Child Killer to Return Home" CNN website) leading education expert expresses concerns about the isolation children experience when they are removed from their community to attend school and states that such isolation may be a root cause for increased violence and disassociative disorders. "Holt feels that children are not treated as if they are part of the community, that they are removed from the community for their education, and that they are not ready for it..."

Hausen 163) His observations are as a response to many years as a teacher in public schools. He believes that the challenges students face, in a public school are absolutely contrary to their natural development into successful adults. In addition to this I will add that the artificial culture, one finds in a school of almost any type, harbors punishments and restrictions that for the most part seem arbitrary and unfair to a child, especially when those sanctions come from peers and are associated with factors completely outside one's control, such as athletic ability, sexual interest heightened by the desensitization of sex by the media, dressing in style exacerbated by market economy advertising, physical appearance, intelligence and personal wealth of the family. In one outstanding work on the subject of human progress as it applies to children and education explains that exploring; the effects of advertising that emphasizes youth, sex, beauty, health and wealth...could lead to examining the repercussions of that type of advertising for aging, illness and even death, on society at large: showing how aging, illness and poverty have become stigmas that the sufferers are held responsible for...those inflicted stigmas and shame at natural human developments have forced all of us to wear masks hiding our true selves.

Hausen 169)

The same could be said for the helplessness of the youthful victims in the cases of murder here being addressed. It has somehow become popular to see the helpless as victims rather than as human beings, children are unwelcome in society and are either superficially capable in the media or desperately intolerable and in need of physical and psychological abuse.

When children who kill are interviewed the kinds of problems and psychological states they exhibit, where they are not directly associated with a disassociative disorders are linked almost inextricably to feelings of complete and utter lack of personal control over their lives. The finding among many children who have taken the life of another is often that they feel trapped by the unfair and arbitrary control of peers, parents and educators, in that order. "Illich claims that schools are meant to enforce a social class system where children learn values appropriate to their class. He feels that "[c]ompulsory education forces an individual to compete for equality," -- which is a paradox.

(Hausen 163) Competeing for equality in conditions that are arbitrarily created does not often give a child the ability to choose right from wrong when much smaller decisions are at stake than whether or not to beat their playmates with baseball bats, because they fear punishment for other more slight transgressions against them, see the Phillips case above.

According to a leading child treatment specialist, there are several traits that supercede all others with regard to children who commit murder. These traits an almost always associated with the environment and have implications for prevention, rather than treatment. These children, already violent offenders are troubled in many ways, according to Lowenstein they have not only been failed by their environment but feel as if they are failures themselves.

A witnessing violence in reality such as between parents or others, suffering from either physical or sexual abuse themselves, being interested excessively in acts of violence such as watching violent TV programmes or videos, having failed to be disciplined sufficiently when acts of aggressiveness occur towards others, towards animals and hence having failed to develop a conscience about such behaviour, there is also frequently a history of both being bullied and acting as bullies.

Lowenstein)

What happens in these cases, according to Lownestwein is that children fail to form the connection between what they are thinking of doing, actually doing and the consequences of their actions. They do not expect to be caught or punished because they have not been shown this to be the case in their history. Their much earlier transgressions are ignored or avoided by parents, who come ill equipped to deal with them or worse yet, they are physically punished, further enforcing their idea that a person must get what they want through violence. "Children who abuse others have frequently seen their own parents act as negative role models." These children feel as if little if any attention or feeling is… READ MORE

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