Jon Venables return to prison

I’m not saying you can’t judge children simply because they’re children.I’m saying these two boys are being discussed as though they had adult characters when they didn’t and that learning to restrain the impulse to violent behaviour is one of the ways we move from being children to being grown up.

Bumblebee… So what do you suggest we do? If the fact they’re children somehow magically makes them unaware of what they’re doing (despite the circumstances very much proving that to not be the case), what should be done with them? Grounded for a week with no pocket money?

Come on! You don’t think 2 kids doing this is somewhat abnormal in some way? You don’t think it’s indicative that something is very, very wrong with these two particular children? I’m trying my very best to see the logic in your thinking but I just simply can’t get it.

I stand by what I’ve said, I don’t believe that you can judge the actions of children by the same standards that you would apply to adults.A child is still a child,whatever term you use to describe him.

It’s precisely that thinking that is making our society slip deeper and deeper into s**t.
Kids are literally getting away with murder these days as there is always someone telling us “we can’t judge them, they’re children”.

Kids around my area regularly vandalise, shop lift and are a general criminal nuisance, yet all the local polic can do is take them home and inform their parents.

Why?

“Because they’re just kids”

Bumblebee… A childish argument about a Playstation game and cold blooded murder are two completely different things. Kids fight all the time but they don’t kill all the time. They’re not the same in any way, shape or form!

For my money we institute a programme to convert one of the outer Scottish islands as a penal colony – provision of the bare minimum of necessities only. Basic shelter, potable water supply, basic food provisions or facilities for the inhabitants to grow their own. If these creatures, child murderers and those of that level of crime against society, wish to exist outside of societies rules they can go and live without societies benefits…no medical care, no electricity, no fast food. If they cant hack that they are free to die of exposure or drowning at their convenience.

Err no thanks Jonesy, you can keep your flotsam and jetsam and leave the beautiful islands as they are for good folk to enjoy!

Last week I had to stop two 10 year old boys knocking six bells out of each other in a dispute over a Play Station – not easy,they were both taller than me. When you’re an adult you can restrain this sort of impulse.Just as well or I’d have stabbed the old dear who pushed in front of me in the bus queue yesterday.I’m being flippant,but it’s one of the differences between a child and an adult.

Bumblebee: I, like PMN, cannot see what the age of the offender makes. Murder is Murder. Whether you’re 10 years old or 40.
The scum tried to cover up their crime, indicating they knew the seriousness of what they had done; Ergo they knew what they were doing.

I understand that but I don’t see what difference age makes if they knew what they were doing was wrong. In what way does them being children make it any different? They were still human beings, and human beings simply don’t do what they did to each other regardless of age.

What I’m saying is that people have been condemning these two in terms as though they had been two adult murderers and not ten year old boys.And that I feel very sad that such a thing could be done by two people who were still children themselves.

Bumblebee, of course your thought processes, moral outlook, sense of logic and reasoning change over time, but reading what you’re saying here seems to imply you think it’s normal for a 10 year old child to consider murder as being perfectly fine and then they suddenly realise it’s a really, really bad thing later in life. I can’t get my head around the logic of that. It was a thought out act of pure evil; age has nothing to do with it.

Paul

And you can’t use the defence that they were children, so didn’t know what they were doing. They knew exactly what they were doing. Hell, they put the kid’s body on the train tracks so it would look like an accident. If that’s not knowledge of what you’re doing, I dunno what is…

That’s a very good point!

Joey R, you have managed to put into words precisely what I was trying to say !
My husband is very fond of telling me that my brain must have been put in upside-down because I always seem to think differently from most people.I’m inclined to believe he’s right.
How many people can honestly say that their thought processes,moral outlook,values ,logic,reasoning,whatever you want to name,are exactly the same now as when they were ten years old ? There IS a difference between being a child and being an adult that has to be acknowledged.
Daz : I imagine they were tried the same as an adult,but they weren’t adults.
Jonesy : I’m a parent too. You say their conduct wasn’t that of a child, but that’s exactly what they were, children.
For the last time,I don’t deny that they knew what they were doing,AND I’M NOT MAKING EXCUSES FOR THEM.
But to my mind you cannot judge them as though they were adults.

Bumblebee

Whether you want to describe them as ” these two creatures ” or worse, they were CHILDREN. How can they possibly be judged for their actions as though they were on equal terms with adults ?

Thats where we disagree. A child, in my definition of the term – as a father of three girls, does not do the things that those two did. There were no innocent actions from them at any point in time to equate their conduct with that of ‘a child’. I did not view them as at the time and certainly don’t now.

For my money we institute a programme to convert one of the outer Scottish islands as a penal colony – provision of the bare minimum of necessities only. Basic shelter, potable water supply, basic food provisions or facilities for the inhabitants to grow their own. If these creatures, child murderers and those of that level of crime against society, wish to exist outside of societies rules they can go and live without societies benefits…no medical care, no electricity, no fast food. If they cant hack that they are free to die of exposure or drowning at their convenience.

Nevertheless,they were still children.

…

How can they possibly be judged for their actions as though they were on equal terms with adults ?

They killed someone. End of story. Why shouldn’t they be tried the same way as an adult?

And you can’t use the defence that they were children, so didn’t know what they were doing. They knew exactly what they were doing. Hell, they put the kid’s body on the train tracks so it would look like an accident. If that’s not knowledge of what you’re doing, I dunno what is…

I cannot speak for her but I think Bumblebee is trying to enunciate a difference between appalling acts of aggression against other human beings by children and adults. And I agree with her that you cannot endow a 10 year old child with the same sense of responsibility and care for others as for an adult. Otherwise we might must as well adjust all our laws to make children as responsible as adults and ascribe to them all the benefits of adulthood.

I doubt that many here would accept children having the vote at 10 or it being legal to have sex with a 10 year old. So we differentiate because children are immature and not seen to be as responsible for their actions as adults.

It would seem to me that this crime was so appallingly cruel that the perpetrators needed help as much as punishment. We have debated capital punishment and the avenging of capital crime here recently so it is unproductive to rehearse the arguments again, so I will not expand further on these points.

It certainly doesn’t seem credible that they’re out of prison this soon.

All right then : should a person have to make amends for their entire lifespan for an act they committed as a ten year old child ?

YES!

If they pinched a Mars bar from a sweet shop that would be different. They didn’t. And yes Jonesy is absolutely right. They should be permanently excluded from society. Jamie Bulger was two when he was killed. He didn’t just die, as Jonesy says, he was tortured and then killed. He had an expectancy of living somewhere around sixty to eighty years but he was only allowed two. Not because of illness or a freak accident but because two people who can only be described as evil deprived him of that.

And they got eight years. How many children in the UK over the past thirty or forty years have done what they did? That gives you an idea just how ‘wrong’ they were.

They knew precisely what they were doing and as such should pay a hefty price.

Regards,

kev35

Nevertheless,they were still children.
You say,quite rightly,that we protect the weak and vulnerable.I can’t quite put into words the point I want to make without sounding as rhough I’m making some sort of excuse for what they did,which I absolutely am not.
If this murder had been carried out by an adult,it would have been horrific enough,but it was done by two people who were still children themselves.Whether you want to describe them as ” these two creatures ” or worse, they were CHILDREN.
How can they possibly be judged for their actions as though they were on equal terms with adults ?

As I see it, the purpose of any custodial sentence is to attempt to reform the criminal, to punish them, to protect society from them and to provide some revenge for their victims. Those keen on penal reform would doubtless want to emphasis the reform part and play down the others (especially the revenge – not very liberal). I heard a rumour that Venables had attacked a work colleague. In that case he’s definitely not been reformed by his experiences, and it looks as though his sentence failed on all the other counts as well.

His next stay inside should be long.