Brent Bishop's Death: A Case Study

When Brent Bishop killed Lea Zamora in a car crash, many factors were at play and influenced Brent, besides just his blood alcohol level. Car crashes are a leading cause of death for teenagers. (Brochure). Brent’s gender, age, and social class may have had an important factor in this tragic car accident. According to a source, from the ages of sixteen years of age to about nineteen years of age, men are involved in nearly four more fatal car crashes per 100 million vehicle miles than women (Chart). Brent conveniently falls into this age range. In fact, one year, 6,000 fifteen to twenty year olds were involved in fatal car accidents. Men were responsible for almost three-quarters of them (Teenage Boys). However, social class may have also influenced Brent Bishop. A study concluded that when a person’s social class increased, so did their tendency to behave unethically (New Studies Determine). This may have influenced his behavior the night of the accident. Likewise, good judgement and development of the human brain may have played a part in this, too. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the human brain is not completely developed until twenty years of age (Infographic). All of these factors together resulted in a devastating accident.

Brent’s parents were known to not be fully connected with their son, and this may have indirectly led to Brent’s actions. If they had been more responsible for his whereabouts, there might have been a chance that the accident would not have happened. Also, Brent had previously been at a party where there was alcohol, despite the young age of the attendees. Therefore, Chaz and his parents should have been liable and Chaz should not have had alcohol at an unsupervised teenage