Insanity: Is It In Our Schools Essay, Research Paper

INSANITY: IS IT IN OUR SCHOOLS?

What exactly is the definition of insanity? Insanity is being in a mental state of mind that does not allows you to make correct decisions on events that are occurring at that moment. But this definition is not always the same through out the United States. One person?s definition is not always the same as the next. This comes into conflict when trying to decide someone?s fate in court cases, and this is especially important when it involves a minor that has committed a serious crime. As an example to the seriousness of some of the crimes, look at all of the school shootings that have been occurring throughout the United States. What are we to do with young children that are now sentenced to prison for life without parole? To call them insane is not the answer. We need to find something that can be done to help stop the huge number of young people in the correctional system. Because the huge amount of money it costs to house inmates per year is extreme, and it is costing the taxpayers enough money already to house the adult inmates. We need to find alternate solutions other than sending these young men and woman to prison for the rest of their life, and causing them to legally go insane.

What can we do to prevent these young adults from committing such extreme crimes? We need to look at the home and see if anything is wrong there first before anything else is even looked at. Because, to take away the children from their parents is only a good if they are part of the problem. Parents are extremely important in a child life and set the foundation for what is to come in the future from him/her whether in the positive or the negative. There are many reasons for there being problems at home. It could be the lack of supervision by an adult, the absence of punishment, and many more reason why the child is not having a good home life. There are still many more reasons why child resort to violence when faced with a problem.

What can we do to help prevent a poor upbringing for children throughout the U.S? The American people need to stop putting such an emphasis on material belongings, and put it on the well being of our friends and family. We have families with everything in the world but their children have don?t even know who their parents are. Then we have the exact opposite with ones that have very little but have a very close family life. To help with the family we need to get the parents more active in the children?s life. Whatever has to be done it has to be something that brings the family closer together.

You might be asking what else can we do to change these young people if the problem is not at home. What these kids do when they are not at home is another main concern. Whether it be the friends they hang around with, drugs and/or alcohol, sex, and the activities they do when they are out. The peer pressure effect has link to all the other problems. Kids want to fit in no matter what they have to do to get in the group (click) they will do it. In the Columbine High School shooting the two young gentlemen

April 20, 1999 is the day when many children?s lives changed at Columbine High School by two young men that just did not fit in. They were said to be members of a group called the ?Trench Coat Mafia.? This was a group out casts at the school. This school shooting also happened on a day well known to many for drugs and racists. It was the 110th anniversary of Adolph Hitler?s birthday. These kids had been planning this attack for over a year. They had practice making explosives and perfected their shooting skills well in advance. Why they did this no one will ever know because after they were finished their rampage through the school shooting as many people they could they turned the guns on themselves and ended it all.

Where would these kids get the idea to do such a thing as this to their fellow students? What was going through their minds when they thought of committing this crime? If it was because they were not treated the way they wanted to be or anything else, it does not matter because nothing is going to make it okay to kill.

There have been many shootings popping up around the United States involving teens and not only their peers but also their families. This is alarming, because we now have children turning on their parents because they say that they were not satisfied with the way their parents took care of them. This brings us right back to where we started, with the problems at home blossoming and coming to school. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Luke Woodham murdered his mother then went to his school killed two classmates and wounded seven more. He confessed to all of the charges except for murdering his mother. He said that he had no recollection of the events that took place that afternoon at his house. Woodham insisted that a man, know as Grant Boyette, egged him on about killing his mother and ex-girlfriend. Grant is a member of a cult-like group known as ?the Kroth.? The big question is would Woodham have done what he did if his mother would not have like talk on the phone to a cult member. Where was his mother when he was on the phone for several hours the day before the shootings? These are questions that never will be answered because she is now died. She was brutally beaten and stabbed in an act of rage by the by her own son.

Another shooting in an Oregon community, by a young man named Kipland Kinkel. He also murdered his parents and two classmates at his school. Why do these young kids throw their whole life away? They are going to grow up in prison and there is nothing we can do to help them because of the way that our correctional system works. They have committed a serious crime and have been found supposedly to have the capacity of an adult. If this is the case why aren?t all of the ages for such things as smoking and drinking dropped also?

All of these children that have committed these crimes are never going to be aloud to be free for the rest of their lives due to the length of their sentences. What are we as citizens expected to think of our justice system when we see a fifth teen year old kid sentence to life without the possibility of parole five times. We now have to pay millions of dollars to house this kid for the rest of his life because he had no one there when he needed it. As in Luke Woodham case he had no one to talk to except for a cult member that knew he could get Luke to do whatever he wanted by pushing and pushing him, until he got him to say yes. Why would anyone want to do anything to a young man like this is beyond my belief except for stupidity.

You might be asking what is some ways that we can protect our children in schools. Well the schools are now putting in locks on doors that only open from the inside, cameras on the inside and the outside of the school, more police presence in schools, and teaching students how to manage their anger by talking to people about their problems instead of resorting to violence. There is no reason for young men and women to be killing each other over words. Parents need to take an active role in their children?s life and show then what they also had to go through when they were in school. Nothing has changed between when they went to show and us, but it has changed in how the children of today respond to the problem in which they are facing. What can be causing are kids to grow up in such a manor that everything has to be resolved with violence. Well it is easy to blame it on the time period or their surroundings, but it has more to do with what they feel is right by what they experience everyday in their lives. Single parents are at the highest percentage than ever before. This only increases the effect of what the children think is right. So if the parents are not there to so them right from wrong that is besides the police and the authority figures at schools and other places kids go. If they are not taught how are we to blame them for wrong. Discipline is lacking in this country. More and more children are ruling the house instead of the parents. Why is this you ask? It is because of the laws that are being passed in Congress that say you cannot hit your child. If a kid does wrong who is to say you cannot hit him/her for disciplinary reasons. If it goes beyond discipline then it is abuse but when your child can call the police for you just grabbing them, then there is something wrong.

Do you think that there is insanity in your local schools? In every school around the country there is that one student that is not liked, does not fit in, wears old cloths, and is always made fun of. Exactly when do you think he will crack? Could be today or tomorrow, but he will break because he/she has it in their mind that there is no other way to solve their problems. If we could only show them that there is other ways of solving their problems we may be able to prevent another useless slaying. If only the people of America would look in the mirror and see that if they would change they could make it a better place for all. But this is the hardest part because it involves everyone not just a few.

BIBLIOGRAPH

1.)WWW.CNN.COM

TITLE: AS MANY AS 25 DEAD IN COLORADO SCHOOL ATTACK

DATE: APRIL 20, 1999

2.)WWW.CNN.COM

TITLE: TEEN GUILTY IN MISSISSIPPI SCHOOL RAMPAGE

DATE: JUNE 12, 1998

3.)WWW.CNN.COM

TITLE: SUSPECT FORMALLY CHARGED IN OREGON SCHOOL SHOOTINGS.

DATE: JUNE 16, 1998

4.)TITLE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIMINAL CONDUCT

5.)DATE: NEW STANDARD ENCYCLOPEDIA

VOLUME SIX

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