According to news reports, the 6-year-old accused of shooting a teacher at a Newport News, Virginia, elementary school is unlikely to be charged with a crime. That decision highlights something that’s long been true: We just don’t know what to do about violence by small children.
The existence of violence by children, though rare, inverts the simplest fact of life: We adults are here to protect children. We are not supposed to have to protect people from children. Every act of violence committed by a small child is part tragedy, part horror. And looking at other incidents involving children under the age of 10, criminal prosecution has almost always been judged inappropriate. (One note: In what follows, I am discussing only child killers whose victims died, unlike the teacher shot in Newport News, who is reported to be recovering.)
Let’s begin in 1866, when British papers reported the “sad case” of a 5 1/2-year-old British boy named Samuel Case whose sister died after he struck her head with a brick. No charges were filed. The authorities deferred instead to the common-law principle holding that a child under 7 cannot be criminally responsible.
