Criminality, Childhood, Hatred and Forgiveness

Great Debates
1

I found this in the BBQ Pit where the thread seems to be dying. The Thread is entitled “British child killers email”, sorry, I don’t know how to link directly.

It is an e-mail circulating about a child killing case in England- The Bulger Case. It demonstrates one side of the argument about the case:

quote:

“On February 12, 1993 a small boy who was to turn three on March was
taken from a shopping mall in Liverpool by two 10 year old boys. Jamie Bolger walked away from his mother for only a second and Jon Venables took his
hand and led him out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson. They took Jamie on a walk for over 2 and a half miles, along the way stopping
every now and again to torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mommy. Finally they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him and threw stones at him and rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his anus. They then left his beaten small
body on the tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created.
These two boys, even being boys understood what they did was wrong, hence trying to make it look like an accident.
This week Lady Justice Butler-Sloss has awarded the two boys anonymity for the rest of their lives when they leave custody with new identities.
We cannot let this happen. They will also leave early this year only serving just over half of their sentence. One paper even stated that Robert may go on to University.
They are getting away with their crime. They need to pay, and we have to do something to make them pay for their horrific crime. They took Jamie’s life violently away, and in return they get a new life.
Please add your name and location to the list and forward to friends and family. Please copy this email instead of forwarding so we do not get
>>>>
at the beginning of sentances.
If you are the 200th person to sign please forward this email to -
cust.ser.cs@gtnet.gov.uk <mailto:cust.ser.cs@gtnet.gov.uk> <
mailto:cust.ser.cs@gtnet.gov.uk <mailto:cust.ser.cs@gtnet.gov.uk> >
attentioning it
to Lady Justice Butler-Sloss.
Then start the list over again and sent to your friends and family.
The Love-Bug virus took less that 72 hours to reach the world. I hope this one does too.
We need to protect our family and friends from creatures like Robert and Jon. One day they may be living next to you and your small children without your knowledge.
If Robert and Jon could be so evil at 10, imagine what they could do as adults?”
A similar case in Norway a few years later resulted in minimal action being taken against the perpetrator with the child care system insisting that the child had as normal a life as possible in order to ensure rehabilitation and the possibility of a normal adulthood.

My question is:

“What is the morally right approach to children who grossly offend. Do we believe in the possibility of rehabilitation or do we concentrate on the punishment option?”

2

I just want to point out that I doubt you’ll find a correct answer to this. On the one hand, these are still young kids (10 years old is young). On the other hand, (if the E-mail is being accurate) they were being very brutal and viscious and inhuman.

Personally, I think these kids really need to be put under psychological observation. Not only does such barbarism require a sick mind, but it’s likely to affect them later on, too.

And, I just wanna add that those E-mail petitions are absolutely worthless.

3

Go to http://www.crimelibrary.com there is a long story on these two there, a detailed account. There is also a little insight into their personalities. Both of these boys are from a little bit of a rough, working class neighborhood. If I remember correctly one of them seemed to be an “angry” type child with the other child being more of a follower. It’s true what they did to this child is horrendous. The account is very distrubing. But these were also small boys themselves. A tough call but rehabilitation and psychological help is surely the way to go with these two. Which I’m sure they have already been recieving since their incarceration. What they did at such a young age is very hard to comprehend, but does that mean that they should be written off for good with no possiblity of being productive citizens? If so, then why didn’t they just go ahead and execute them? I hate to sound cliched but “to err is human to forgive divine”. Is there no redemption for any of us, even our children? If any case needs to be looked at objectively this one does.

Needs2know