Friday, Jul 4, 2008
Should kids be held responsible when their reenactment of TV shows ends in catastrophe?
Feb 2, 2001 | In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a 13-year-old boy is convicted of murdering a 6-year-old; he says he was imitating his heroes in professional wrestling when he body-slammed and kicked the 48-pound girl to death. The next day in Torrington, Conn., a 14-year-old reportedly poured gasoline on his friend and set him on fire. The kids say they were re-creating a stunt featured on a popular MTV show called "Jackass." The unscathed teen, who inflicted second- and third-degree burns on his friend's hands and legs, was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment.
The Florida boy's attorney believes the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) is responsible for the girl's death; the father of burn victim Jason Lind blames MTV. And while Lind was in the hospital, his dad appealed for support to Washington's most vociferous critic of Hollywood, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and the war on violence in the media was declared once again.
"There are some things that are so potentially dangerous and inciting, particularly to vulnerable children, that they simply should not be put on TV, and this is clearly one that crosses that line," said Lieberman in a press release that placed blame on purveyors of rough-and-tumble programming.
But, under the current justice system, the chain of finger-pointing ultimately ends with the children who commit the crimes. For the moment, there is no law against portrayals of grisly violence, only laws against those who attempt to reenact them. They are the ones arrested, interrogated, read their Miranda rights; they are the ones who frequently decide whether to waive their rights while they are alone without a parent or attorney, they are the ones charged, cross-examined and ultimately found guilty, or "delinquent" as it is said in juvenile parlance. And they are ones who do the time for the crime.
"If there is a product on the market that results in the death of even a couple of children, what happens?" asks Dr. Howard Spivak, chief of general pediatric and adolescent medicine at the New England Medical Center in Boston and chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics task force on violence. "It gets taken off the market; there's major investigation.
"Here we have a product [violent programming] that has at the very least a clear relationship with the death of half a dozen children in this country and what has happened? Nothing. What's happened is that we have blamed what one might argue is a victim of the product. It's very, very bizarre. It doesn't make any sense to me."
The intention of a person committing an act -- even an act of violence -- is crucial in determining whether the act is a crime. But there's growing concern among child psychologists and attorneys that many adolescents aren't competent to stand trial for the crimes with which they are charged. Kids are often ill-equipped developmentally to understand the consequences of their actions. For 13- and 14-year-olds, death doesn't always seem to have permanence -- a stunt on TV looks easy to replicate at home without consequences; and role models are often the biggest, the strongest; the ones who can snap another person's neck in two seconds, the ones who inspire the favorite WWF action dolls.
Surprisingly, in many cases where a child's developmental status is key to understanding his actions, public defenders don't have the resources to order a legal test to determine the accused child's competency. In the past, juveniles were presumed incompetent at the age of 12 or younger. The practice now is that anyone who is arrested is presumed competent until someone challenges his or her competency. This is a crucial component in many children's cases, say juvenile advocates, since once the issue of competency is raised, a trial or "adjudicatory hearing" is postponed if the accused is found to be incompetent.
"I'm sure there are people who believe that kids are so savvy about courts or crime, they know what's going on," says Marie Osborne, the chief of the juvenile division at the Miami public defender's office. "My position is that children have cognitive limitations and I don't believe they see options and ramifications the way adults do. I don't think they understand that what's happening in this [court] process over a couple of days affects the rest of their lives. I don't think kids are future-oriented; most don't think past their next birthday or Christmas."
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