When Kids Kill

Kids are growing up faster than ever. They know about sex, they are experimenting with drugs and, increasingly, they are finding themselves in court. There are also those who commit the worst possible crimes: those who end another person's life before their own has properly begun. Cases of child homicide are rare but, as we all know, they are especially horrific and tap directly into adult fears about the end of innocence and the potential harm of violent TV programmes, films and computer games.

In this topical yet sensitive investigation Jonathan Paul goes behind the sensational headlines that dominated crimes such as the Bulger killing to argue that children are not 'born killers', but that evil is learned, not innate.

The author asks why such unthinkable crimes happen and examines child homicide both in today's violent, confusing world and against the cruel, unforgiving retribution of yesterday. This is what happens when childhood is trodden underfoot: this is when - and why - kids kill.