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.