European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 16, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                13 Ana utterly  he explains in younger children one does no service in condemning a child to a Arm in a detention facility because there will be no Way he is going to be Able to integrate an understanding of the response on society s part with whatever actions he May have  Salman says the vast majority of 5-year-Olds have not yet grasped the Irever Sibilly of death one Small step in the developmental progression. Another capacity would be the ability to be self reflective to step outside one s own behaviour. When that occurs it does t occur  while Trie proper family environment can Speed up the process Selman says it s pretty hard Lor kids under the age of 8 to be very self reflective even in the Moat benign situations. What s important in each Case is 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 understanding whether the child has thai capacity in cases of adults who Are insane we say they have lost that capacity. With children the question has to be. Have they achieved it " in Case of the 5-year-old Miami Beach boy most experts agree that the answer is no. Regardless a 4-or 5-year-old kid who causes another child s death is a kid in serious trouble in relationships who must Nave a corrective set of experiences Sawberger says. Mott expert concur that nearly All Young children View death As a temporary condition a lesson they suggest is often Learned irom television. Cartoon characters Are rationed by steamroller or hurled Over Cliffs Only to emerge unharmed. A human actor killed on one show reappears on another. Ronald Slaby an associate professor of education at Harvard University has done extensive research on causes of aggressive behaviour in children. He says the notion that television violence plays a supporting role is backed up by studies demonstrating that children who watch a great Deal of to violence Are More Apt to behave aggressively than those who Don t. Most people think the act that 99 percent of the Kida who watch violent programs Are not going to react aggressively right alter proves that it cannot be a causal Factor. In fact it can be Slaby says. One classic study of television programming showed that the use of violent or illegal Means was portrayed a being effective in attaining goals More frequently than the use of Legal or socially approved Means and this finding was especially Strong in children s television Slaby says. In addition he says portrayals or violence on children s programs Are frequently accompanied by laughter cuing the viewing children to recognize that violence is considered to be  some children coma to regard even serious violence minus the laugh track As funny. The significance of this finding says Slaby was revealed in a 1972 study in which the Happy facial expressions of 5 arid 6-year-old watching a violent episode of the adult detective show the  were found to be Strong predictors of heir later aggressive behaviour toward other youngsters. Not All researchers agree with these findings. One popularly held and often publicized theory holds that watching violence on to serves to Drain the viewer s aggressive Energy thereby reducing aggressive behaviour. Slaby says the majority of research contradicts this notion. If to indeed helps Foster violence in youngsters it would hardly be the Only Factor. Researchers Are investigating Many other possible links. High on the list of suspects Ere the effects of marital discord physical sexual and psychological abuse and its flip Side neglect Overly harsh inconsistent discipline genetic influences and poor child rearing ability. Other influences May include poverty and social disadvantage the position of he child in the family and the child s individual temperament. Helta by wet director of research and training at the Center for forensic psychiatry in Ann Arbor mich., which evaluates patients for the courts recently completed a study of adolescent murderers seen at the Center. While adolescence differs from Early childhood both in terms of physical development and in the types of pressures on the individual authorities say unusually aggressive behaviour in children often carries Over into this next stage of growth. We saw very few youngsters who were psychotic or who had serious mental illness when committing their crimes. We were surprised How few she says. The study also showed that neurological disorders were rare. The adolescents relationships to their victims As Well As the circumstances surrounding the killings May have a bearing on the likelihood of future violence studies have indicated that youths who killed strangers or acquaintances in conjunction with another crime such As robbery or rape tended to have a history of school and Community adjustment problems while those who killed a Parent or another relative during an argument or conflict were generally better adjusted. Adolescents in the crime group could be regarded As the most character logically maladjusted or anti social adolescents in the conflict group might be less maladjusted and More amenable to  another study done in 1979, focused on seven adolescent homicides committed in the course of a robbery or for no apparent reason. The researchers found these youths at greater risk Lor future violence and also concluded that they should be treated differently by the courts from six adolescents who killed acquaintances in the course of an argument. No Long term follow up studies on Homicidal children or  have been done in the United Stales Benedek says. One such study in Finland during the 60s, followed up on several adults who had killed As juveniles. In these cases juveniles who killed family members following Long conflict had surprisingly Good adult outcomes with Good social adjustment and no further crimes. In contrast an adolescent who murdered in he course of a robbery continued to engage in other criminal activity in later years the study concluded. While no such studies have focused on Young children a similar pattern May hold. The Outlook is better for those who attack relatives out of anger or frustration than those who vent their aggression outside the family. Expert agree that Mot Long term research using a larger number of cases is needed. They also agree that in Light of another finding it must be done soon. Aggressive anti social behaviour is proving to be one of society s most intractable problems. The reason the problem is so serious is that there is tremendous continuity into adulthood says or. Alan Kazdin. Pra lessor of child psychiatry and psychology and research director of the child psychiatric treatment service of the Western psychiatric Institute and clinic in Pittsburgh. In so percent of these cases the individual will wind up in prisons or hospitals. The other half will develop other serious psychiatric problems. It does t just continue in an individual s repertoire it 13 passed on from generation to  evidence of a genetic component not yet entirely understood is mounting. Children separated from anti social parents at birth still Are at risk. Studies also have focused on twins separated from anti social parents and from each other at birth. If one shows the behaviour the other will show ii Loo Kazdin says. There Are cases of violent children who Don t come from violent backgrounds just As there Are some people who get lung cancer who Aren t cigarette smokers. There Are some children who Don t have terrible things in their past Kazdin says. But ii you eliminated cigarette smoking you d eliminate almost All lung cancer. It s virtually the same with  the notion that violence Breeds violence is awash in a sea of supporting evidence. Punitive treatment by parents has been linked to their children s aggressive behaviour in More than 25 studies. Punitive harsh discipline does not prevent crime it Breeds crime Elliott Currie a former Yale University criminologist has written. Currie Calls abuse and neglect in childhood among the most powerful sources of serious criminal violence in America today High Rales of violence in the family spouses who Hil one another and parents who administer har i punishment to i hair children All significantly foreshadow aggressive behaviour in children Kazdin says. The stars and stripes Page 15