European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 16, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Nancy Shulins associated presso n a March afternoon in Miami Beach a 5-year-old boy and a 3-year-old neighbor were playing in a High Rise apartment building. While heir parents talked in another room the children wandered out onto the tilth floor Balcony. There the aider child gave his playmate a couple of shoves the second of which sen the younger boy to his death. When Ifie police arrived officers said the smiling 5-year-old readily confessed. He then polished Oil two slices of pizza a garlic Roli and a banana several weeks later in an affluent 31, Louis suburb an 11-year-old girl ordered a 10-year-old neighbor boy out of hoi Yard. When he ailed to leave she went into the House took a pistol Iron a Dresser drawer in her parents bedroom and came Back outside. Standing six to eight feet away from her playmate the girl grabbed the gun with a two hand hold took aim and squeezed the trigger. The boy died following surgery that night. On an april morning a 4-year-old girl awoke before Dawn. She left her paints bedroom where she d been sleeping and entered he room where her 3 week old twin Brothers slept in their cribs she lifted them out one by one put them in their car seats and began playing with them. When the Lisl baby waved his arms and scratched her she dropped him on the floor and picked up the second. When he squirmed in her arms and started to cry she threw him Back into his crib. When her parents heard noise and rushed into the room they found both infants dead their fragile skulls fractured. In 1984, according to Fri statistics 138 children under 1s were arrested on murder charges in the United slates. The numbers Are elastically negligible but humanly unnerving nothing so violates the natural order of things As a child turned killer. Are such children misunderstood victims who should be forgiven and helped or born criminals bad seeds to be punished and sequestered can the juvenile court system really handle either at what age should children be held responsible for their actions where s the dividing line Between Normal childhood aggression end deadly rage what becomes of a child who is delivered from the arms of his parents to the arms of the Law if he s jailed or otherwise institutionalized As a juvenile his Freedom must be restored on reaching adulthood. Might he kill again and always the Long lingering question How does a life go so wrong so soon there Are few Clear Cut answers a Perls suspect that the violent behaviour of children that erupts into murder is rooted in family relationships gone awry in frequent rounds of Domestic violence in parental mismanagement of discipline. The lawyers detectives psychologists and social workers who must Deal with these cases agree they Are rare there is far less agreement about How Best to handle them although most social scientists believe that jail is not the answer. Early in March a group of prosecutors and detectives held a meeting in Miami. At Issue whether to bring murder charges again i the 5-year-old Miami Beach boy who had pushed his 3-year-old playmate off the Balcony. As assistant state s attorney Abe Laeser recalls it was a very Short meeting. It s bizarre to even consider the possibility of bringing criminal charges against a child that  Laeser says. Once i had sat Down with the persons involved and determined the Type of treatment the length and whether there would be continuous monitoring of the child Over the course of years i Felt there was no valid reason to bring charges instead the husky. 70-Pound boy was placed in a Long term residential treatment program for individual therapy the Center will recommend Back to the courts whether he should be allowed out on an Oul pallet basis sometime in the future. Me could conceivably remain there until Axil Hood says la set. The boy claimed thai the younger child had told him he wanted to die because his parents beat him. Police found nothing to support his Story. Psychiatrists immediately suspected that the 5-year-old was really talking about himself. Indeed Laeser says the primary focus of the court was that there had been some abuse in his Home  looser says he is satisfied that from a Legal standpoint the child did t understand whal he had done. At the same Lime he says it s fairly Clear Cut that he did understand the physical  my children were at that age not so Many years  Laeser says. I can remember simple pushing and shoving done in anger that in theory could have caused the same result if instead of i i Ting a soft carpet they had hit their Heads on the Corner of a Coffee table but in this Case something apparently went beyond simple pushing and shoving As the boy s reference to death suggests to addition he pushed the victim a second time dislodging him from the retaining bars of the Balcony. Any kid will naturally grab pull or fight. It s their i nature to be regulated by adults says or. Robert Selman a psychology professor at Harvard and director. Of the Manville school at the judge Baker guidance i Center. J Selman says a child s capacity to control aggressive j impulses is largely a function of cognitive development and to some extent biology. But some kids never develop that Normal control mechanism he says Steve Levine chief of the juvenile division in the Dade county Public defender s office in Miami and a member of he american bar association s juvenile Justice committee predicts that the Miami Beach boy s future will be Bleak. The treatment he will receive is probably not anywhere near the kind of treatment required Levine says. As Little As the parents could have done or were doing the slate is a very poor substitute. I Don t think the state will do a whole lot. He will probably go from one Foster Home to another. He won t grow up in a warm nurturing environment and there will be Little or no regular counselling or  if his Case is at All typical Levine says hell one Day meet this child again the kids i represented As delinquent kids started Oil As 8-to-t 1 year Olds identified As having mental health problems. Now they re Back in the system. As adult  one needs to Lake into account How children understand said Eli Newberger director of the family development study at children s Hospital in Boston. One needs to consider the child s moral development in the allocation of punishment versus therapeutic approaches younger children will understand the difference Between right and wrong. Bui it is not until they become Able to process lha information that they become capable of abstract thought. It is usually not until the interval Between 11 and 13 that children Are Able to understand that various contingencies carry with them various  in Newberger a professional opinion attempts to invoke criminal Justice in homicides by Young children Page 14 the stars and stripes