Child Murder Case Study

The legal system in the United States doesn’t have a lot of gray areas when it comes to murder cases, usually someone’s going to jail at the end of the day. However there are certain cases involving children where the law needs to be viewed with exceptions. Sometimes the laws need to bring new ideas and concepts into consideration that weren’t thought of when the laws were originally written. For instance in most cases when an adult kills another adult, the adult who killed the other person will be convicted and sent to prison. But in the cases of when a young child kills another person the law cannot be too quick to convict them due to many discoveries in the field of childhood development. A young child ages 2-6 is still developing biologically,

The brain is very immature during childhood and many parts of the brain are not fully developed until adulthood. One part of the brain that is severely underdeveloped is the limbic system. This system controls everything from emotions and memory to the production of hormones. (Berger 2014) One result from an immature limbic systemic is a weak impulse control. Impulse control is the ability to postpone or deny the immediate response to an idea or behavior. (Berger 2014 p223). Until the brain has developed fully children, especially children under six, will lack patients and judgment in any situation (Chapter 8 notes). If the three children who commited the crimes had a developed limbic system and had control over there impulsive then there’s a strong possibility they wouldn’t have commit crimes. With a fully developed limbic system theres a high possibility that the three children who commited the crimes would have been able to think through there actions ultimately resulting in a different outcome. The limbic system is vital to controlling ones actions and without a fully developed one a person cannot be held accountable for their

(Berger 2014 p 279). Early on the first emotions a child will feel is contentment and distress, from those children will continue to grow in their emotions as they also grow into their mind and body. (Berger 2014 p 182) Early on emotions are very delegate, if not regulated they can become out of control result in a number of disorders. (Berger 2014 p279) Two reactions can stem from improper regulation of emotions are externalizing and internalizing problems (Berger 2014 p279) Both these problems deal with children being unable to have reason and process their emotions properly. However as they grow older and gain more reason they grow out of these two disorders and begin to act more emotionally appropriate. (Berger 2014 p279) While adults are able to control their emotions in social situation, children from ages 2-6 are unable to have such control; their emotions and social behaviors are still being developed. Expectedly children will often act emotionally incorrect in society, for instance when a child doesn’t get there way they will often throw a temper tantrum. However if an adult is put in the same situation and not given what they wanted, they will act according with reason and the proper emotions instead of acting out. In light of the three scenarios given, the children were clearly not in control of their emotions, it is seen in the outcomes of each