what i researched and why-
To be honest, this might have been some of the most depressing research I've ever done! The selection from "Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore" prompted me to research the obvious thing, which would be juvenile delinquency. I wanted to look around and see what the news reports were like. Were these children being punished? How do reports like this affect a society that wants to view childhood as a time of innocence?
what i found-
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=866502259882461359&q=juvenile+crime+interview&total=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
This is a video of a news report about ten year old boys who beat a homeless man quite brutally. I chose to include this video (even though there were so many options to choose from) for a few reasons. First of all, there is the obvious issue of age. These boys aren't even teens; They are children. This issue of age complicates not only our interpretation of their actions but also the idea of punishment. For instance, it seems, in this video, that the seventeen year old boy with the two ten year olds will probably be blamed for instigating the actions. This is evidence of our inability to see children as capable of comitting such a crime on their own. We cannot comprehend ten year olds being that evil.
Another reason I chose this video was because of the discussion of the children's families and punishment. The children are referred to as "disposable kids" because no family members can be found in connection with them. There are no smiling school pictures of the children, no crying mothers pleading for mercy for their sons, like we usually see in such cases. I think this is an interesting case, because it really challenges the way that we are able to think about children and crime.
Contribution to Discussion:
This is a very relevant thing, I think, to everything we've talked about so far concerning childhood innocence and naughtiness. We see things that might make us chuckle every now and then on the news or in day to day life: kids stealing yard decorations, harmless grafitti, things that are "mischevious", but acceptable. Then we see news reports of ten year olds attacking homeless people. What's interesing to me is our reaction. We want to know motives. We want to know who is responsible, because we don't think it can be them. That automatic response to defend the innocence of children is interesting, and I think it might be worth discussing, especially in regards to literature and what ideas of childhood we take from our childhood books.
2 comments:
I think that people look for answers to childhood crimes because it is difficult to fathom that children have the ability to devise a plot to kill someone. Maybe everyone looks back on their childhood and thinks that they would never have had so much pent up anger that they would ever think of killing someone, let alone actually kill someone. I think this notion comes from the pretty much universal belief in this country that children are innocent, and if they commit a crime, it was because they didn't know any better. It is very difficult to understand the motives of a child, or what is going through their head when they are committing crimes. Do they know that what they are doing is wrong? Do they even care? Maybe, like the case of the children beating up the homeless man, they know that what they are doing is wrong, but really do not care, because they feel that the world has turned on them. They were given up on by society. I think this says something about society, and that instead of giving up on kids, we should try to help them, so they can learn from their mistakes.
This is a horrible and unfortunate crime. But, as my argument has always been, I put the blame on the parents. At the end of the newsclip, it is stated that the police were not able to get in touch with the children's parents, they were missing in action so to speak. Yet, I'm sure the first thing that the defense attourneys will do is to find a scapegoat and blame the media, as is always the case in these situations.
For instance, back in the mid-90's when Beavis and Butthead were still funny, some kids got the idea to play with fire from the show and burned their trailer to the ground, killing them in the process. The show was blamed, prompting many politicians to try and get the show banned from television. But my question is... where were the parents when this happend?
More recently, over this past summer, five kids were burned to death after playing with fire indoors, here in Pittsburgh. Their parents were out partying and let the oldest kid, 10 years of age, tend to the younger children. Now, you may have seen this travesty in the news but i saw the aftermath first-hand. I work for the cemetary in which these children were burried and I was part of the crew who laid them to rest, and let me tell you, it was a sorrowful event. The whole thing was sort of surreal. So you see why I get so upset when people try to put the blame on something/someone other than the parents.
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