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- LETTERS, Page 6Violent Youths
-
- Contrary to your article on the causes of juvenile violence
- (BEHAVIOR, June 12), I did not use the term "misshapen
- personalities" to describe the effect on young people of a lack
- of parenting. I did say more and more children are being raised
- by troubled, often violent parents, and this experience, when
- combined with certain vulnerabilities of impaired impulse
- control, such as psychiatric, cognitive and neurological
- problems, seems to create extraordinarily aggressive juveniles.
- Unfortunately, this constellation of intrinsic and environmental
- factors is increasingly common in our society today.
-
- Dorothy Otnow Lewis Professor of Psychiatry New York
- University Medical Center New York City
-