How to Keep Kids from Killing Kids

What once would have shocked the conscience is now forgotten by the end of the article. Consider these recent stories on juvenile homicides.

In Southern Nevada, last October, 17-year-old Keanu Enright left his home to play video games. Police said a group of friends ended up “handling a gun.” A 15-year-old boy then shot and killed Enright. Police arrested the boy for open murder. Enright’s family wanted the shooter to be tried as an adult. Prosecutors said they couldn’t prove the shooting was intentional. The boy pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and entered a youth prison.

“The juvenile system, in theory, is designed to rehabilitate kids,” Brigid Duffy, director of the Juvenile Division at the Clark County District Attorney’s Office, said.

That doesn’t appear to have happened. The killer is already out of custody. Thomas Enright, the victim’s father, showed the Las Vegas Review-Journal screenshots of an Instagram story from the teenager. It appeared to show a teenager with a handgun. The caption read, “We beat murder charges, who’s next?”

That is sociopathic behavior. It’s not mental illness, it’s evil.

Yet, it’s hard to be outraged because shocking criminal behavior is increasingly common. North Las Vegas police recently arrested a 17-year-old for shooting another teen outside a convenience store earlier this summer. Earlier this month, a 12-year-old girl in North Las Vegas was sent to juvenile detention for stabbing her father to death. Last month, prosecutors said they were considering the death penalty for a 19-year-old accused of shooting and killing someone in the Aliante hotel-casino earlier this year.

“Unfortunately, we have seen a huge rise in kids committing offenses with guns,” Duffy said.

This reflects a national trend. Homicides by children jumped by 65% from 2016 to 2022. “Juvenile crime surges,” The Wall Street Journal wrote in 2023.

The crisis is obvious, but pointing out its causes isn’t politically correct.

First, kids who grow up in broken homes are more likely to commit crimes. Consider the 12-year-old who killed her father. Her mom said Child Protective Services took the girl out of her home because she, the mother, used drugs. CPS placed the girl with her father.

“Cities with high levels of single parenthood have 118% higher rates of violence and 255% higher rates of homicide,” a 2023 report from the Institute of Family Studies found.

Discussing this obvious reality is largely taboo on the left because the rate of single motherhood is disproportionately high among African Americans. Unsurprisingly, black males commit a disproportionate number of murders.

Think about this. Promoting marriage would disproportionately benefit black Americans, but the left isn’t interested.

Next, many children learn little about virtue. Many boys don’t have a father in the home to model what it means to be a man. Schools kicked out God, replacing moral instruction with nihilism. Rather than personal responsibility, kids wrap their identities around their diagnoses. The former is something you control. The latter is a doctor’s job to fix. Even atheists can find purpose in patriotism, but students learn that America is evil, not the greatest country in human history.

Finally, as the building blocks of self-governance crumble, laws remain to keep the peace. Swift and strict punishment can hide the fruit of this societal rot, although it won’t cure it. But leniency abounds both in schools and for juvenile offenders. And teenagers know it.

Police have since arrested the boy who killed Enright for violating his probation. They visited the boy’s house and found a gun. Since he only received around eight months for killing a boy, however, the killer likely believes that he’ll only receive another slap on the wrist. He’s probably right.

Until one of these factors changes, kids will keep killing kids.

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