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Opinion

Adolescent crime becoming too common 

Christian Palmer
Opinion Columnist

The economic law of diminishing returns says that each additional unit of variable input yields progressively less additional output. As applied to violence in schools, and in plain English, the question becomes, what's a couple more murders or attempted murders in our schools? 

Sadly, the multitude of violent crimes committed by children don't seem to inspire the same kind of shock they did just a few years ago. 

It is a vicious cycle. Because these crimes seem more commonplace, kids feel like they too have their own license to kill. Their crimes will then inspire some other kid in a different corner of the country to follow suit.

On Friday, two Virginia teenagers, ages 14 and 15, were taken into custody after a tip was received that one of them possessed a gun. The Auburn Middle School students were later charged with conspiracy to commit homicide. Fortunately, the students were apprehended before they could carry out their alleged plans to take out the principal, among others. Next time, we might not be so lucky. 

Whatever is being done to curb this type of behavior in adolescents is not working -- at least on any kind of large scale. We have not tapped into the root of the problem, whatever it is. 

Social scientists and children's advocates may say it has something to do with movies and video games, being disenfranchised, coming out of a broken home or any number of factors. However, some of the kids pulling these dangerous stunts are a lot smarter than this and deserve a little more credit. 

Kids today are raised in a completely different manner than their counterparts from 20 or even 10 years ago. You only have to watch one crazy episode of Law & Order to see what some of these so-called children are capable of. In full consciousness, they will draw out elaborate plans to stab you in your sleep and say Santa came down from the North Pole and told them to do it. The worst part is this is totally acceptable as an excuse, and all the kid will get is a slap on the wrist.

More likely, it has something to do with the fact that it is now frowned upon to hit children. That may sound strange, but children, in all their craftiness, now see how easy it is to avert discipline. All they have to do is hint at abuse, and all of a sudden they have the upper hand. As difficult as it may be to grasp, a little violence early on could prevent the next big tragedy.

Of course, there are other options, such as more and better education, parents keeping both eyes on their kids or even banning firearms altogether. The reality is none of these are 100 percent viable options. It would be nice if adults sent the kids to bed before watching The Sorpranos or if they hid their gun somewhere other than the top drawer of the dresser, but it will never be enough.

Palmer, a media production/sociology junior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu