Killing Kids

Killing Kids

M is nine years old(1). At this young age she has already beaten and tortured a 4 year old girl to death. She presents with absolutely no remorse about the incident. Any regret that she does exhibit is due to the fact that she understands that she is expected to feel apologetic about the incident, not because she intuitively feels remorse. D is ten years old (1). He has already killed a four year old girl because she "was annoying" him. He slapped her so hard that she fell to the ground and consequently died. While in the hospital, he was observed holding another patient's head under the water even after he was told not to do so. S is 10 years old and refuses to go to school. Instead, he runs across the street to play video games with his friend. When he is not over at his friend's house he sets fires for "fun". In addition, he often asked to carry drugs for his father with whom he has intermittent contact. He has been arrested for shop lifting from a local grocery(1). Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris walked into school on April 21, 1999 and killed 23 other people before finally taking their own lives(2). All of these people exhibit symptoms of conduct disorder.

Conduct disorder is an inability to follow rules and behave in a socially acceptable way. People with this disorder exhibit aggression towards people and animals, are destructive towards property, are deceitful and seriously violate rules set by authority figures(3). Moreover, there are usually problems in the home such as divorce, poverty, child abuse, neglect, or parents that carry their own psychiatric diagnoses. In addition, patients with the disorder often carry other diagnoses such as oppositional defiant disorder, mood disorders, anxiety, attentio...

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...sorder , Part of the University of Virginia Institute of Law, Psychiatry, & Public Policy website.

http://www.ilppp.virginia.edu/juv/ConDis.html.

8) Counseling Children with Conduct Disorder , Part of the Counseling Today website.

http://www.conseling.org/ctolin/achives/conduct.html.

9) A Double-Blind Study of Risperidone in the Treatment of Conduct Disorder, Published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and found on the Find articles.com website.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2250/4_39/61909235/promt.jhtml

10) How Youngest Killers Differ: Peer Support, On the New York Times website.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900rampage-youth.html.

11) The Threaten, Seethe and Unhinge, Then Kill in Quantity , On the New York Times website.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900rampage-killers.html.