Monitor: All the News of the World: Opinion on the American children accused of murder

"THE CHILD today is not the child of just a decade ago. More and more, we are seeing child play replaced with predatory behavior in children too young to comprehend fully the implications of what they have done. Although we grieve for this loss of innocence, we also understand that there is a line that even children cannot be permitted to cross. It is imperative that, despite their youth, those who do so be made to realize the consequences of their actions."

Chicago Sun Times

"SOCIETY IS appalled and confounded by the possibility that a couple of children may have done such a thing. But that very sense of shock reinforces the rationale behind treating children accused of crimes differently from adults. They are salvageable souls. If the two boys are found delinquent, justice would best be served not by locking them away but by doing for them what no one could do for their victim - helping to save them."

Chicago Tribune

FUTILE AS the task may be, the mind struggles to make sense of reports that accuse a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old of brutally murdering another child on Chicago's South Side. Did the two boys really know what they were doing? Did they understand that death is final? Did someone harm them or violate them so that they never learned the respect for others' life and health that society considers normal? Then there is the issue of what to do with these boys. Perhaps, though, they are still young and malleable enough to be rehabilitated, with caring but firm treatment. Questions, questions. Sadly, this case raises more of them than answers.

Daily Herald, Chicago

"THE CRIMES in Chicago and Jonesboro have left authorities scrambling to protect society from children too young to incarcerate in existing facilities. Ultimately a troubling question remains with us. Why are children, who used only to quarrel or shove, now capable of murder? The answers are not to be found in excuses about socioeconomic background. The answers lie in how we raise our children, whether we inculcate in them a sense of honor and justice, and how well we protect them from pernicious influences. It's that complex and it's that simple."

LA Times