Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
The End of Innocence
No child is born evil. But they are creatures of their parents and of circumstance.
Children who commit violent crimes almost always share a similar background. Their parents are poorly educated, unemployed and often suffer from depression or other mental health problems; many are drug abusers or on the fringes of criminality.
They often have large families but are also divorced or separated.
An authoritative survey of the mental health of young offenders published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2006 studied 301 young criminals aged 10 to 18 years.
It found that 74% had a family structure which had broken down, with only 36% of their biological parents still married or cohabiting.
More than a third of them had been in care – with many moved frequently from one home or foster home to another. One in three had a borderline learning disability, and one in five had an IQ below 70.
“It’s very rare for a child involved with homicide or torture to come from a background with none of these risk factors,” says Dr Eileen Vizard, a child and adolescent Psychiatrist who runs the National Clinical Assessment and Treatment Service for the NSPCC, and who gave evidence at the Bulger trial.
NSPCC - The London Society for the Prevention of Children Cruelty - Website www.nspcc.org.uk
These risk factors expose such children to a range of damaging experiences. They may witness repeated domestic violence or sexual abuse from an early age. They may be exposed to adults having sex in front of them and may routinely view slasher films or pornography left lying around the house.
“They are brought up with no boundaries, or inappropriate ones,” says Pam Hibbert, who was until recently assistant director of policy at the children’s charity Barnados and before that was a manager at Red Bank secure unit, where Mary Bell and Jon Venables served their sentences.
“Children develop empathy from the way they are treated, not just fed and sheltered, but cuddled and stimulated. But the mothers themselves are often so needy.”
Many were themselves brought up by dysfunctional parents who transmit their inadequacies to a new generation.
As the Edlington 'torture boys' face sentencing for horrifying violence, can secure children's homes ever offer redemption?
Article: Sadistic torture boys detained for indefinite period www.metro.co.uk
Children who commit violent crimes almost always share a similar background. Their parents are poorly educated, unemployed and often suffer from depression or other mental health problems; many are drug abusers or on the fringes of criminality.
They often have large families but are also divorced or separated.
An authoritative survey of the mental health of young offenders published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2006 studied 301 young criminals aged 10 to 18 years.
It found that 74% had a family structure which had broken down, with only 36% of their biological parents still married or cohabiting.
More than a third of them had been in care – with many moved frequently from one home or foster home to another. One in three had a borderline learning disability, and one in five had an IQ below 70.
“It’s very rare for a child involved with homicide or torture to come from a background with none of these risk factors,” says Dr Eileen Vizard, a child and adolescent Psychiatrist who runs the National Clinical Assessment and Treatment Service for the NSPCC, and who gave evidence at the Bulger trial.
NSPCC - The London Society for the Prevention of Children Cruelty - Website www.nspcc.org.uk
These risk factors expose such children to a range of damaging experiences. They may witness repeated domestic violence or sexual abuse from an early age. They may be exposed to adults having sex in front of them and may routinely view slasher films or pornography left lying around the house.
“They are brought up with no boundaries, or inappropriate ones,” says Pam Hibbert, who was until recently assistant director of policy at the children’s charity Barnados and before that was a manager at Red Bank secure unit, where Mary Bell and Jon Venables served their sentences.
“Children develop empathy from the way they are treated, not just fed and sheltered, but cuddled and stimulated. But the mothers themselves are often so needy.”
Many were themselves brought up by dysfunctional parents who transmit their inadequacies to a new generation.
As the Edlington 'torture boys' face sentencing for horrifying violence, can secure children's homes ever offer redemption?
Article: Sadistic torture boys detained for indefinite period www.metro.co.uk