The supposed unthinkable has become routine. LA TIMES reports that in West Point, Utah, a 15-year-old honor student allegedly stabbed to death his two younger brothers. At the time, his mother was going on an errand with the family's four other children and asked him to take care of his brothers.
When I was in Snyder High School, based along the mean streets of Jersey City, New Jersey during the early 1960s, the worst that would happen was that a girl would be beat up by her boyfriend. Eventually she'd return to school and everyone would avoid eye contact. We were expected to be perfectly behaved, not be victims of any crime, and it was unthinkable that we'd commit a crime. Yet that demand for conformity didn't trigger violence. We just turned out messed up, the first generation to embrace therapy. Later in college and graduate school, we continued to be self-destructive, even suicidal, not homicidal.
What changed? Why are youth and young adults killing?