Customer Reviews

Kids Who Kill

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This was a well researched and hauntingly prophetic topic to write about back in 1990. Ewing does a good job of categorizing juvenile offenders and makes a fairly exhaustive search of such murders but he does not advance a psycho-social theory for why these kids lack moral restraint or why the numbers of juvenile murderers are increasing so rapidly. I enjoyed the book as a lit. review type of resource that also documents state legistation regarding the penalties for juveniles but I was disappointed because it does not theorize about motivation or possible prevention of homicides by children. To get into the mind (and genes) of a killer I highly recommend Joel Norris' Serial Killers.

My cousin frist recomended this book to me. The case studies intrested me greatly. The one disappointment with this book was that it mainly focused on child crimes in the U.S and not in other countries. A great book for anyone going into Crimnology.

This is a great little chilling book you cannot put down that, I categorize under "escapism" reading. I got my hands on it years ago, and I read some of the reviews where some complained that it was outdated. Well, it has to be somewhat outdated, because it takes time to do research on all these cases.

I particularly like the way Dr. Ewing breaks down the categories of the killings that these children/teenagers commit:

Family Killings

Theft-Related Killings

Sexual Killings

Crazy Killings

Just read the table of contents. Outdated or not, I do not believe motive or actions change much throughout the years. It is angering that some killings are purely senseless and stupid acts. Others are a result of neglect and years of sexual abuse, or physical torture, however they still have to pay the price. I recommend this book to anyone that has a troubled teenager or knows of anyone that has one, or is simply just interested in the subject matter.

Helen Smith's "The Scarred Heart: Understanding and Identifying Kids Who Kill" is much more up to date (it just came out), and offers a better framework for understanding. But there's something to be said for being first -- and given the price of this paperback, it's well worth buying.

This books started out with quick synopsis' of different juveniles who have committed horrible murders. Then it just drifts off...Small book. I am sure it would be a quick read but I didn't finish it. I couldn't get into it. I would only recommend this book if you are doing a research paper and need a lot of short examples of juveniles committing murders.

I liked the stories because they were short and to the point, though some a bit depressing. But that's to be expected reading a true crime book about juveniles. Some I would have liked to know more about the outcome of the cases, but it was still a good book. I would recommend it to anyone that reads true crime books.

This book spent volumes on statistics, and the stories of the children who kill were, in some cases, less detailed then the newspaper articles would have been. I wasn't looking for gore, and horror, but by the time I was finished with the book I didn;t understand what would drive a child to kill any better than I would have reading a psycology text book, or my local newspaper. I was very dissapointed.

Fascinating look at the psychology of children and teenagers who kill.