There are many contributing factors that lead up to the senseless act of violence, which might have been prevented if Kip's parents had recognized how disturbed their son was. Should parents be more involved with their children's everyday lives in order to maintain healthy relationships?
The very first time when parents bring home a new born a bonding starts. A child is nurtured and raised with love and praise, but in some cases children do not live up to parents' expectations. This seemed to be the case with Kipland Kinkel, Kip didn't live up the standards his parents had set for him. They expected him to be like his sister, but having a learning disability made it nearly impossible to be everything his parents wanted him to be.(The Killer, video)
His parents sought a variety of solutions. One of the many solutions was that his parents kept Kip back in first grade. Kip then stumbled through the third grade where he would study for spelling test, but not pass them. So his parents made him study harder at home. Kip showed no sign of improvement , but he was compelled not to be a disappointment to his parents. The parents tried to show him they didn't compare him to his sister. It was hard for them to do that because, even in the home videos, his sister would do something thing and then Kip would try and not succeed. (The Killer, video)
Kip's parents didn't take the right action to Kip's interest in violent weapons. When Kip was young, his parents wouldn't let him play with violent toys or things on that order. This may have led to Kip's obsession with guns, knives and bombs. He didn't get the need for this items out of his system when he was young . Kip started asking his father for a rifle around the age of twelve, and his father was a little weary about the idea
of him having a gun. So then came along Kip's twelfth birthday and being the good father he is and wanting to help cope with his son, he gave him a rifle.(The Young Kill) Some rules were applied to this gift like it had to be locked up at all times and Kip can only shoot it when his father was around. This only whet Kip's appetite for fire arms and other violent weapons. Secretly Kip would build a small arsenal of weapons.
Geoffrey Canada, the author of Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun; A Personal History of Violence, grew up and worked his entire life near or in the underclass society. Through his keen observation on behavior of children in these regions, he has noticed how with the introduction to guns, in particular to children created even more dangerous neighborhoods. Throughout his lifetime in New York, he tells us that violence has changed to be less organized and the social stability of the children is tested with (fire) power that they are too young to fully understand, it was an evolutionary decent. His observations on the violence that children can commit to each other parallels well with fictional story Lord of the Flies written by Nobel prize winning writer, William Golding. Golding, like Canada, looks what kind of environment is needed for violence to prevail in children. Although Golding’s 1954 book Lord of the Flies is fiction, it describes our current impoverished America’s epidemic on violence very well.
The two killers' childhoods were obviously dissimilar, and their differences bring to question the formation of a killer's mind. Is it childhood that affects the criminal mind's mentality? Smith's lack of companionship during his childhood led him to search for companionship in Hickock. Hickock took advantage of Smith's need by promoting Smith's fantasies. Hickock truly felt that Smith's fantasies were ludicrous, but he supported his fantasies because he needed Smith's aid to commit the murders.
The issues involved in Kevin’s case starts with his family values. Kevin seems to thrive on the attention he’s getting from his peers during school. The problem is its negative attention because it’s encouraging him to engage in negative behaviors during class. Kevin is narcissistic he feels as if he’s above the rules at school and in a way, he is because his parents have been preventing him from receiving consequences for his behaviors. Kevin’s parents are enabling these negative behaviors by defending him.
The lives of everyone in the town of Springfield Oregon changed on May 21st of 1998. A quiet boy named Kip Kinkel became known as “The Killer at Thurston High” after killing both of his parents, murdering two classmates, and severely injuring 24 others. There are many factors in the 15 year old boy’s life that led up to the horrific events that occurred on that day. The same factors that influenced the tragedy in occurring could have very easily insured that it never happened to begin with.
“One side of me says, I’d like to talk to her, date her. The other side of me says, I wonder what her head would look like on a stick.” Edmund Kemper III is an intimidating man at 6 foot 9 inches, three hundred pounds, without also being given the title “the Co-ed Killer.” In less than a year, Kemper killed and dismembered several hitchhiking co-ed females around the Santa Cruz area, including his mother and her friend, until he turned himself in and eventually convinced the police he was in fact “The Co-ed Killer.” Biological, psychological and even critical theories have tried to indirectly explain Kempers abnormal deviant behavior
This insinuation brought to mind the social process theory that I had read about in my textbook. The social process theory emphasized the social process, or the learning and interactive processes involved in causing criminal and or deviant behavior. In this article it is noted that both Carlton Dotson and Patrick Dennehy grew up in tough neighborhoods. Thus, when they both arrived on campus after transferring, they naturally bonded. Another side-effect of growing up in a tough neighborhood was that they were both quite paranoid and viewed violence as a more acceptable solution than most others. Thus, it was only natural that both bought guns after they believed that their teammates had stolen $300 from the apartment that they shared. This paranoia also, sadly, may be why Dennehy is no longer living as Dotson stated that he had shot Dennehy as a matter of self-defense as he had “felt
The characters around Dave make him feel like he is still a child. His wants to purchase a gun to feel more powerful. In the beginning of this story, Dave talks about how a gun would change the way people acted towards him. He feels that if he owns this power, the men in the fields who work with him will have more respect for him, and his mother will start treating him as an adult. Dave feels as if he is surrounded by people who treat him as a child and he does not like this at all. “You ain’t nothing but a boy. You don’t need a gun.'; This statement said by Joe, is the main reason why Dave truly wants a gun, to feel independent.
The reasons behind the rare violent outbursts of children remain some sort of a mystery. As we saw in Kip Kenkel’s story, it is easy for kids today to get wrapped up in violent popular culture. Today, extremely violent movie scenes and music lyrics about murder and violence plague children.
I believe that Kinesha and Le Roy are going to be products of their surroundings. Social location is going to play a big part in this. These children everyday face the chance of gun violence. The exposer to violence will lead to their ability to resolve situation using non-violent means. I believe that by observing certain behaviors, eventually, these children will begin to mimic the actions they see each day. Kinesha and Le Roy, at the young age of 7 and are scared and they show it. For example, Le Roy is afraid to leave the stoop and go downstairs with his bike. He is afraid someone will push him off and steal it, but as he gets older this will change. I believe these children will internalize their fear and suppress it. Furthermore,
Kip Kinkel intelligence was challenged. The Kinkel’s decided to hold Kip back in first grade because he lacked maturity and had a slow emotional and physical development. Kristian stated in the film that Kip would get his E and 3 mixed up creating difficulties for himself and disappointment to his parents. Which later resulted in negative choices.
To begin with, numerous reasons for why a child acts in the manner he exhibits and why he continues to exert such dangerous and even fatal schemes. Recent research shows that factors ranging from inherited personality traits to chemical imbalances and damages suffered in the womb can increase the odds that a child will become violent (Johnson 234). Experts argue that no one is predestined to a life of crime. They believe that influences such as repeated abuse, extreme neglect, poverty, media violence, and easy access to guns play the major role in molding children into criminals. The father of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer wonders, "If potential for evil is in the blood that some of us pass on to our children" (Seifert 23).
Shapiro, J., Dorman, R., Welker, C. & Clough, J (1998), Youth attitudes towards guns and violence: Relations with sex, age, ethnic group, and firearm exposure Journal of Clinical Child Psychology. 27(1).
These two men, both coming from different backgrounds, joined together and carried out a terrible choice that rendered consequences far worse than they imagined. Living under abuse, Perry Smith never obtained the necessary integrity to be able to pause and consider how his actions might affect other people. He matured into a man who acts before he thinks, all due to the suffering he endured as a child. Exposed to a violent father who did not instill basic teachings of life, Smith knew nothing but anger and misconduct as a means of responding to the world. He knew no other life. Without exposure to proper behavior or responsible conduct, he turned into a monster capable of killing an entire family without a blink of remorse. In the heat of the moment, Perry Smith slaughtered the Clutter family and barely stopped to take a breath. What could drive a man to do this in such cold blood? The answer lies within his upbringing, and how his childhood experiences shaped him to become the murderer of a small family in Holcomb, Kansas. ¨The hypothesis of unconscious motivation explains why the murderers perceived innocuous and relatively unknown victims as provocative and thereby suitable targets for aggression.¨ (Capote 191). ¨But it is Dr. Statten´s contention that only the first murder matters psychologically, and that when
...ted by a problem they have which also has to do with the parents big time, because, it is their job to make sure their son or daughter is always feeling comfortable with their environment. It really falls back on the parents when their child does something so heinous, but no matter what the crime is committed and should always be set in stone that no teen can get away with committing a murder.
...ates that school shootings occur when perpetrator’s bond to the society weaken, also known as decrease in social capital. Referring to writing in Harris’s dairy on how much he hated the world explains how he was detached from the society and how he developed hatred against society.