Summary Of Article On Punishment And Teen Killers By Jennifer Jenkins

In today’s world, murderers aren’t a surprising thing, as long as they are fictional. Plenty of TV shows and movies have plot lines around murder, but what about real life? As Scott Bonn states in his writing, of the approximate 15,000 murders in the United States, only 1 percent are serial killings, amounting to about 150 victims per year, with between 25 and 50 serial killers active at any given time. There are plenty of statistics on serial killers. 1 in 20 had the same three characteristics as a child: bedwetting, fire setting, and torturing animals. Animal torture is a common indicator that the child will be violent in the future. Also, over 30 percent of murderers use killing as a way for their sexual arousal (Stone). A murderer

The same psychiatrist, Johnathan H. Pincus examined 14 other death row inmates who had murdered when they were under the age of 18 and realized that they all had the same factors of neurologic damage, abuse, and paranoid thinking (Pincus, 29). A study done by Lisa Marshall and David Cooke shows the differences between the childhoods of psychopath criminals and non-psychopath criminals. They used the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse to show how much the environment your surrounded with as a child can affect your adult life. Not only did they study the results of familial childhood factors such as neglect, physical abuse, and psychological abuse but they also looked into societal factors such as negative school experience and negative school performance. Results showed that “Inadequate or incompetent parenting leads to insecure attachment bonding that forecasts low levels of empathy, compliance, cooperation and self control.” (Lykken,199). The most obvious differences in the childhoods of psychopath criminals and non-psychopath criminals were in parental discipline, parental neglect, and negative school performance. (Marshall and Cooke, The Childhood experiences of psychopaths). Another environmental factor that should

In an article called “The Traits of A Serial Killer,” by Simon (2004), psychopaths are not “created” over night, but rather their behavior can be connected all the way to their childhood. What trauma a child experiences plays a major role in the rest of his or her life. A serial killer, most of the time,

In the article “On Punishment and Teen Killers” the author states “My youngest sister was the joy of our close family. When a teenager murdered her and her husband in 1990 in suburban Chicago, she was pregnant with their first child. She begged for the life of her unborn child as he shot her. He reported to a friend, who testified at his trial, about his “thrill kill” that he just wanted to “see what it would feel like to shoot someone.” This teen was charged as adult by the JLWOP ( Juvenile Life without Parole) his problem was he was believed to be a serial killer in the making. In the article Jenkins states “ After a series of other crimes, he planned the murders for months, carefully and privately. He did not act on impulse of peer pressure…” This quote means the teenager had other intentions of killing more people his problem was he just wanted to understand how it felt to kill someone and the consequence after the crimes were done. Maybe he believed since he was underage he would not get charged as an adult.

There are many theories as to why people become serial killers. Almost all of these concepts are associated with the Nature vs. Nurture theory. Are serial killers born with the need to kill, or is it something that they learn to long for as they grew up? Many believe that the nurture theory is the likely concept to believe; that serial killers are created from bad childhood experiences including being abused by their parents, or molested at an early age. Psychologist and sociologist have interviewed serial killers and picked apart their minds, to find out what it is that makes them feel the need to perform these heinous crimes. It is the nature theory that they are looking for when

In the article “On Punishment and Teen Killers” by Jennifer Jenkins asserts that teens are becoming more violent and starting commit more crimes because of the national television they watch.Jenkins tells the reader about “JLWOP” (Juvenile Life Without Parole) and how kids are being sentenced to life in prison without parole.Some people are trying to advocate to minimize the offender culpability because of their age.While kids are getting sentenced to life without parole, this disproves juvenile advocates reliance on the undeveloped brain.Some juvenile offenders truly understand what the victim family go through and how long it takes them to recover.There were millions of dollars spent to end JLWOP and to set convicted murderers free.

Serial killers are the byproduct of many different things: trauma, death of loved ones, abuse, neglect, adoption, and even witnessing abuse (Are Serial). Serial killers have had to endure a massive amount of something such as trauma or abuse to an unimaginable extent to become what they are; the extent of the abuse, the trauma, the psychological damage they endure is incomprehensible to many. The destruction of one’s innocence can occur at any given time in his or her life, but he or she is more impressionable in his or her youth by the negativism of someone else’s actions (Scott, Shirley L. What Makes Serial Killers Tick ~ Childhood Event). People are susceptible to what they endure in their adolescence, and cruel upbringings, such as

Ever heard of the zodiac killer? He was a serial killer who operated in northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in 5 states between December 1968 and October 1969. The general profile for a serial killer is a person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern. There are many types of serial killers. There are natural born killers who are born willing to kill someone, insane killers which have mental and physical disorders and criminaloids who do not exhibit specific traits. The childhood of a serial killer would typically be someone who is neglected by their family mainly their mothers. They tend to be antisocial and have anger issues. Poor families often cannot provide what the child always wants so they might commit crimes to get want they want. Abused children have a higher chance of being killers also because they have a lot of built up aggression and anger. All can lead to substance abuse which is never a good thing to mix in with a potential serial killer in the making. General behavioral progression from pre-crime to post-crime are that they use killing as a source of relief. Before committing a serious crime they could have built up anger and hatred. They is a high possibility that they are suffering from depression and anxiety too. After killing someone the killer feels relieved. They also feel

The article “On Punishment and Teen Killers,” by Jennifer Jenkins, explains why teens should be punished as adults and how the media is influencing the youth to commit serious crimes. The author, Jennifer Jenkins, shares her case where her sister with her unborn child, were murdered by a teen with a gun. She explains that there are advocates who wish to minimize the offender's culpability simply because of their age. Jenkins add that in America, weapons are easily available to our youth, and that they grow in a violence-loving culture. She says that the Inuit people of northern Canada had no juvenile crime at all until 1980 with the introduction of television into their culture, which influenced the teens to commit crimes. Jenkins affirms that if brain development would be the cause of the teens to commit crimes, so then the whole world should have the same rate of juvenile crimes.

This literature review focuses on serial killers from a psychological viewpoint while trying to answer the question, “Are serial killers born to kill or are they bred to kill?” Firstly, this review will define a serial killer and the different kinds of killers, then it will take a look at different case studies of children who fantasized about mass killing and identify similarities between the cases attempt to find a way to possibly prevent their fantasies from becoming reality. The debate of nature vs. nurture is also discussed as psychologists and researchers come to the conclusion that environmental factors play a bigger role in the developmental character of a person than genetics, but there is still no definite answer as to why some individuals grow up with the urge to murder other people and/or animals.

The question of whether or not man is predetermined at birth to lead a life of crime is a question that has been debated for decades. Are serial killers born with the lust for murder, or are their desires developed through years of abuse and torment? Many believe it is impossible for an innocent child to be born with the capability to commit a horrible act such as murder. But at the same time, how could we have corrupted society so much as to turn an innocent child into a homicidal maniac? Forensic psychologists have picked apart the minds of serial killers to find an answer as to what forces them to commit such perverse acts. Their ultimate goal is to learn how to catch a serial killer before

Imagine a world where there were no serial killers and the countless lives that could be saved. We should know why these serial killers commit such heinous acts of violence. This knowledge would help to better understand serial killers and bring the mortality rate down. It has been established through research and experiments that one’s social environment and upbringing affects their criminal behavior. Coyne states, “environmental variables work together to cause problem behavior.” (34) Interpreting that these killers usually have something happen in their life, usually when they are younger, and experiencing negative effects of nurture. Some of these

The psychic of the young person is shaped by social interactions as well as the parental training. Often the young murderers were brought in pathological environments, they did not experience the parental love and acceptance, and they forced themselves to drown particular emotions so as not to appear weak. All these factors results in social dysfunctions that triggers violence and violence becomes the perfect self-defense mechanism, because it brings attention. According to the FBI’s list of traits that describe young murderers the most common syndromes are the feeling of isolation, the narcissist disorder, and depression6. A perfect example to support the above argument will be a background check of Jeff Weise, a young sixteen-year-old boy who killed 9 people and committed suicide in the Red Lake Senior High School in Minnesota in 2005. Weise’s family was the kind of pathological one, his parents were separated, his mother had a habit of drinking too much being an abusive alcoholic, what is more Weise himself was often bullied at school7.

There are many traits that make a serial killer, with abuse during childhood playing a major factor. The four main aspects of abuse that seem to make killers are: emotional, psychological, sexual and physical abuse. The serial killer group has six times more reported physical abuse during childhood than the general population. Research has demonstrated that many serial killers have much in common when it comes to their childhood experiences Emotional abuse often diminishes a child’s self-esteem, making it hard for them to adapt to their surroundings, such as situations involving school or work. Due to this factor, most serial killers often find it hard to keep jobs and intimate relationships for longer than a very short period of time. Emotional neglect also impairs a child’s ability to develop empathy, therefore lacking compassion. If the child grows up to become a murderer, having no empathy means they are able to kill someone without

  The punishment of juvenile criminals, specifically those between the ages of 13 and 18, in the event that they commit crimes of murder, is not severe enough. Minors between these critical ages in the teenage life who commit crimes of murder should be prosecuted as adults in all situations and locations.