Killer teens never got the help they needed
andyt @ Sun Apr 10, 2011 10:33 am
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Killer+teens+never+help+they+needed/4586332/story.html
Another example of where investing in social supports would result in much better results than the "cut off their balls and hang them high crowd." Most people raised as these two were won't become psycho killers. But many of them will get involved with crime and abuse and live suboptimal lives that don't do them or society any good. Investing some money up front is a lot more effective, and cheaper, than paying for the messes they create as adults. Social supports won't reach everybody, it's not a panacea, but it will help to reduce this sort of shit much more effectively and cheaply than just building more prisons and keeping more people in jail for longer. You don't get as much pleasure exacting revenge tho.
$1:
Two young killers sentenced this week to life in prison for the premeditated rape, torture and murder of a former classmate should have received the help they needed long before their violent rampage, a Canadian expert on youth violence says...
“These kids did more than fall through the cracks. Just as disturbing as the murder is the fact that they never got help. How could this go on for so long with nobody knowing about it?” he said. The tendency is to write off young killers as monsters or aberrations instead of looking at the pattern of abuse or dysfunction that contributed to their violence, he said. But it is important in the aftermath of such horrific crimes for a community to reflect on what can be done to prevent other at-risk children from acting out disturbing fantasies of violence, Totten said...
By Grade 5, Wellwood had become increasingly difficult to manage. He struck his mother and assaulted other students. Moffat was also violent with his family and other children. He was suspended from middle school and expelled from high school for bringing a weapon. He kicked the family dog so hard he injured it. Both boys began drinking at 10 and later began using drugs as they developed their fixation on sexual sadism...
“What was known about these two guys was that there were very, very serious concerns that were evident in primary school. So my question is, why didn’t someone pick up on this?
Totten said his interviews with youth convicted in homicides has shown the cases break down into three categories: kids who kill almost incidentally while committing other crimes, such as home invasions or gang activities; those who kill almost inadvertently during other acts of aggressive risk-taking, such as street racing; and those who “retreat into a violent fantasy world, usually as a way to cope with extreme violence and trauma in early childhood.”
The case of Moffat and Wellwood appears to fit into the third category, he said.
“These kids get physically abused, sexually abused, emotionally abused. They don’t have any help for it, so they develop coping strategies. They split their mind from their bodies. So when the abuse is happening, they picture themselves in another place so the abuse isn’t happening to them.
“The longer that this carries on, the more that the young person who is being abused starts to think about revenge and starts to retreat into a violent fantasy world,” Totten said.
Often the eventual target of violence is not the original abuser, but simply an opportune victim.
“These kids did more than fall through the cracks. Just as disturbing as the murder is the fact that they never got help. How could this go on for so long with nobody knowing about it?” he said. The tendency is to write off young killers as monsters or aberrations instead of looking at the pattern of abuse or dysfunction that contributed to their violence, he said. But it is important in the aftermath of such horrific crimes for a community to reflect on what can be done to prevent other at-risk children from acting out disturbing fantasies of violence, Totten said...
By Grade 5, Wellwood had become increasingly difficult to manage. He struck his mother and assaulted other students. Moffat was also violent with his family and other children. He was suspended from middle school and expelled from high school for bringing a weapon. He kicked the family dog so hard he injured it. Both boys began drinking at 10 and later began using drugs as they developed their fixation on sexual sadism...
“What was known about these two guys was that there were very, very serious concerns that were evident in primary school. So my question is, why didn’t someone pick up on this?
Totten said his interviews with youth convicted in homicides has shown the cases break down into three categories: kids who kill almost incidentally while committing other crimes, such as home invasions or gang activities; those who kill almost inadvertently during other acts of aggressive risk-taking, such as street racing; and those who “retreat into a violent fantasy world, usually as a way to cope with extreme violence and trauma in early childhood.”
The case of Moffat and Wellwood appears to fit into the third category, he said.
“These kids get physically abused, sexually abused, emotionally abused. They don’t have any help for it, so they develop coping strategies. They split their mind from their bodies. So when the abuse is happening, they picture themselves in another place so the abuse isn’t happening to them.
“The longer that this carries on, the more that the young person who is being abused starts to think about revenge and starts to retreat into a violent fantasy world,” Totten said.
Often the eventual target of violence is not the original abuser, but simply an opportune victim.
Gunnair @ Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:05 am
Agreed. There are often some fairly obvious warning signs at early ages, but it's not quite so simply as simply spotting them and addressing them. Families have to buy into it, and if the parents are as problematic as the kids, then what. Putting the kids into a group home will remove them from one negative envrionment, and perhaps put them in a new negative environment without actually addressing the issues. Sadly, I don't think that even increased social services will necessarily do much though of course it can't hurt. Fact is, since people have the freedom to breed, be atrocious parents and therefore raise atrocious children, there ain't much to do save chucking boxes of bandaids at the problem.
andyt @ Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:17 am
Gunnair Gunnair:
Agreed. There are often some fairly obvious warning signs at early ages, but it's not quite so simply as simply spotting them and addressing them. Families have to buy into it, and if the parents are as problematic as the kids, then what. Putting the kids into a group home will remove them from one negative envrionment, and perhaps put them in a new negative environment without actually addressing the issues. Sadly, I don't think that even increased social services will necessarily do much though of course it can't hurt. Fact is, since people have the freedom to breed, be atrocious parents and therefore raise atrocious children, there ain't much to do save chucking boxes of bandaids at the problem.
I don't disagree. But say in this case, if the kid is hitting his mother, my guess is that she would be happy to get help. Probably got some sort of service from MC Family, but they don't offer near enough help. They think if they just teach the parent some parenting skills the problem is solved. What would be needed would be intensive family therapy as well as other supports. It's no good to just do therapy on the kid and then send him back to the same environment - the parents have to be involved.
As the article says, you want to catch them by the time they are 6 yo. Doubtless there were already signs. One problem parents have is that if they ask for help they often have their children removed. Asking for help voluntarily is a very good sign and means the family should be given intensive support. All this isn't cheap, but as I say, neither is the money we spend on the justice and health systems because of this problem. Never mind that it saves lives. As an earlier article I posted showed, even just giving low income families lots of money works quite well to reduce these problems. I bet just doing that saves money in the end. But even better is giving them the supports to move out of poverty where they can stand on their own two feet. They won't all make it, but every family that does will save us a bundle down the road. And make for a better functioning society.
Thanos @ Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:33 am
Is there really any evidence that intervetions stop psychopaths? Is there even any proof that psychopathy is a curable condition? From what I read about Columbine there was literally nothing that was going to stop Harris and Klebold. Ditto in Britain with Venables and Thompson.
I like blaming society as much as anyone else does for or innumerable hypocrises and fuck-ups, but when it comes to violent psychopaths we're dealing with an altogether different type of monster. These people aren't merely kids who fell off the rails and got involved with drugs, or whatever convenient mythology we like to use to humanize them. Their brains are, literally, wired differently in the physical sense in that they might look human on the outside but on the inside they're essentially soulless, remorseless, and unempathic to such a wild degree that the suffering of any other creature or person stirs nothing in them, not even contentment or happiness after they've killed.
This sort of encounter with what's basically an un-human creature is too big to be dealt with by the kind of convenient old school leftist tropes such as "more social services would have prevented this!". It simply isn't true. The sad fact of the matter is that psychopaths can only be dealt with after they've revealed themselves, and unfortunately that usually only happens after they've committed a major criminal atrocity. Diverting the blame towards the great cosmic scapegoat and punching bag of "society" just doesn't cut it.
andyt @ Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:42 am
Thanos Thanos:
Is there really any evidence that intervetions stop psychopaths? Is there even any proof that psychopathy is a curable condition? From what I read about Columbine there was literally nothing that was going to stop Harris and Klebold. Ditto in Britain with Venables and Thompson.
I like blaming society as much as anyone else does for or innumerable hypocrises and fuck-ups, but when it comes to violent psychopaths we're dealing with an altogether different type of monster. These people aren't merely kids who fell off the rails and got involved with drugs, or whatever convenient mythology we like to use to humanize them. Their brains are, literally, wired differently in the physical sense in that they might look human on the outside but on the inside they're essentially soulless, remorseless, and unempathic to such a wild degree that the suffering of any other creature or person stirs nothing in them, not even contentment or happiness after they've killed.
This sort of encounter with what's basically an un-human creature is too big to be dealt with by the kind of convenient old school leftist tropes such as "more social services would have prevented this!". It simply isn't true. The sad fact of the matter is that psychopaths can only be dealt with after they've revealed themselves, and unfortunately that usually only happens after they've committed a major criminal atrocity. Diverting the blame towards the great cosmic scapegoat and punching bag of "society" just doesn't cut it.
I like blaming society as much as anyone else does for or innumerable hypocrises and fuck-ups, but when it comes to violent psychopaths we're dealing with an altogether different type of monster. These people aren't merely kids who fell off the rails and got involved with drugs, or whatever convenient mythology we like to use to humanize them. Their brains are, literally, wired differently in the physical sense in that they might look human on the outside but on the inside they're essentially soulless, remorseless, and unempathic to such a wild degree that the suffering of any other creature or person stirs nothing in them, not even contentment or happiness after they've killed.
This sort of encounter with what's basically an un-human creature is too big to be dealt with by the kind of convenient old school leftist tropes such as "more social services would have prevented this!". It simply isn't true. The sad fact of the matter is that psychopaths can only be dealt with after they've revealed themselves, and unfortunately that usually only happens after they've committed a major criminal atrocity. Diverting the blame towards the great cosmic scapegoat and punching bag of "society" just doesn't cut it.
From the same article:
$1:
“Certainly there are genetic propensities for the early precursors of what may later become psychopathic traits — the callous, unemotional traits that we look at — these are sort of early childhood precursors,” Hare said. “On the other hand, heritability doesn’t mean you are necessarily doomed to follow a particular path.”
There are always other factors, he said, and in each case those factors vary.
“Every time we think we end up with a profile, it changes,” he said.
“When you come from such a dysfunctional background, the chances of you becoming just a normal ordinary person are greatly reduced. Of course, it doesn’t mean to say you are going to end up doing what they did.”
There are always other factors, he said, and in each case those factors vary.
“Every time we think we end up with a profile, it changes,” he said.
“When you come from such a dysfunctional background, the chances of you becoming just a normal ordinary person are greatly reduced. Of course, it doesn’t mean to say you are going to end up doing what they did.”
The level these guys went to is exceedingly rare in our society. We think it's more common than it is because it makes such a big splash in the media.
As Hare (UBC psycopathy expert) says, when you come from such a background chances of becoming a normal person are greatly reduced. So the chances of becoming a normal person from a better functioning background are greater. Seems like a wise investment to me to improving families like this. What you basically are saying is that family dysfunction and psychopathy are genetic - we can't do anything to change it. Seems pretty hopeless to me. There are many people who score quite high on the psychopathy scale, yet never kill anybody. They're learned to channel their impulses into socially acceptable means. They may actually cause more damage that way (think Wall ST) but we seem to admire and reward that sort of behavior.