to think that children committing terrible crimes is a relatively new phenomenon?

[EGGteacher]

I was reading in the news about the 14 year old who killed his mother with a hammer and then basically said it was her fault for being a crap mother.

Then, thinking about the (seemingly increasing) frequency of reported shootings by very young people and dreadful cases like Jamie Bolger.

Are there historical references of crimes like this being committed by children?

If it is a function of modern times, what is going wrong?

The doncaster kids also springs to mind, they were horrifically abused though.
the mother used to sprinkle crack on their food, which probably had an impact.

YABU

"I reckon there have been reports of children killing others (conuting under 20's really) gang crimes etc multiple times every year in recent times. "

Reports is the key word here.

The press like to demonise sections of society as it helps provide a coherent narrative for the readers and ultimately sells papers. (some examples - single parents / asylum seekers / no so long ago, anyone non-white - and arguably still so in some publications).

These cultural bogey-men change over time. Children have been given this treatment in the press in recent years (all that stuff about hoodies, for example). This means that stories with children committing crimes are more of a story than they would have been years ago, and so get published more.

It has little to do with reality, this is not about investigative journalism, it's about making money.

In short, you are being manipulated by the media!

I reckon media studies should be compulsory in school so people have a better idea of how the media works!

tyler80 that case in Norway is really interesting as a comparison.

(For those of you whop haven't about a Jamie Bulger style child killing)

I read another article about it, in which the author asked people over there if they knew about the crime, and generally they didn't. The children were treated as children, rather than adult criminals and the story simply wasn't given the huge coverage in the media that the Bulger story was here.

The papers there weren't calling for the children who committed the crime to be strung up, there wasn't the moral panic there was here (which the media here loves to create and feed on.) Consequently the incident isn't in the public imagination as similar ones are here.

Part of the problem really is the tabloid press. They want you to be in a moral panic!

Here's an article on the subject:

UK society 'demonising' children

It says:

"British children are being "demonised" by a society that is locking too many of them up, according to watchdogs.

The joint report by children's commissioners for all parts of the UK said attitudes towards youngsters were hardening across the country.

The experts said crime committed by children had fallen between 2002 and 2006, but the numbers criminalised had gone up by just over a quarter."

Britain in danger of demonising its children, claims Barnardo's

"Half the adult population in Britain is fundamentally prejudiced against the current generation of children and critical of their "animal" behaviour, a poll for the charity Barnardo's reveals today ...

The charity said the latest official crime survey found that adults think young people commit up to half of all crimes, when in fact they were responsible for only 12%.

"This sort of attitude does nothing to help young people who are badly behaved to change their ways," "

Absolutely agree wrt demonisation of children and young people. With children, it seems they are either saints or sinners! People tend to forget as well that children who grow up in households similar, say, to that of Baby P - will be more likely to have difficulty living a 'normal' life and adjusting to adulthood - so problems like addiction, violence, self harming, anger problems, relationship problems etc - will be rife. Yet then they all too often get labelled 'born bad.' It's also a great opportunity for their parents to shake their heads and say, well i tried my best, I gave that child everything, sob, wail, etc.

Sorry if my ishoos are showing...

What is relatively new is the demonization of children.
The way we are encouraged to be terrified of teenagers and even younger.
The way we are supposed to look at children, particularly those of the lower classes, and assume that they will hurt us.

Its a way of absolving ourselves of any responsibility for how society's young develop.

It isnt an unknown issue. Children were demonized in the victoria era as well. The poor ones that is.

My guess would be that violent crimes both by and against children have always happened, sadly. The difference is probably in reporting (that now we hear almost instantly and in great detail about awful stuff that happens all over the world, whereas once the news might have been restricted to the relatively local area/community). And maybe it does happen more in absolute numbers simply because the population is larger!

That's not to say that there might not be particular problems in our society at the moment that are different from those in the past, but it's too simplistic to say that crime by young people is a modern phenomenon.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/a-child-murdered-by-children-1616746.html

An interesting case from 1861- George Burgess was a 2 year old child abducted and murdered by two 8 year old boys. They were each sentenced to just five years for manslaughter- then released.

Most people have mentioned the examples I can think of already, but no certainly not a new thing...just more widely reported now.

I will say though in the latest case that i have read, the emphasis has been on the fact that he was said not to be a danger by professionals, just the week before the murder and that he was obsessed with horror films, but i did wonder what the reporting would have been like,if he had of been from a 'sink estate'.