NCJ Number
203518
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 48 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2003 Pages: 1385-1390
Date Published
November 2003
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article discusses juvenile sexual killers and the lack of research on their rehabilitation.
Abstract
This case of juvenile sexual homicide appears to have been catalyzed by the juvenile’s viewing of Fear City, a sexually sadistic slasher movie. The presence of temporal proximity, scene specificity, and repetitive viewing support this contention. The juvenile viewed this movie just before the crime, and then acted in a nearly identical fashion to those scenes in the movie that involved an assault with a cutting instrument carried out in a blitz attack style. The incendiary psychological components for violence in the juvenile were already in place. These components included DMS-III-R mental disorders, neuropsychiatric vulnerabilities, a history of emotional and physical child abuse, an escalating pattern of characterological violence, evidence of hostility toward female figures since childhood, and family dysfunction including the parental role modeling of violence. Because of the rarity of sexual homicides by minors, there is virtually no outcome data available to apply toward an individual case. The rehabilitation potential for sexual murderers that commit their crimes as adults is assumed to be dismal, particularly if their crimes were serial in nature. Research in the area of prognosis is needed for both adults and minors that have committed sexual homicide. This is more so the case for juvenile than adult offenders. A one-State decade long study found that one-half or more of these youths will be freed from prison by mid-life due to the more lenient sentencing of minors in these types of cases. Research would be especially helpful in providing guidance to courts during the sentencing phase for juvenile sexual killers. 2 figures, 32 references