WEBVTT - Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Child 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop work 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.560 dot com. Pay you. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.560 My name is Robert la and I'm Christian saber Hey. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:19.920 So did you know that you cannot only listen to 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:22.280 us on this podcast, but you can engage with us 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:24.880 on social media and read stuff that we've written, and 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.600 watch stuff that we're in. We're all over the place. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:29.960 We're not just in your earbuds. It's a crazy time 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.800 to be alive. Yeah, it is. It is indeed, Uh, 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.920 if you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler, where 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.800 we are blow the mind. On all those platforms, we're 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.440 curating all kinds of weird science that we're not putting 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.400 into the episodes, all the stuff that Robert and Joe 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.680 and I find throughout the day that is just utterly bizarre. Uh. 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.920 And then we've got videos like our Monster Science series 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:56.840 and lots of blog posts. Robert in particular is profound 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.120 and prolific on our blog side. So if you want 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.680 to hear more from us about I don't know, music, 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.560 Monster science, which would you cook up this week? Um? 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.600 I'm actually working on another Higher Human Forms post, which 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.920 is a body modification series that I've been doing with 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.560 a focus more on uh, sort of religious themes and 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.960 body modification and sort of like religious trans humanism. I 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.200 can't remember we talked about American Mary before. I think 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:26.560 it may have come up a few times. You've seen it? Yeah, Yeah, 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:31.280 a very interesting horror film. Yeah, great horror movie, really 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.320 interesting take on the body modification community. And uh directed 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.480 by twin female sisters that just did an excellent job 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.440 and co star in the movie. Yeah, and they're Canadian. Yeah, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.840 I forgot about that, right, all right. System. One more 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:46.600 way that you can interact with us, especially if you 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.440 want to talk about horror movies, because that seems like 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.440 a big thing that goes on there is on Fridays 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.920 at noon Eastern Standard time, we are on periscope uh 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.680 and basically for you know, twenty minutes, we will sit 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.520 there and uh answered questions that you have. Last week, 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:05.320 Joe brought a pretty interesting article about outer space to 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:09.200 the table that we discussed with our fans on there. Uh, 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.360 and we'll tell you, you know, some kind of behind 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.080 the scenes stuff too, like what we're recording that week, 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.240 what what kind of you know things are coming up 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.520 on the show and Vice versa. But in this episode 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:25.880 we are discussing UM an interesting and troubling topic and 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.920 UH and then that is the idea of psychopathy in 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.639 children and UH an adolescence. UM. This is I definitely 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.360 want to preface here that that I I am particularly 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.519 I'm approaching this UH topic not only is someone who 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.800 just finds the trope itself kind of fascinating from a 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.280 cultural standpoint. You know, you can't get away from the 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:51.400 killer child, the terrible Tieu child, the what the the infant. 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:57.080 It's a it's a trope I guess or archetype that 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.840 I think is like ingrained into human culture. The fear 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:02.600 of our own children come for us. And and as 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.600 a father now I have to say I feel a 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:07.200 lot of that, you know, I mean you when you 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:10.919 have this strange creature becoming more and more human and 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.240 your your life, you think about that you can't help 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.080 but worry about about all the things that could go 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.360 wrong um or or you know, all the problems that 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.680 could arise. And so I definitely want to to drive 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:25.480 home that that's in my mind the whole time. So 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:27.200 I don't want anyone to come into this thinking that 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.040 we're gonna take a real callous approach to it that 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:32.919 we're all just about, you know, talking about horror movie 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:34.920 tie ins for the topic, because obviously it's a very 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.839 it's a very sensitive issue and if anyone out there 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.560 who is planning to have children already has a child 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.040 and watching that child developed, that this is something that 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.920 could topic that could produce a fair amount of anxiety. Yeah, 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.680 but I also think to like from reading the literature, 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:50.640 that there's a lot to be learned here too if 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.600 you're a parent, right both about Uh, we're definitely going 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.160 to be talking about nature, not versus nurture, but and 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.120 nurture they're working together here, right, And there's things to 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.160 look out for. But there's also ways techniques of parenting 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.360 that work especially well, especially if you know, you think 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.080 that your child may have the traits of being callous 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.119 or unemotional in the way that we're going to describe 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:17.560 here that subsequently lead to some of these attacks. Yeah. 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.800 I do want to say the original idea for this 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:25.360 did come from our October marathon of doing things that 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.240 were kind of related to Halloween, and it was just 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.560 one of the things that I couldn't get in under 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:34.240 the deadline. I was thinking about the premise of Michael 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.200 Myers and the Halloween movies, which is that he was 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.559 a kid who killed members of his family, was taken 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.839 away to a mental asylum for that and when he 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.600 was like nine years old or something like that. Uh, 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.719 and and then subsequently grew up escaped and you know 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:50.760 it was a serial killer. Yeah, but he's just essentially 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.919 a black hole of of emotion. Yeah. And so what 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.880 I wanted to look into there was is that actually possible? 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:04.120 Is Michael Meyer the the idea there of a child 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.800 first of all of a and it's hard to find 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.400 this under search term, but the term that's used clinically 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:14.800 is juvenile homicidal offender because when you type in child killer, 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.080 it usually is associated with people who kill children, not 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.640 children who kill um. And so I was looking to see, 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.159 you know, what's the likelihood of this actually happening. And 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.400 then also, you know, in the case of the Michael 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.320 Myers myth, what's the recidivism look like? So when these 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.320 children are released as adults, you know, what what do 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:36.560 their lives look like? Yeah? And ultimately we're also going 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.800 to discuss the bright side and some of the treatment 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.919 options that are becoming available that are showing promise because 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:47.240 it's easy to get hung up on just the trope, 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:49.240 right on the idea of the oh, this is a 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.800 bad seed, this child is just a black hole of 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.719 emotion and there's no altering that. But that's the myth 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.480 and that's what the media loves to grab onto anytime 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:01.800 we have one of these incidents happen, especially in the 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.680 United States. And it's way more complex than that, right. 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:07.640 The thing that's really interesting is, like you said, like 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:10.839 as we study this further and further and understand the 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.920 biology behind it, we also find it really interesting ways 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:16.880 to treat it. So just to get out of the way. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.599 Some of the more common versions of the trope of 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.000 the bad seat trope that we see, um, you have 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.800 a Damien from the Omen, that's a big one, the 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.279 kids from the Village of the Damned. Um, there's the 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.880 Bad Seat itself, which was the ninety six theatrical film, 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.039 uh and a TV movie. And five you have the 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.960 good Son, you have the Ring. You have Peter Wiggin 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.400 and or some Scott Cards enters game who like to 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.719 torture animals and physically and mentally tormented siblings and the 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.640 animals thing is real as well as we'll talk about 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.839 there's a there's a murderous newborn in Ray Bradberry's short 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.359 story Small Assassin. Uh, there's the young Tom Riddle and 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.920 Harry Potter, of course. Uh, there's Aaliya and Dune. There's 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.799 a Mordred to Shame and Stephen King's at Dark Towers series. 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:07.520 You could probably count Stewie Griffin. Um. But but yeah, 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:09.400 so we have this trope of this child that is 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.680 just unredeemably bad, that that that is that is evil 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.160 in a in some inhuman way, generally with some sort 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:20.400 of magical scenario backing up whither that way. I think 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:25.680 it's particularly helpful actually here to use Halloween and John 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:30.800 Carpenter's vision for Michael Myers as what isn't happening? That's 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.360 the fantastic version, right, and that John Carpenter is always 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:38.200 referred to that character as the shape. Right. He's not human, 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:43.800 it's he's not a product of upbringing or things, you know, uh, 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.720 mental problems necessarily as much as it's just a body 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.920 full of evil. Right now, Rob Zombies version that ultimately 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.320 changes that in the remake, we don't really need to 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.960 go down that Rabbit hole. But but I think that 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.080 it's important to say that's not what's going on here 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.920 with children who do kill, right, and and just to 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.200 get it out of the way, psychopathy in general, like 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.760 what is the psychopath? The psychopath demonstrates significantly reduced empathy 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.400 with the feelings of others, uh, and supporting the theory 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.120 that this uh, that this deficit makes it easier for 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.720 them to inflict pain on victims their mirror neurons or 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.000 two out of whack for them to feel their victims pain, 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.920 making the most you know, cold blooded of homicides a 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:32.400 little a little easier to to to commit. So it uh, 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:34.840 it has to do with a lack of empathy and 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:39.200 a callousness in nature. But it's it's a a neurological 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:43.360 condition and certainly not some sort of supernatural occurrence. So 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:45.559 let's get this out of the way to start off 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:47.760 with and answer you know what my initial question was, 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.320 which is really how likely are juvenile killers? And in fact, uh, 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.480 the U. S. Department of Justice has plenty of statistics 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:58.480 about this on their website, so you can go there 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:00.200 and find this. But I'll share a couple of with 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.240 you here that I think are important The first is 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.040 that in so that's as far back currently as our 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:10.040 our data shows. Uh, the known juvenile offenders that were 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:14.040 involved were in six hundred and ten murders in the US, 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.480 and so that sounds like a lot, I know, but 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.920 that represents seven percent of all known murder offenders from 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.440 that time, so it is relatively small. Actually. Also, as 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:30.040 of the number of juvenile homicidal offenders is at its 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.520 lowest level in thirty four years since we started tracking this, 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.000 which is pretty wild. Uh. And in fact, I really 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.880 recommend going to the to the Department of Justices site 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:42.800 and looking at the charts that they have built out 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.680 of this, because apparently the real spike for this was 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.600 in the nineties, UH and ninety four were particularly bad, 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:51.480 and you just see this huge spike. But we are 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.800 right now, as we're recording this episode, at an all 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.400 time low, or I guess all time in terms as 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:03.280 long as they've been recording it. UH. Homicide offending also 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.120 increases with age, so it's less likely that it's going 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.679 to happen if you are, say, under fifteen years old. 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.040 Only ten percent of the offenders were under fifteen, whereas 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.160 seventies six of them were sixteen or seventeen years old. 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.560 And in my mind when I was thinking about this, 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.360 I was thinking more along the lines of like preteens, juveniles, 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.199 like under thirteen. I guess, um, and that does happen, 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.520 but it is again significantly small. In the Justice Department 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.800 released information saying that twenty nine children under the age 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:36.840 of fourteen, So this is more along the lines of 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:40.480 what I was thinking had committed homicides that year. And uh. 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:42.439 The other interesting thing is that the victims are more 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.839 likely to be acquaintances. So as of data, thirty seven 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.800 percent of them were acquaintances, while twenty percent of them 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:54.520 were total strangers. So the idea of a young child 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:59.360 going completely psycho and murdering a total stranger is rare 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:05.000 and unlikely. Now, male juvenile homicide offenders varied substantially, but 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.280 female juvenile homicide offenders have a steady rate um accounting 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.880 for a very small share. Less than one hundred were 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.439 implicated in homicide since two thousand two, and in two 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.560 thousand twelve, of the eight thousand, five fourteen people arrested 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.080 for murder in the US, only one was a girl 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.319 under thirteen. In two thousand thirteen, the number was is 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.480 to at its lowest since at least nineteen eighty and 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:32.160 there is no evidence that homicide among young girls is increasing. 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.080 And this is uh, I think important to note because 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.840 as some of our listeners will probably have immediately come 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.560 to mind, I believe it was in well it's related 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:47.800 to the creepypasta episode. Yeah it was, I can't remember, 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.079 but uh, you know, two young girls who were fascinated 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:54.080 with the creepy pasta stories about Slenderman tried to murder 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.880 one of their peers. Uh, and we're unsuccessful. But that story, 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.760 like you know, when for these stories pop up, scared 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.240 a lot of people and made them think, oh my god. Uh, 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.319 look at this, this evidence that young girls are becoming murderers, 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:09.439 and in fact, that's not the case if you look 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.920 at all the data. The other important thing to remember 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.680 here to data wise, is that a lot of this 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.280 activity happens in groups. Remember that I mentioned that it 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.960 was two girls in the slender Man case. Wasn't just 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:22.560 one girl on her own. About half of the number 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:27.079 of homicides committed by known juvenile offenders as of involved 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.079 multiple offenders, So that's important to realize. You know, children 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.360 are more likely We've all been kids. And even if 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.400 you're a child, if you're under fourteen listening to this 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.319 show right now, you know you're more likely to do 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.920 things that you together than you would alone. I'm sure. 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.600 I well, I know I did things that I regret 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.120 that I have done on my own that I did 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:50.880 with a group of friends. Yeah. So it's easy to 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.160 imagine us in any variety of scenarios in which a 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:58.360 younger individual is just roped into some sort of horrible 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.320 situation with older children. Yeah. And you know, the kids 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.920 can kind of ramp one another up in this exactly, 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.520 it becomes reality through them talking, and then ultimately peer 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.480 pressure leads to these risky choices. And many children don't 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.880 even really understand what dead means. You know, a lot 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.880 of the kids that are interviewed after they commit these murders, 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.760 they don't understand that this is a permanent thing. They 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.840 think of it as sort of being magical. Uh. So 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:27.960 that's important to remember as well too, that there's a 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.400 lack of understanding here of of the crime that's being committed. 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.600 Uh And and lastly, before we get into the you know, 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:39.840 the meat behind what's going on inside juvenile homicidal offenders. 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.000 It's important to note that in June of the Miller 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.800 versus Alabama case that was heard by the Supreme Court 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:52.240 ultimately decided that juvenile murders did not have to serve 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.640 their lives in jail for crimes. The tight decision was 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.560 a five four decision in which they chose to ban 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:04.080 mandatory life sentence says of life imprisonment for juvenile offenders. 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.400 So now as as as of that, uh, you know, 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.120 a decision there can those who are convicted of these 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.640 murders have a possibility of eventual freedom. This is in 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.480 the US. Mind you that, you know, this stuff happens 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.280 in other countries as we'll talk about as well, but 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.560 you know, we're here in America. A lot of the 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.240 research was done in America. So that's, you know, what 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.760 I'm going to base our information off of. As of 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.080 right now, the Supreme Court is waiting to hear Montgomery 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.880 versus Alabama, which is another UH case that will basically 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.640 see whether or not they can apply this retroactively, meaning 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.800 that children who were in prison for life for murders 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:45.400 before the twelve decision will eventually be able to be released. Yeah, 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.360 and obviously it's It's such a tough situation to weigh 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.600 in on because you you're ultimately dealing with adults and 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:54.840 and trying to figure out how to treat this adult 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.520 who in their youth, in their childhood even uh committed 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.320 a fact but before they actually were fully formed as 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.360 if an individual. So there's a few examples here that 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:08.400 let's get out of the way of just you know, 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.800 known cases where this has happened that have been popularized. One, 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.640 obviously the you know Michael Myers being the inspiration for 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.680 looking into this research, is a guy named Edmund Kemper. 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.960 There's also a person who is known only as girl 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:26.200 A in Japan. She was uh fourteen years old and 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.280 killed in eleven year old in Japan in n and 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:34.040 mounted his head outside their school. So when this happened, 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.880 the country's parliament actually lowered the age of criminal responsibility 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.520 from sixteen to fourteen. So you can see how these 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.400 singular incidents, which are horrible, by the way, I get 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.320 a lot of press coverage and then it becomes an 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:51.320 issue for politicians to exact exactly. So we've seen just 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:53.720 in the last you know, five minutes, how both Japan 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.240 and the United States have changed their laws based on these. 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.040 There's a slender man girls that we were talking about earlier. 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:00.840 And one thing I'd like to mentioned here just as 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.320 an anecdote. I don't want to dive into that whole affair, 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.680 but that one psychiatrists interviewed one of the children who 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:12.040 was responsible. She said that she believes in unicorns, that 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.000 she can communicate with Lord Voldemort and the teenage muntant 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.680 Ninja turtles. And she also believes that she has the 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:21.040 ability of vulcan mind control. So that helps you to 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.480 kind of put into place here. This is a child 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.920 who's fantasizing about things. I don't think that she quite 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.400 understood what was going on. Yeah, I mean she this 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:35.520 seems to illustrate a real inability to distinguish fantasy from reality. Yeah. 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:37.840 And one last example that I want to throw out there, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.480 especially because um one of our fans UH mentioned it 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.400 on Facebook earlier this week, is Mary Flora bell Uh. 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.960 In nineteen sixty eight, she strangled two young boys when 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.600 she was a child. She took a new name and 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.560 started her life over when she was released from prison 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.320 in the nineteen eighties. I believe that she's British, UM, 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.040 so that would explain why you know, she was released. 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.960 She and her daughter she now has a daughter, were 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.000 promised a lifetime of anonymity, and this is now referred 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.320 to over there as a Mary Bell order. So basically, 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.640 if you commit a crime as a child and they 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:15.879 you know, deem that you're able to be released, you 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.000 are and you can live your life in anonymity if 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.359 you so choose so that you don't have to you know, 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.640 have that hanging over your head. I guess now from 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:27.680 from some of the readings I had about Mary Bell, 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.719 apparently she was somehow involved in a book about her 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:36.280 life and received money for it, and that somehow subsequently 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.320 let her daughter know about her past actions. So there 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.000 was a little bit of conflict there and a little 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.480 bit of controversy about the fact that she was being 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:45.920 paid to talk about these horrible acts that she had done. 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:51.560 So obviously with as with any topic dealing with with childhood, 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:53.840 this is a big there's a big discussion of nature 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.320 and nurture here, like how much of this is genetics, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.840 how much of this is just uh, you know, tendencies 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.080 that are going to be inherent in you as a person, 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:05.600 and then how much of it is the nurturing. How 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.400 much of it is is that the level of attention, 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.040 the level of of of parental presence and parental guidance 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:16.120 that are present there Where, Where does this behavior emerge from? 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.879 And how can either side of the scenario curve it. 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.040 There's a quote from a book about this that I 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.600 want to use as sort of a guiding principle for 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.240 us going forward. It's almost like a thesis statement of 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.760 what I think that the data and research reveals. And 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.600 it's by Deborah Niehoff. She's the author of a book 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.200 called The Biology of Violence. And her quote is behavior 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.600 is the result of a dialogue between your brain and 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.480 your experiences. So it's not just your biology and it's 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.720 not just your experiences. It's those two interacting together. Uh. 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.840 And we you know, I remember, especially in school, often 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.960 being told about the nature v. Nurture argument, you know, 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.000 most like a Supreme Court Supreme Court case, which one 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:03.560 is and it's both, especially in this situation. Um, So 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.320 think about it this way. Childhood development essentially works like this. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.440 In our preteen and teenage years, both girls and boys 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:16.080 develop intense social relationships. Especially when we're adolescence, we like 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:20.160 to you know, become independent, and we feel everything really intensely. Right. 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.280 What's going on there is that our prefrontal cortex, is 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.360 the part of our brain that's in charge of critical thinking, judgment, 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.120 and deliberation hasn't fully developed. In fact, like even when 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.240 we're adolescence. You know, some of us like to think 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.719 of when I was fifteen, I was basically an adult 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:36.680 or whatever. I don't know. I don't want to look 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:40.600 back that I was an idiot. But uh uh, that's 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.560 essentially what's going on. Our brains are still developing, so 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:47.000 there's lots of room for how they develop, right. Uh. 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.400 And one of the quotes about this from a researcher 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.240 looking into it said, it's like they're in a muscle 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.000 car without breaks. I like that analogy. That's that's what 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.840 high school felt like for me. That sounds I mean, 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.400 it's easy to forge it. Just how much is going 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.439 on in the high school mind. Um, it seems like 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.240 so high schoolers can seem so alien. Teenagers can see 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:10.399 seems so alien, and in a sense they are like 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.359 they're they're they're thinking and changing, uh, in some very 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:17.359 dramatic ways. National Institute of Health Projects scanded over a 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.560 hundred teen brains as well as some younger individuals and 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:22.680 some older ones. And they found that as we grow, 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:27.080 our brains undergo just massive reorganization between our twelfth and 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.199 twenty five year That's crazy to think, like, even up 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.480 until twenty five, we are still maturing and developing. Yeah, 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.480 I mean and my I look back and I'm like, yeah, 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:40.040 that that totally totally at least being older than now. Yeah, 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.600 I can definitely look back. I remember being twenty five though, 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:47.640 and thinking like I got this under control, totally didn't. Yeah. 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.399 I've seen it described as a slow wave. Uh. And 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.840 subsequent imaging work has has shown that these the physical changes, 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.080 they all start in the brain's rear and they moved 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.920 towards the front from areas close to the brain. Still 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.840 that that look after older, you know, more basic primal functions, uh. 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.560 And then move forward through our our ability to process 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:12.080 all that stimuli. And then during this period two you see, um, 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:14.960 you see this idea that that the teenage brain also 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:19.399 is going to be super obsessed with making social connections 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.800 with other individuals. Um. And I've seen this argued is 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.960 kind of an evolutionary advantage to where the teen is 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.560 has evolved to leave um it's family and find a 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.560 home with new people. And therefore the brain is looking 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:36.600 for that example, and it's willing to take more risks 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.359 in order to carry it out. This brain development is 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:44.080 definitely something that I have to wonder if it's more 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.679 recent for humanity in that like that we're developing up 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:50.800 until the age of I mean that somewhat makes sense 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.280 for us now, and that like we don't in our 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.440 current culture in America, we don't consider ourselves quote adult 0:21:56.560 --> 0:22:02.240 until we're eighteen, right, but like uh, responsibilities of children 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.840 in much earlier ages, even just going back to the 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:09.879 medieval age, we're so much earlier. You know, I wonder 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:14.280 if over time that there was a gradual progression of 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:16.399 getting to this point where the brain was allowed to 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:18.600