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5 Austl. & N.Z. J.L. & Educ. 3 (2000)
Children at Risk

handle is hein.journals/anzled5 and id is 89 raw text is: Opinion Children at Risk Hon. Justice Marvin A. Zuker, Ontario Court of Justice, Canada Introduction Every year, more than 600 children under age 9 become murder victims in the USA. They are too young to provoke violence. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an average of 160 children ages 5 to 9 are murdered every year. Overall, 643 children under the age of 9 were killed in 1997, the most recent year for which FBI statistics are available. About 90% were victims of domestic abuse. Children die violently in three ways: they take the brunt of someone's misdirected anger; they're in the house when parents start fighting; or they*re caught in cross fire in the streets. In any case, they are innocent victims. That's what makes their victimisation infuriating. There's no rhyme or reason to it. 'They'll bury me in Evergreen Cemetery', says the boy sitting knee to knee with me. Sixteen years old- imagining his death. Twenty years ago - even 10 - I might have gently touched his arm and said: 'No child, no. It's just a nightmare'. But I look across the room. Hanging skewed on the wall is a pencil drawing by a teenage boy, Jason, who is dead. Shot to death at 17. On another wall hangs art drawn by another boy, Norman, who is now dead; a charcoal copy of Michelangelo's hand of man reaching for that of God. Not long after giving me this drawing, Norman shot himself. So I listen while this boy talks, 'I keep thinkin' how my funeral gonna be,' he says. 'My friends, my mom, my uncles, my aunts, my gramom crying by my casket. My mom saying I told him ... I told him'. 'I got a feeling it'll be in St. Joseph's,' he continues. 'stained glass windows' carpets on the floor. The bulletin with my picture will say In Rememberance of... And it'll say: Why did he have to leave us? He was a nice child. Very respectful. Smart. He can't be gone'. What Makes a Boy Imagine His Own Death? In the last 15 years more than 50,000 children have been killed by guns, roughly equivalent to the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. But no marble marks the death of these children. 'A little kid shouldn't be watchin' a dad beat up his mom,' a 15 year-old boy tells me. 'Shouldn't have to be runnin' to hide under the bed. Shouldn't have to be runnin' to call the cops. Shouldn't be afraid to go home, scared of his dad. Shouldn't be watchin' his mom cry. Not like I did'. I look at kids' report cards at school while in detention, and I am amazed by the leaps many make. They often show a year's progress in reading, maybe two years in math, achieved in just a few months. I used to wonder why, but now I understand. The first thing we give a boy or a 1327-7634 Vol 5, No 2, 2000, pp. 3-15 Australia & New Zealand Journal of Law & Education 3

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