Alyssa Lee

Dr. Billie Dzeitch, Prof. Sue Bourke

Kids Who Kill

27 January 2020

In the first article on risk factors, they establish that risk factors for violence are found in

every aspect of a child’s life, from home, to school, to their community. There was such an

abundance of information that it was incredibly difficult to condense and summarize it. They

provide a deep dive into the effects that growing up around violence have on youth at each

stage of their life. To them, the two biggest risk factors for youth violence are substance abuse

and involvement in low-level criminal activity like vandalism, graffiti, and shoplifting. Their

“medium” risk factors for youth were being male and learning aggression.

In the article on the effects of affluence, the researchers noted that the two factors

most often contributing to antisocial behavior among affluent youth were achievement

pressures and isolation from adults. The researchers also mention several research articles

examining the continued effects of affluence on adults. It seems that there is an intense

pressure associated with affluence that only worsens as a youth becomes an adult. For women,

the stressor is typically giving up professional careers to become mothers and no longer

experiencing work-related successes. For men, it is an intense pressure to provide the affluent

lifestyle for their family. Due to this, they are often absent from the home.

In the article from Canada, they make a point of mentioning that there is no magical

“one size fits all” program that would stop youth violence. They conclude by providing a list of

programs and principles that should be taken into account when trying to implement any future
youth violence management program. In their view, the best programs are culturally specific,

address multiple risk factors, contain skill-based components, target younger children, long-

term and well-funded, and build social competence skills.

I definitely think that it would be incredibly difficult to establish a totally valid portrait of

a typical violent youth. Just like violent adults, there are all kinds of stressors that may trigger

violence in many different types of youths. As evidenced in the second article, researchers

assumed for a long time that only youth from “bad neighborhoods” were violent. Never the rich

white kids. However, that has recently been proven to not be the case. The three worst school

shootings in recent memory: Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas were all

committed by young white boys. One of the most famous violent murders of the 1980s/1990s

was committed by the Menendez brothers who were from an extremely wealthy, affluent

family. It is just another example to illustrate the point that anyone can become violent when

confronted with certain stressors.

Just as it is hard to define characteristics of violent adults, it is hard to definitively say

“all violent youths have XYZ characteristics”. I think if some sort of “rule” for defining violent

youth were established, there would be more exceptions than examples. They even say in the

third article, “No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to identify a single, perfect

program that will prevent violence and criminality for all youth. One size does not fit all.”