USF criminologist explains why kids kill

TAMPA - After growing up in Tampa’s inner city and spending 14-years as a Hillsborough County deputy, Renee Thomas has seen her fair share of kids spiraling down the wrong path.

“I saw a lot of my childhood friends come through the jail where I was working,” Thomas remembers.

Some of the people who came through the jail committed crimes as teenagers. Sometimes they were violent crimes. Sometimes, it was murder.

Dr. Kathleen Heide has a pretty good idea why the teens killed, because she has devoted her life to finding out why. Heide teaches criminology at the University of South Florida and is arguably the country’s foremost expert on why kids kill.

“When kids are involved with murder, people want to know why,” Heide said.

According to Heide, biological and genetic factors do play a role in why kids kill. But her research has indicated that parenting plays, perhaps, the biggest role.

Included among the parental factors are the things one might expect: child abuse, child neglect and the absence of a father.

More surprising, though, were two other factors Heide has found in her research.

Heide has interviewed numerous kids who have killed. They told her, when they were young, they just wanted someone to take an interest in them. Whether it was a parent, a teacher, or a volunteer at a youth organization, they just wanted someone to make them feel important. But no one did.

“They said what parents should do is talk to their kids,” Heide said. “Stay on their kids. Even though kids resist those boundaries, they actually crave them.”

The second factor Heide found would contribute to kids killing was parents giving up on their children.

Heide said it was important that parents set boundaries and rules for their children and stick by them. However, she said it was also crucial for parents not to give up and abandon their kids when they broke those rules.

“The second message is hang in,” Heide said.

Thomas has successfully raised a child who did not go down the wrong path. Her daughter, Bria, just graduated from high school and is heading to Florida A&M University this fall to become a veterinarian.

Thomas agreed with much of what Heide said. Her daughter did too.

“When teenagers say leave me alone, it does not mean leave me alone,” Bria said. “It means help me.”

She also said most teenagers do want someone to take an interest in them, and it could have adverse effects if someone didn’t.

“If you’re not going to reach out to me, I guess there’s something wrong with me where I don’t need to be helped,” Bria said.