Editorial Notebook; The Littlest Killers



OpinionEditorial Notebook; The Littlest KillersBy BRENT STAPLESPublished: February 06, 1996Imagine the terror of a 5-year-old child, dangling 14 stories above the pavement, as his brother tries fruitlessly to save him from two other boys, ages 10 and 11, who are determined to see him drop.The image of Eric Morse, hurled to his death in Chicago in 1994, has been a recurrent one in both local and national politics. Newt Gingrich cited it in speeches. Henry Cisneros, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, called it a clinching fact in the Government's decision to take over the Chicago Housing Authority, deemed by Federal authorities the most dangerous and ill managed in the country. The Illinois Legislature easily passed a bill permitting 10-year-old children to be charged with murder and -- as "super predators" -- sent to maximum-security jails. The rush to jail young children is catching on elsewhere as well. Nationwide last year, 700 pieces of legislation were introduced aimed at prosecuting minors as adults.The judge who last week sent Eric Morse's killers to jails for juveniles came near to rending her robes as she described Eric's plunge and asked how the boys who caused his death had become so indifferent to human life. No one who has spent time in, or even near, Chicago public housing projects should need to ask such a question. Eric's fall -- and the world he lived in -- bears a disturbing resemblance to "Lord of the Flies," William Golding's novel about a band of British schoolboys marooned on a jungle island. Without adults to keep them in check, the boys turn to blood lust and murder. A boy who tries to reason gets his skull split open when he is thrown from a cliff.Eric was killed for refusing to steal candy for his tormentors. The public housing complex where he died qualifies as an "island" in Golding's sense -- an island of poverty and pathology, cut off from the city proper. Of the 15 poorest census tracts in America, 11 are Chicago public housing communities. The city designed and treated them as pariah states, even while they were bright, shining steppingstones for the black middle class. Public housing was far too densely built, walled off with freeways and railroad lines used as ghetto walls. As the poverty deepened, there was simply no way to dilute it.Chicago's Ida B. Wells housing development has few adult men. The women are disproportionately teen-agers. At the time of Eric's death, a third of the complex's 2,800 apartments were abandoned, used primarily by drug dealers who hawked heroin from the windows. In a survey at a nearby high school, half the students said they had been shot at; 45 percent said they had seen someone killed. The boys who dropped Eric from the window did not originate the act. The gangs, which both boys knew well, occasionally used such punishment on members who tried to quit. Bear in mind that this environment is sustained with Federal dollars.The conduct of the two young killers was all the more understandable given that they have I.Q.'s of 60 and 76, with perhaps less emotional maturity than 5-year-old Eric. The judge in the case has ordered psychiatric treatment and follow-up care. But in light of what experts describe as Illinois's poor record with treatment -- and its high failure rate with juveniles -- the prospects for treatment seem poor. In Massachusetts or Missouri, the two would have been sent to facilities with fewer than two dozen beds and extensive psychiatric help. In Illinois, the boys could go to lockdowns with hundreds of others -- many of them gangsters who will recreate the projects behind bars.Few things are more horrifying than the murder of a child. But in view of the antecedents, Eric Morse's death was almost a naturally occurring event. The projects have become factories for crime and killers, with homicide taking younger and younger victims each year. The judge who sentenced Eric's killers called it "essential to find out how these two young boys turned out to be killers, to have no respect for human life and no empathy for their victim." We know quite well what made them killers. What we need is the political will to do something about it. BRENT STAPLESAnswer the following questions after reading “The Littlest Killers”:Who is the character from Lord of the Flies that the author is referring to in the following line: “A boy who tries to reason gets his skull split open when he is thrown from a cliff”?In what ways do you think refusing to steal candy (the reason Eric Morse died) and refusing to join a tribe (the cause of Piggy’s death) prompted other young people to go so far as to kill them?Finish the simile: The public housing project is like _______________________ in Lord of the Flies.Should Eric Morse’s murderers (ages 10-11) be tried and convicted as adults? Should Piggy’s murderers (ages 5-13) be punished as adults?In what ways does knowing the storyline of Lord of the Flies help you understand the author’s references to the novel in this article? ................
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