Forensic Psychology For Dummies (153 page)

Unpacking the sequence of actions that gives rise to problems:
Unwanted behaviour typically emerges out of a sequence of events. This sequence needs to be identified and interventions introduced that target specific aspects within and between the various aspects of the adolescent’s life – family, teachers, friends, home, school and community.

Ensuring that interventions are appropriate to the stage in development:
Children of the same age may be at different levels of maturity. Any interventions therefore need to fit the child’s developmental needs. This requirement stresses building the adolescent’s ability to get along well with peers and acquiring academic and vocational skills that promote a successful transition to adulthood.

Encouraging continuous effort:
Interventions require daily or weekly effort by family members so that the youth and family have frequent opportunities to demonstrate their commitment. Advantages of intensive and multifaceted efforts to change include more rapid problem resolution, earlier identification of when interventions need fine-tuning, continuous evaluation of outcomes, more frequent corrective interventions, more opportunities for family members to experience success and giving the family power to orchestrate their own changes.

Evaluating and being accountable:
Intervention effectiveness is evaluated continuously from multiple perspectives with support in place to help overcome barriers to successful outcomes. Everything possible is done to avoid blaming the family for any lack of progress. Responsibility for positive treatment outcomes is placed on the team supporting the therapy.

Working towards positive accounts now and in the future:
All interventions are designed to enable the family and those associated with the child to be effective and successful in producing positive outcomes. The family must be able to maintain any gains during therapy after the support team withdraws.

Of course all of this is a tall order and very expensive, especially if many different agencies and well-qualified experts are involved. But it is a lot cheaper than dealing with the consequences of crime, keeping offenders in prison, and all the fall-out effects within society.

Going Back to School: Investigating School Shootings

An especially disturbing example of juvenile violence is when killing occurs in schools. The horrific shooting of many students in one spree – as in Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 where two boys in their mid-teens killed 12 students and a teacher, and Jokela High School, Finland in which an 18 year old killed nine people in 2007 – capture the headlines around the world. Although these events are very rare they do seem to emerge in spates after a particularly bloody incident, particularly in the US.

The destructiveness of these rampages doubtless owes something to the availability of firearms to youngsters, but as in spree killings committed by adults (that I mention in Chapter 6), school shootings almost invariably end in the death of the perpetrator(s). Therefore, they have to be considered as a form of extremely violent suicide and their roots are likely to be very similar to the roots of many suicides – despair, anger with those around and a desire to leave the world in some significant manner that sends a message.

In response to understandable concerns about school shootings, the US Secret Service prepared a summary in 2000 of what’s known about school shooters to help identify them and reduce the risk of these events occurring.

As with all such attempts to summarise a complex psychological issue, with many variations between individuals, the summary provided by the US Secret Service isn’t to be used without careful consideration of particular persons and their context. The vast majority of youngsters who experience insult and isolation from others, don’t get hold of guns and seek to kill their school mates.

The summary the US Secret Service provided includes the following indications:

Someone is likely to have been told about the intention to carry out the attack. In three out of four incidents, the attacker(s) told a friend or sibling of the plans. This shows the sorts of thought processes growing out of personal narratives that I discuss for other violent offenders in Chapters 14 and 15.

A plan of attack nearly always exists; they’re rarely impulsive acts, which means that careful surveillance can reveal aspects of this preparation.

These spree killers have easy access to often high-powered weapons. In most cases they get the guns from their own home or a relative. This shows that the family context, as with all young offenders, is relevant.