The Mind of a Child Murderer

A great deal of emotion, prejudice and rage faces the man who kills a child. Dr. Arthur Hyatt Williams, consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic and Oakwood Hospital, is a psychotherapist at Wormwood Scrubs prison. Here, he analyses the public reaction and the motives of the offender. News of the murder of a child evokes a general reaction of horror and anger from the public. The flare-up is less mixed with the macabre excitement which accompanies horror in the reaction to the murder of an adult. The public response to child-murder used to be something like: 'Hang the culprit, but see that he suffers first.' Now the reaction is: 'Bring back the death penalty or let a life sentence really be for life.' If we consider what kind of person kills a child and for what reasons , it may be possible to understand why there is an outcry, from both public and police, over a child-murder compared with which protests about the (much larger) numbers of children killed each year on the roads of Britain are surprisingly mild. Prior to the abolition of the death penalty, it was virtually impossible to study the motivation of murderers. Now we are in a better position to study offenders. During a life sentence, especially if psychotherapy is undertaken, the truth usually emerges. Face the truth It may surprise most people to learn that, even after sentence, the murderer often finds it difficult to recall and face the truth of the crime. Almost invariably he waters down and glosses over events, a process designed consciously or (more generally) unconsciously to reduce the horror and to portray himself, to himself and other people, in a better light. Some murderers suffer from complete amnesia about events before, during and after the crime. Such men are dangerous, as they may repeat the crime. Another difficult and dangerous category among murderers is the man who is openly, or secretly, callous and defiant. But usually the murderer is shocked and horrified by what he has done. Now, to answer the question: 'Why kill a child'?' There are several kinds of motivation. Perhaps the commonest is the acting out in reality of a perverse urge, although many perverse assaults on children do not culminate in murder. Sometimes there is a change of intention during or after the assault. Perverse fantasy In men capable of a violent crime against a …