With the conviction of Pearl, Mississippi's Luke Woodham on June 12, courts now begin to lock away a spate of white adolescent male mass homicide gun boys. However valid, the child murderers do not deserve psychiatric excuses of immaturity; this will only send a message to future notoriety seekers that destruction is a five year sacrifice worth making. But making an example of young killers is not enough.

This uniquely American phenomenon—already inspiring knee jerk blaming of parents, abusive backgrounds or the weapons themselves—seem to often mirror the workplace dynamics of the workplace mass homicide. Defendants have been described as alienated loners, whose escalating anger parallels nihilism and a general cynicism about the peers and society by which they feel rejected. Toss in availability of weapons and a spark of hopelessness, and you have a J.D. Salinger devotee primed to go postal.

Mass homicide of strangers from pseudopolitical (Oklahoma City) to workplace (Connecticut Lottery) to random (McDonald's/San Ysidro) brings notoriety to uniformly misfit young men. As we explored in American Bomber (The Forensic Echo, May 1998), justifying destruction through a self-righteous purpose gives higher meaning to pathological narcissist. He is an empty man whose sense of worthlessness is matched only by his desperation to have worth. American worth is money; but money takes too long to earn the hard way, especially for the narcissist, whose sense of entitlement warrants a more immediate need from recovering from a narcissist shame. The answer: notoriety. Notoriety is the front page, the evening news, the movie deal, the immortalization for the outrageous.

Now look a little closer. Investigation of the Mississippi tragedy has unveiled a group of youngsters intent on carrying out a number of attacks, with power to the powerless as a motive. Fantastic as this may seem, we have bodies on Woodham's hands that jerk us back to reality—along with efforts by some of this unseemly group to defend his actions even amidst the loud wail of community mourning.

We'll never run out of parents who never should have given birth. Fox will never retire Bart Simpson; movie shock will continue to erode the boundaries of morality and reality. The internet, for all its parental controls, will still infiltrate the home with influences that overwhelm the adults, let alone the children. Virtual reality games will train warriors in the art of killing. Parents in our class-divided double income society which vilifies the woman as homemaker have no choice but to leave their children in someone else's hands. Erosion or intrusion, even a repressive society is impotent to ward off these influences on the impressionable.

No, religion is not always the answer. And in a world where attention and love are in a short supply, only so much can be expected in a climate that places premium on the time efficiency of our breadwinners. How then, to build or restore the esteem of our boys from the clutches of dead end destructiveness?

Get them out of the house.

Sports, arts and activities have always been an outlet- and for some, a dream. The kid on the playground dreamed of being Willie Mays; the kid in the school play of being Marlon Brando; the kid in the band of being Mick Jagger and getting all the girls. Let us not forget that the President of these United States grew up underprivileged and the brother of a noticeably less accomplished cocaine addict from the same gene pool. We know too well stories of the inner city hoop dreams competing with the drug life for the attention of the shamed and alienated. But this is not exclusively a black challenge.

This is why an expansive effort must be initiated to develop a sprawling program of school and after school activities in the humanities and athletics. Get the kids inspired to cultivate a talent-under the guise of a motivated role model coach, teacher or older student. Expand art and athletic sectors to make dreams of fame and money available to more children who dedicate themselves. This involvement keeps them the hell away from TV, the internet, the drug pushers, and in some cases, the abusive influences. Along the way, adolescents learn to work in a team, to respect rules, to learn from dedication, to develop patience, and cultivate a sense of conscience as well as respect for respectable authority. The skills they acquire will prepare them for life and the disappointments to come; the involvement of adults at this level will guide the inadequate into areas they can excel in. The payoff will be a more secure, more optimistic generation, which learns how much tougher the pen is than the sword.

How soon will adolescent violence remind us of the Manson family? Now is the time to implement creative strategies of crime prevention that demonstrate sensitivity to the stresses of adolescence. The callused adult on the verge of explosion can only be separated like toxic spillage. But the children can and must be reclaimed.