Juvenile Psychopaths

Juvenile Psychopaths

What is the "super predator"? He or she are young

hypercriminals who are committing acts of violence of unprecedented

coldness and brutality. This newest phenomena in the world of crime is

perhaps the most dangerous challenge facing society and law

enforcement ever. While psychopaths are not new, this breed of super

criminal exceeds the scope of psychopathic behavior. They are younger,

more brutal, and completely unafraid of the law. While current

research on the super predator is scarce, I will attempt to give an

indication as to the reasons a child could become just such a monster.

Violent teenage criminals are increasingly vicious. John

DiIulio, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton

University, says that "The difference between the juvenile criminals

of the 1950s and those of the 1970s and early 1980s was the difference

between the Sharks and the Jets of West Side Story and the Bloods and

the Crips. It is not inconceivable that the demographic surge of the

next ten years will bring with it young criminals who make the Bloods

and the Crips look tame." (10) They are what Professor DiIulio and

others call urban "super predators"; young people, often from broken

homes or so-called dysfunctional families, who commit murder, rape,

robbery, kidnapping, and other violent acts. These emotionally damaged

young people, often are the products of sexual or physical abuse. They

live in an aimless and violent present; have no sense of the past and

no hope for the future; they commit unspeakably brutal crimes against

other people, often to gratify whatever urges or desires drive them at

the moment and their utter lack of remorse is shocking.(9)

Studies reveal that the major cause of violent crime is not

poverty but family breakdown - specifically, the absence of a father

in the household. Today, right now, one-fourth of all the children in

the United States are living in fatherless homes - this adds up to 19

million children without fathers. Compared to children in two parent

family homes, these children will be twice as likely to drop out of

school, twice as likely to have children out of wedlock, and they

stand more than three times the chance of ending up in poverty, and

almost ten times more likely to commit violent crime and ending up in

jail. (1)

The Heritage Foundation - a Conservative think tank - reported

that the rise in violent crime over the past 30 years runs directly