The book Columbine tells the true story of two small-town boys who made a very bad decision, and how their community chooses to recover from their crimes and the losses of their friends, children, and neighbors. Although it is a nonfiction book, there are still many themes present that play not only a large role in the book, but also in life itself. The main theme in the book Columbine, by Dave Cullen, is that one should never judge a book by its cover. The minds of these killers prove to be nothing short of fascinating to thousands of people. While many might read this book and see two cold-blooded teenagers that killed their peers for fun, there is definitely some gray area concerning whether or not the youngest killer, named Dylan Klebold, should …show more content…
Robert Hare. “I want to tear a throat out with my own teeth like a pop can,” he writes in a journal entry, just months before the attacks (Cullen 294). Eric had a major sadistic side to him and dreamt of destroying the human race entirely. He found himself to be superior to nearly everyone. Hare created a special screening test used for mainly juveniles that listed ten hallmarks of early psychopathy. Eric spoke about nine of the ten hallmarks on his website alone, some in grave detail. But Dylan, on the other hand, showed none of these traits, except possible persistent aggression. According to Dwayne Fuselier, the head profiler on the Columbine case, Dylan hardly seemed committed to the plan the boys had organized. His main goal was to kill himself, not other people. “.......Good god i HATE my life, i want to die really bad right now,” he writes in the end of a journal entry (174). This is one of several times he talks about suicide in his journal. Sometimes, his self-hatred strayed away from exclusively himself to other people. These were the times
Most people don 't look at every aspect of a crime. They don 't think about everyone that was affected, other than the victim. In her article "On Punishment and Teen Killers", Jennifer Jenkins explains how her younger sister was taken from her by a murderer who shot and killed her. In her article she states, "So few who work on the juvenile offender side can truly understand what the victims of their crimes sometimes go through. Some never recover." Jenkins is explaining her personal experience of losing her younger sister to help others understand what the families of the victim have to deal with for the rest of their lives. She brings a point of view that most people have never been in because they 've never experienced what it 's like to have a loved one taken away from you by murder. In her story she also states, "If brain development were the reason, then teens would kill at roughly the same rates all over the world." Many people believe that the supreme court needs to be more lenient on juveniles because their brain is not fully developed as that of an adult, but brain development cannot be used as an excuse because as Jenkins explains, the teens would be killing at the same rate all over the world. Jenkins also brings up a good point about how the US as a whole needs to step up to prevent these crimes from happening. Jenkins states, "We in America have to own to this particular problem, with weapons so easily available to our youth, and the violence-loving culture we raise them. She is trying to bring awareness to society that America is also at fault for these crimes. Furthermore, she also explains why life sentencing is not as cruel as some may feel it is when she says, "… a life sentencing still allows a great deal of good living to be done, even from behind bars, far more than these teen killers gave to our murdered love
This book was written by Dave Cullen published on April 6th, 2009. This story is a stated form of literature due to Dave Cullen directly stating in this story his reason for writing this book. Cullen was one of the first reporters to arrive to the site of this crime committed by Dylan and Eric, and since the day of this massacre Cullen had then spent ten years to publicize this very informative and crucial information for those who wanted the truth and nothing but the truth. I chose to read this book due to wanting to learn more information, and learn the hard facts and truth of this horrid massacre. I myself was in a similar situation, a school I had gone to had threats of being bombed and shot at, as well as students including myself being threatened to be harmed if they did specific actions or did nothing at all, and I was extremely adamant on learning more about what happened when things, such as the Columbine Highschool Massacre, do
When one thinks of serial killers, the first thoughts that come to that person are usually of cold blooded adults. Two young, carefree teenagers almost never come to mind, and most would never even consider the idea. Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate may just change the way people think of serial killers. The young couple rampaged across the state of Nebraska in early 1958, murdering ten people along the way. Most wonder what could cause such young people to turn into murderers with what seemed to be no conscience at all. Did Starkweather have a bad childhood? Bullying could have played a part in causing Charles to turn out the way he was. Caril Fugate became involved with Starkweather at the age of 13 and many questioned if it was possible for someone so young to have played a part in something as awful as murder. As the duo traveled, fear was struck into the public. No one knew why the victims were chosen. Did Starkweather or Fugate have a grudge against them? Were they trying to stop the two, or was it just sheer bad luck? Like most criminals, the pair was caught. They each had very different verdicts. Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate changed the history of Nebraska drastically in just a short amount of time.
Juxtaposing Dylan’s and Eric’s personality traits defies the readers’ expectations. Cullen first uses opposing language to focus on the boys’ conflicting views on the attack. Dylan, Cullen argues, visualized the attack as an escape from reality: he didn’t plan to follow through with it, simply fantasizing about a single attack. Eric, however, truly wanted to destroy everyone. Later, this contrast becomes more prevalent when Cullen remarks, “Eric launched a new charm offensive… he worked his ass off to excel. Dylan didn’t even try to impress Andrea” (258-259). The decision to place the sentences consecutively helps the readers gain insight into the killers’ minds before the attack. By starkly contrasting the murderers’ thoughts, it corrects the misconception that they targeted specific groups of people because they were bullied outcasts. Instead, the readers realize, Eric was quite charming. There was no specific “hit list”, as the media hypothesized, rather the killers planned to murder
If a family member was murdered, a family member was murdered, age should not dictate if the punishment for homicide will be more lenient or not. If anyone not just juveniles has the capabilities to take someone's life and does so knowing the repercussions, they should be convicted as an adult. In the case of Jennifer Bishop Jenkins who lost her sister, the husband and their unborn child, is a strong advocate of juveniles being sentenced to life without parole. In her article “Jennifer Bishop Jenkins On Punishment and Teen Killers” she shows the world the other side of the spectrum, how it is to be the victim of a juvenile in a changing society where people are fighting against life sentences for juveniles. As she states in the article “There are no words adequate to describe what this kind of traumatic loss does to a victims family. So few who work on the juvenile offender side can truly understand what the victims of their crimes sometimes go through. Some never
Harris was “the callously brutal mastermind” while Klebold was the “quivering depressive who journaled obsessively about love and attended the Columbine prom three days before opening fire” (Columbine High School, History). On an article published by Cullen on Slate.com, it reveals the true motivation and meaning behind the actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
The sentencing of underage criminals has remained a logistical and moral issue in the world for a very long time. The issue is brought to our perspective in the documentary Making a Murderer and the audio podcast Serial. When trying to overcome this issue, we ask ourselves, “When should juveniles receive life sentences?” or “Should young inmates be housed with adults?” or “Was the Supreme Court right to make it illegal to sentence a minor to death?”. There are multiple answers to these questions, and it’s necessary to either take a moral or logical approach to the problem.
The columbine massacre the day where no one is safe in school or out of school. The columbine massacre is about two students named Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris both seniors 17 years old both two weeks before graduating they killed 12 students, one teacher, and 21 injured to their shooting on April 20, 1999. Both Dylan and Eric were some believe they were bullied by the sport teams in their school so they planned to kill the people who bullied them and other mostly anyone who gets in their way but that wasn’t really why the FBI he said that there target was everyone no one in pacify we will not get in to more details now. Dylan and Eric were both intelligent boys with solid parents and a good home and both had brothers younger than them. They played soccer, baseball, and both enjoyed to work on computers. Both boys were thinking on commit suicide on 1997 but instead started to plan a massacre in 1998 a year before it happened. Then the two boys had got into some trouble for breaking into a van on January 30, 1998 trying to steal some fuses and wires for bombs for them to make, but they got caught in trouble. So the court put them in a program called the juvenile diversion program, but even if they were there they were still planning the massacre and the court also put Eric in some angry management classes and people believe it worked but it didn’t he just did it to look like it work and both boys made it look like they were really sorry but they weren’t. Dylan and Eric both really hated everyone in their school and the court as well after they got caught breaking in to that van that’s when they really started to plan the massacre more and that’s when Harris started he’s journals no one really knows way but they didn’t hate a hand...
Crime manifests itself in various ways in society and oftentimes difficult to pinpoint what drives people to commit certain actions. The Columbine shooting was a particular incident that ended in tears and suffering which resulted in numerous research as to what was going through the minds of these young individuals at the time of the shooting. Therefore, this paper will analyze specifically the role of differential association- reinforcement as altered by Akers in propelling Dylan Klebold to commit such heinous act, while also giving credit to Edwin Sutherland for first formulating the framework of differential association.
Also, in Marjie Lundstrom’s brief article entitled, Kids Are Kids-Until They Commit Crimes, she centers on the case of twelve year old Lionel Tate and his punishment for committing murder. For instance, Lundstrom states how Tate at the age of twelve savagely beat to death a young girl while he was trying to mimic one of his ‘World Wrestling Heroes” which he saw on television and at the age of fourteen became convicted as an adult of first degree murder (Lundstrom). At the time he was only twelve when he committed the crime and still to this day is getting punished for a heinous crime he committed at such a young age. Although Tate did commit a cruel crime and should receive some sort of punishment for it, the fact that he is under age should
Bryan Stevenson’s purpose of writing about his grandfather’s death in his book Just Mercy is to explain how hard it is to deal with children’s crime without knowing or understanding their lives. Many children who commit crimes have grown up in hard situations. Children at the age of twelve to eighteen are going through many changes during that time, like puberty. They are also still very immature and their brains are not fully developed yet. Stevenson also explains, “Young adolescents lack life experiences and background knowledge to inform their choices,” unlike adults teenagers do not have the best judgment for issues and do not necessarily understand the consequences that come from their actions. This is why Stevenson fights against the death row put against children.
When 2 young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went on a shooting spree in Littleton, Colorado, killing 15 people, including themselves, there was a public outcry for censorship of every type of entertainment and changes in gun laws despite Eric Harris’s journal entry titled, “Last Wishes” asking that no one be blamed, other than himself and Klebold, for the massacre (“As You Were”, par. 2). After the 1999 school shooting now simply known as Columbine, a “Newsweek” pole showed that, “about half of all Americans want to see the movie industry, the TV industry, computer game makers, Internet services and gun manufacturers and the NRA make major policy changes to help reduce teen violence” (Alter, par. 1). According to Dave Cullen in his article “Let the Litigation Begin” several lawsuits were filed against the parents of the two boys responsible for the shooting spree claiming that Harris’s and Klebold’s families, “breached their duty of care” by allowing their sons to amass a cache of illegal weapons (Cullen, par. 5). Although the boys’ parents denied such allegations, they settled out of court for $1.6 million (Cullen, par. 5)...
In the article On Punishment and Teen Killers by Jenkins, sadly brings to our attention that kids are sometimes responsible for unimaginable crimes, in 1990 in a suburban Chicago neighborhood a teenager murdered a women, her husband, and her unborn child, as she begged for the life of her unborn child he shot her and later reported to a close friend that it was a “thrill kill”, that he just simply wanted to see what it felt like to shoot someone. A major recent issue being debated is whether or not we have the right to sentence Juveniles who commit heinous crimes to life in adult penitentiaries without parole. I strongly believe and agree with the law that states adolescents who commit these heinous crimes should be tried as adults and sentenced as adults, however I don’t believe they should be sentenced to life without parole. I chose this position because I believe that these young adults in no way should be excused for their actions and need to face the severe consequences of their actions. Although on the other hand I believe change is possible and that prison could be rehabilitating and that parole should be offered.
While many argue that juveniles who commit serious crimes, such as murder, should be treated as adults, the fact is, juveniles under the age of eighteen, are not adults, and should not be treated as such. Juveniles are not mature enough or developed psychologically, and, therefore, do not consider the consequences of their actions. In the article, “Startling Finds on Teenage Brains” by Thompson, the writer argues that juveniles are not adults. Their brains develop at different stages and they learn skills that they need to learn at a certain time.
On July 5, 1978, Robert Harris took the life of two innocent teenage boys that were just trying to enjoy their burgers in a car. Robert, 25 premeditated the ending to these innocent teens by stealing and then driving the car into a canyon where he repeated shot the boys as they tried to escape from this monster. On top of everything that Robert did to these boys, the most sickening part is when he took their burgers and laughed about the murder well eating it. Robert Harris was sentenced to death row for the murder of John Mayeski and Michael