Challenging the hunger for violence

LORNA DUECK
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
July 11, 2007 at 12:13 AM EDT
 
A tear fell from Heaven this week as judgment came down on Canada's youngest multiple killer, a 13-old-girl convicted of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of her mother, father and eight-year-old brother. The crime spans a generation of our youth, with the girl, who was 12 at the time of the crime, accepting a post-crime jailhouse marriage proposal from her boyfriend, who was 23 at the time. The boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, is expected to have a trial date set next week.

With circumstances so bizarre and such an aberration of Canada's moral landscape, it's desirable to simply ask that news coverage on the story cease. Except the ostrich defence doesn't work, and just as this young murderer's parents tried desperately to separate her from the accused boyfriend, we need to ask whether there were contributing factors in the culture of this crime that we need to separate and put on a redirected path.

It's a moment to judge the media that create the culture in which our youth have grown up. Mid-trial, a front-page photograph showed a 23-year-old witness posing for the camera with such indifference to the gravity of the crime that it was a chilling reminder that this is the generation to which media are as comfortable as the jeans they wear. It's their friend, teacher, guide and goal, and any form of media is as readily sourced as the legs they walk on.

The night before the Medicine Hat crime, the movie Natural Born Killers was used as a source for ideas on “how to kill parents,” according to testimony ruled inadmissible after the judge chastised police for the “calculated process of strategic manipulation” under which the information was obtained. All part of the work of a clever detective warming up to the murderer's soul by quoting Marilyn Manson song lyrics, all part of counsel-denying tactics that led to a denial of rights, said the judge.

It was eerily reminiscent of a legal conference in Ottawa last month in which Canadian judges heard U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia teach, “What would Jack Bauer do?” The maverick federal agent of TV's 24, Judge Scalia argued, was a good case study to understand the debate over the use of torture. When fantasy evil is shaping the top legal minds of this continent, you get the point that storytelling tools are the most powerful educators in the land. How much more vulnerable have a generation of youth been who were raised on story and play tools that emulate suffering and death?

PlayStation said it best when it boasted, “We took what was killer and made it mass murder.” It's a long way from the Centerwall study of the early 1990s that showed a 160-per-cent increase in aggression among children after television was introduced in Canadian towns. The youngest multiple killer in Canadian history is a reminder that we are a community with a responsibility to each other.

The $10-billion video-game industry, the enormous hunger for violence in the movies and music, is a Goliath challenge that money will always win. But there could be a revival of accountability conversations that remind us that work in media and technology is not a licence to pollute, and it's time to watch out for that environment, too.

I don't buy the sound bite that lingered from defence lawyer Tim Foster when he reacted to the guilty verdict: “Sometimes people just need a hug.” The culture we've created for a generation of youth to grow up in is far beyond that.

Lorna Dueck hosts Listen Up TV, a weekly newsmagazine on spiritual perspectives in current events, seen on Global TV, Salt and Light TV, CTS and Christian Channel