BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility

Subject: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 03:53 AM

Apparently, some now feel that at 10 years old, the boys who viciously and savagely tortured and murdered little Jamie Bulger, were too young to be convicted of their crime.

It's thought that children of that age have no real understanding of the consequences of their actions.

So, let me get this right....


If you deliberately set out one morning to steal a child, take him to a railway line, physically abuse and torture him, leave him to die in front of a train, you don't know that what you're doing is wrong?????

And then, years later, after you've been given a whole new identity, probably hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of 'expert' help from crowds of people, you get arrested for serious offences regarding child pornography.........................?

Is James Venables STILL not responsible?

Don't get me wrong, I understand that something, somewhere, inside those two boys is seriously wrong, whether it be parental or pathological, but seriously, are we going to say that any 10 year old child has freedom to do anything at all and not be charged?????????

I cannot even begin to imagine the rage inside Jamie's mother. It must burn inside her every single day, along with a horror and a sorrow so deep that most of cannot even touch it....

My sympathies lie entirely with that little boy, in this case.

And I feel that if a 10 year old is capable of that kind of deeply shocking crime, then he should also be capable of enduring, and accepting, the consequences of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 04:02 AM

Too young to be treated in exactly the same way an adult would be - not too young to be removed from society for an INDEFINITE period of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Dead Horse
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 04:15 AM

Cut & pasted from news site:
The age of criminal responsibility should be raised from 10 to 12, says England's children's commissioner.
Maggie Atkinson said the killers of James Bulger should have undergone "programmes" to help turn their lives around, rather than being prosecuted.
Most criminals under 12 did not fully understand their actions, she said.
...............................................................
How about adding an Upper Limit to the age of responsibility?
As we get older we can look forward to being seen as less responsible, so when I reach that hoped for Upper Limit, I shall get me a nice gun and go seek out a few names I have from my hit list.
Then I would be put on a 'programme' and given a new identity while enjoying the benefits of a full NHS service and possibly a well earned break in the sun on a tropical island of my choosing.
There I would lie back and contemplate the error of my ways in my increasing dotage.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 04:37 AM

Dead Horse, don't forget to include free dental treatment, so you can bite people again, if you can still remember why...

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 04:53 AM

There's a reason why we have age minimums for things like driving, drinking, voting, signing contracts, becoming soldiers, etc. Those reasons are the same as the reasons why we should have minimum ages for trying people as adults. They have to do with brain development, judgement, and myelin sheaths. Juveniles should be tried as juveniles and adults should be tried as adults. It seems to me people ought to be able to understand how this works.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 05:09 AM

What Carol said.

Also, I don't know how a child can be rehabilitated after doing such a thing.

Are there any recorded instances, stories from ancient days (barring Cain and Abel) of how this would be dealt with? Did villages turn out deviants, leaving them to starve/freeze? Was that more civilised than putting them in juvenile facilities where they would be further corrupted and corrupting others?

If a child who has committed murder can and has been rehabilitated, how does s/he live with what s/he? Is it more cruel to make him/her face that guilt until they die or kill themselves?

This is an impossible topic.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: bubblyrat
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 05:30 AM

Of course it is an impossible topic,because nobody,especially those in government,has been willing or indeed able,to accept the fact that wrongdoing,especially murder,should be PUNISHED !! As long as anti-social behaviour and criminality are perceived by the young,as being not only acceptable but un-punishable,then things can only get worse.There cannot be a child in Britain today who does not know that people like Ian Huntley,or the Yorkshire Ripper,are "detained" in conditions of some ease & comfort,constantly monitored to prevent suicide attempts,well-fed,allowed access to pornography (it is their "right",apparently)and encouraged to study various subjects,including theology and,probably,criminology !!
                   Some "punishment" !!! No,bring back Borstals,make them strict,disciplinarian,forbidding places,and make certain that the little devils who end up there are left in no doubt as to just how disapproving of their crimes & actions society,as a whole ,really is.Then get rid of all the do-gooders and wishy-washy Liberal hand-wringers who infest our once-admired and highly efficient justice system. And,above all, let us have more support,understanding and sympathy for the VICTIMS of crime,and their families !! Venables and his chum can GO TO HELL !

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: bubblyrat
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 05:34 AM

Oh yes ! Sorry, but I would have used the word "Raising", not "Highering" ( whatever it means ??)---no wonder children today can't communicate effectively if ADULTS can't !!

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 05:48 AM

Trying them as juveniles doesn't mean they go unpunished. It means they are punished in an age appropriate manner. And it also means we always consider rehabilitation a possibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 05:56 AM

VT - maybe one place to start would be to read the history of Mary Bell who

'(born May 26, 1957 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England) was convicted in December 1968 of the manslaughter of two boys, Martin Brown (aged four years) and (with her friend Norma) Brian Howe (aged three years).
Bell was ten years old at the time of one of the killings, and eleven at the time of the other.'

On 17 December 1968, Norma was acquitted but Mary was convicted of "manslaughter due to diminished responsibility", the jury taking their lead from her diagnosis by court-appointed psychiatrists who described her as displaying "classic symptoms of psychopathology". She was sentenced to be "detained at Her Majesty's pleasure": effectively an indefinite sentence of imprisonment.

Mary Bell was housed at the Red Bank Special Unit from February 1969 until November 1973 when she was transferred to the womens facility at Styal prison.

She was released May 14, 1980, and stayed in Suffolk
After moving back in with her mother, she met a young man and became pregnant.
There was great concern over whether the woman who had murdered two children should be able to become a mother herself, yet she fought for the right to keep her child, which was born in 1984.
She was allowed to keep the child, who was technically a ward of the court until 1992

Her daughter did not know of her mother's past until Bell's location was discovered by reporters and she and her mother had to leave their house with bed sheets over their heads.

The daughter's anonymity was originally protected until she reached the age of 18. However, on 21 May 2003, Bell won a High Court battle to have her own anonymity and that of her daughter extended for life.
Any court order permanently protecting the identity of someone is consequently known as a Mary Bell Order.

Mary's own childhood was 'a nightmare of abandonment and drug overdoses.' which were probably administered by her mother.

much more about Mary's childhood etc here

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 06:25 AM

Thank you Emma... That is precisely what I was looking for. So I imagine and hope that Mary (and possibly her daughter if needed) receive appropriate psychological care.

Perpetrators typically come from being victims first. I do not like the concept of punishment. I believe it reinforces negative behaviour. Correction and rehabilitation is the remit and responsibility of civilisation.

BTW bubblyrat... pointing out that someone has used (in your opinion) a wrong word is impolite and mean spirited. Same as correcting a mispronunciation.

High"er*ing\, a. Rising higher; ascending.
In ever highering eagle circles. --Tennyson.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 06:39 AM

Quite so, Virginia: which illustrates that BR was right to point out that OP had used the wrong word, as she meant "raising" [making higher], not 'highering' which, as you point out, means rising higher]. It was arguably ill-mannered, as you claim, to raise the point; but your supposed demolition of his point proves the opposite to what you intended.

As to the topic of the thread: this silly woman Atkinson seems to imagine that 10-year-olds are incapable of recognising that beating a little boy to death with a brick and leaving his body on a railway line to get cut in half by a train is a verryveryveryvery NAUGHTY thing to do. I knew that when I was 10. Didn't she? Didn't you? Didn't everybody?

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 06:46 AM

Yes I knew it was naughty. But I bet the neighbour kid who beat up my baby brother didn't know it was naughty to do so, because he was alternately ignored / beaten by his parents.

He had an utterly different view of what "wrong behaviour" was compared to me, who's parents taught me that you don't pick on smaller and weaker people. They taught me that bullying is wrong. The neighbour kid's parents taught him that bullying is right.

Geddit!?!?

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 06:47 AM

A child of 10 is not capable of forming judgements independently from the adults who have shaped its formative experiences. This is because the myelin sheath is not developed until much later. For this reason, if the adults in the child's life are modeling bad behavior, even if the child is told that such behavior is bad, the child will not fully understand the "badness" of it, nor the ramifications of bad behaviors. I don't know anything about this particular child's home environment while growing up, but there are many reasons why a child of 10 could be unable to form appropriate judgements.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 08:35 AM

""Juveniles should be tried as juveniles and adults should be tried as adults. It seems to me people ought to be able to understand how this works.""

They are Carol, and Jamie's killers were tried as juveniles, convicted as juveniles, and incarcerated in a facility for young offenders, separate from the adult prison system.

What is being proposed here, is that they should not have been tried at all, because they were too young to know that torture and murder are wrong.

Even a puppy can be taught, at a very early age that it is wrong to crap on the carpet, so you'll excuse me if I find that argument ridiculous in the extreme.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 09:07 AM

I misunderstood. Here in the US, the debate is always about when to try a juvenile as an adult (something that is becoming more popular and at ever younger ages). We don't, as a nation, have the debate that you are having in the UK, because we don't have a national standard minimum age of criminal responsibility, and many states don't have one, either. I agree that it's a difficult discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 09:22 AM

The proposition is that in England and Wales the age of criminal responsilility be raised to bring us in line with other European counties - although the Nordic countries, for example, all set the age at fifteen years


This does NOT mean absolving children from what would be a crime if committed by an adult.

At the present an offence committed by a child under the age of criminal responsibility is dealt with under civil child care proceedings, designed for children that need compulsory measures of care, rather than a criminal court either juvenile or adult

Last March ministers confirmed the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland was to be raised to 12 to bring Scotland into line with most of Europe
The Scottish Government said the rise would not mean "letting off" younger offenders.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said it was more appropriate to deal with them in the children's hearings system.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 09:27 AM

In the US, all children who are charged as juveniles are dealth with through juvenile court, and the determination for how to handle the child is not pre-determined. In my state, the minimum age is 6, which, if they were dealth with in the adult courts, I would consider to be barbaric.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 10:01 AM

Well that's true in the UK too Carol a juvenile would not normally be dealt with in an adult court but in a Youth/juvenile court without the media, or jury of peers

The law states that reports of a case at a Youth Court must not contain any particulars which could lead to the identification of any child or young person involved in the case as a defendant or witness.
In particular it bans the names, addresses or names of schools and the use of any photograph of the young person.
However, the Crime Sentences Act 1997 gives a Youth Court the power to lift the ban on identifying a young person when he is convicted if the magistrates believe it would be in the public interest


The two boys who killed James Bulger however, went on public trial in an adult court in 1993

Venables and Thompson were required to sit in a raised dock, separated from their parents "with the formal panoply of the adult criminal trial involving judge and counsel in wigs and gowns"
The fact that it is unlikely that the boys understood points of law which arose or the "evidential intricacies" has never been disputed.

At the time of the conviction there was international criticism of the English practice of trying juveniles in adult courts in some instances

A 'senior Tory spokesman' said in response to this criticism

"The British judicial system is more than capable of making a reasoned decision on which kind of court juveniles are tried in.
This was a particularly heinous crime which gravely offended public sensitivity.
The decision to hear this case in an adult court reflected therefore the severity of the case."

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 10:11 AM

So it sounds like they were dealt with in the same way as children are here in the US when they are "tried as adults". Which is the debate I was talking about in an earlier post. This is a raging debate here in the US because a lot of people with mindsets that are more punitive than constructive, think that there are kinds of crimes that are "adult crimes", and that if a child is old enough to commit an "adult crime", he or she is old enough to be tried as an adult. Personally, I think people like that must be totally brainwashed by our media, because if they weren't, they would be able to see right through that argument. On the other hand, I could be giving them too much credit.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 10:37 AM

I would not raise the age of responsibility either. Multiple reasons.

Firstly, kids seem to be getting more mature earlier nowadays. Whether that is real or just perception I do not know but I am pretty sure that by the age of 10 most kids know the difference between right and wrong. Thers is something astray if they don't anyway.

Second reason - Can you just imagine those 12 year olds that already know their 'rights' and why teachers, law enforcers and responsible adults cannot do anything about their anti-social behavior! I am not saying they are the norm - far from it - but there are enough of them to make anyone realise that we should not be handing them carte blanche for their misdeeds.

Finaly - Imagine if some of the anti-social families that plague some areas though that thier 12 year old darling Chardonnays and Waynes could be sent out to commit crimes with no repercussion? The Dickensian Fagin would be made to look like a liberal social worker!

Not sure if we should be discussing punishment itself here as it does not have a direct bearing on the age of reason but as it has been mentioned I will state, once again, why puniushment alone is not the answer, People do not commit crimes expecting to be caught. They expect to get away with it or they would not do it. Whatever the punishment is is not a deterent. The real deterent would be to ensure the punishment is just and that there is a very big risk that the criminal will be caught. Even if we hung people for theft, if only 25% of the thefts ever result in sucessful prosecution (I don't know the current figure - sorry - 25% is just an example) then people would still steal becasue there is a good chance they will get away with it. Don't believe for one minute that increasing sentances will reduce crime. Crime still happened when we used to hang, draw and quarter people.

In addition, while I agree that punishment is an important part of the process, particulary from the victims point of view, there are many instances where re-habilitation can go hand in hand with it. Particularly with young or first offenders. taking us back full circle to the age of responsibility. Punish them by all means. Take away their liberty. Make them do something useful as well though and forcing them to undergo facing themselves can be a lot scarier than most people think!

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 11:02 AM

They may look like they're maturing earlier these days, and in terms of sexual development, they are (the ubiquity of estrogen in the environment is a likely contributor to that state of affairs), but their brains still take just as long to develop as they always have. The frontal lobes (the area of the brain that is responsible for impulse control and judgement) are not fully myelinized until well into adolescence. So you really can't go by appearances to determine how mature a young person is, or how able they are to form sound judgements. Would you let a ten year old drive your car on the highway?

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 01:30 PM

That's true Carol, but all I am saying is that I think that, by 10, they should know the difference bertween right and wrong. I still don't see any purpose in raising the age of responsibility but I accept your point that my perception of earlier maturing was not right. By that token it would be equaly wrong to lower the age of responsibilty.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 02:06 PM

There is no such word as "highering". by the way. Just ain't. In English, anyway, the word used for that concept is "raising". "Higher" is an adjective, and also homonymic to the verb "hire" but is not a verb in any known form.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 02:14 PM

There is hiring though, Amos. Why anyone would want to hire the age of criminal responsibility is beyond me, but far be it from me to comment on ther peoples predilections...


D.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 06:53 PM

The two boys responsible for killing James Bulger were truanting from school that day. There were problems with them well before this tragedy happened and Jon had missed registration (normally twice a day) 50 times out of 140 that term. This was being followed up and maybe if it had been followed up more quickly this particular tragedy may not have happened.

It isn't right for a child to be treated in an adult hospital ward, it isn't right for a child to be imprisoned in an adult prison and it isn't right for a child be tried as an adult.

However, when children have the problems that these two boys appear to have had then the authorities need be absolutely sure before they eventually release them, otherwise they are not doing anybody any favours.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 07:03 PM

Raising the age of criminal responsibility and saying that any 10 year old child has freedom to do anything at all and not be charged are not quite the same thing. They may not be charged as adults but action would most certainly be taken.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 07:33 PM

Exactly eanjay it would just mean that an 11 year old child who had committed an offence would be treated in the same manner that a child of 9 years and 11 months who had committed an offence is now -

ie under civil child care proceedings, designed for children that need compulsory measures of care, in England and Wales and in the children's hearings system in Scotland.

The 'outcome' may be pretty similar.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 07:38 PM

I have long held the view that the doli incapax rule is wrong, in either form.

It should be open to be argued in a child's defence that through no fault of his own he did not appreciate that what he was doing was wrong, but time and time again one sees children very capable of arguing the law relating to minors "You can't touch me, I'll get you locked up" if upbraded for antisocial behaviour, going on in early course to argue that the presumption of innocence in either form applies.

With respect, eanjay, I am not clear that you have got the UK law right.

As for Venables, I am inclined to think that society would have been better off without him.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 07:41 PM

I probably haven't worded it very well either :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 10:00 PM

I remember being really shocked when I learned the very successful mystery writer, Anne Perry whose books I've always enjoyed, helped her friend murder her friend's mother when a young girl in Australia. There's more about it HERE and, I am sure, elsewhere on the Internet.

Also, for an extremely good book, even though it's fiction, I would highly recommend reading What Came Before He Shot Her by Elizabeth George of the Inspector Lynley series. WCBHSH is about the young man who shot and killed Lynley's pregnant wife in the book just before it. What Came seems to me to be an excellent look into the socio-economic background of society and how a good kid trying their best can wind up in such a horrible situation as murdering someone.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 06:15 AM

I am just so fed up with what passes for 'reporting' in this country.

Dr Maggie Atkinson, Children's Commissioner was recently interviewed on a number of topical subjects.

She believes that children need to be better protected in the criminal justice system.

On the subject of the boys who killed James Bulger and raising the age of criminal responsibility she said -

"The age of criminal responsibility in this country is ten — that's too low, it should certainly be moved up to 12.
In some European countries it's 14.
People may be offenders but they are also children.
Even the most hardened of youngsters who have committed some very difficult crimes are not beyond being frightened."

She thinks that it was wrong for Jon Venables and Robert Thompson to be tried in an adult court.

"....the fact that a little boy ended up dead is not something that the nation can easily forget.
But they shouldn't have been tried in an adult court because they were still children."

"None of us is born a good person or an evil person.
The backgrounds from which we come, and whether we are nurtured and secure, will shape our character.
The adults who role-model for us — or don't — will change who we become, for better or worse. I'm far more a believer in nurture than nature."

At no point in the interview did she say that no action should have been taken over Venables and Thompson.

What she DID say was -

"In most Western European nations they have a completely different way of intervening with youngsters who've committed crime.
Most of their approaches are more therapeutic, more family and community-based, more about reparation than simply locking somebody up."


And what was the second news item on this mornings BBC radio headlines?

James Bulger's mother Denise Fergus has called for "insensitive" Children's Commissioner for England Maggie Atkinson to be sacked.!


I recently stumbled across an article from Oct 2000 when Lord Woolf had announced that Thompson and Venables were likely to be released the following year and given new names and identities

A year after the killing of James Bulger in Norway two boys kicked a five-year-old girl repeatedly.
They stripped her and stoned her and beat her till she was unconscious.
Then they left Silje Ræderg rd in the snow to freeze to death.

The article compares at the way these two crimes were treated and reported - including an interview with Silje's mother

"No, they were punished enough by what they did. They have to live with that. I think everybody has got to be treated like a human being. The children had to be educated, had to learn how to treat other people so they could get back into society."

full article

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 06:40 AM

Yes, Em, a thoroughly striking antidote to British tabloid generated mobs set on vengeance. The people responded with sensitivity, intelligence, pragmatism, strength and compassion. But then all the Norwegians I've known, have been very direct and sensible people - absent of hysterics and emotive drama. A very different cultural mindset I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 07:36 AM

And I cannot believe how a story can be used to mean different things to different people.

If you read the full Norweigan story here you will see how the little girl's mother hardly ever goes out, cannot work, because she suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

You will also read that the 6 year old killers were known to her daughter, as they were her friends. It was a game that went horribly wrong, and when their friend fell into unconsciousness after they had kicked her, they ran away, terrified, leaving her to die in the snow, unwittingly leaving her to die....

Jamie Bulger's mother has to live with the memory of having her little boy holding her hand once second, in the shop...then him not being there the next. She has to live with the film of her dear little lad being deliberately taken out of that shopping centre, by his 10 year old killers. She has to live with the knowledge of what they did to him, how they tortured him, tied him to a railroad track and left him to be run over, DELIBERATELY.

It was not a 'game' that went wrong. It is utterly different from the Norweigan case in many, many ways. The ONLY thing that is the same is that both mothers are without their chidlren for the rest of their lives.

One of the killers of Jamie is now back in prison for child pornography offences.


With regards to Mary Bell, imo, I think she should have lost the right to keep her child. Harsh? Probably. But there are two mothers lost their rights when Mary and her friend murdered their sons. They will live a life sentence that will never end until they die, as will Jamie's mother.   Venables should lose his right to be a father too...I don't know about the other one, so I can't really judge. But what the hell is right about child killers getting their lives back, then one day, holding their own babies, when they have utterly destroyed the lives of others, both through death and through grief?

If there is a true begging to be forgiven, then yes, forgiveness can happen, I suppose, but if there is none, then it is very, very hard for the family of the murdered child to forgive.


The Norweigan mother, will also live her life that way, but with a slightly different feeling inside. Her child was not deliberately murdered.....Obviously, because she no longer wishes to go out and has post traumatic stress syndrome shows that her life is far from dandy.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but there ya go.

No-one has the right to criticise Jamie's mother, because no-one has even the slightest beginnings of understanding as to what that poor woman has to live with, each and every single day.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 07:52 AM

"They stripped her and stoned her and beat her till she was unconscious. Then they left Silje Ræderg rd in the snow to freeze to death."

Yes, a very bad incident. No less terrifying than the Bulger case.

Are you suggesting that it's the fact that the little girls Mother has forgiven those boys for murdering her daughter, has given her PTSD? Do you think if she hadn't forgiven them, she would now be healthy and well?

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 07:57 AM

Human nature being what it is I suspect she would be a lot happier if she had been enabled to execute those two children. This is not a statement that she would have been right, merely an observation about human nature.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 08:01 AM

I think you are wrong Richard. Forgiveness - if one is able - releases people from a great deal of extra suffering caused by rage on top of the grief.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 08:26 AM

'Human nature' is frequently thought to be not only negative, but permanently fixed:
"There will always be good people and evil people" and "You can't change human nature."

Others would disagree pointing out that

"'Human nature' is flexible and multifaceted, and that the behaviors of human beings are shaped by their social circumstances.
We are all capable of greed as well as generosity; which one gets expressed has more to do with the values of a society than with the inborn tendencies of the individual"

Revenge often (but not always) twists and perverts people into hateful, resentful, and bitter beings.

Denise Bulger – now called Fergus has campaigned (as is her right), unsuccessfully, for Thompson and Venables to be kept in prison for the rest of their lives and for that sentence be served in an adult jail.

In an interview with the News of the World she described herself as "paralysed with hatred" after she claimed she had tracked the adult Thompson down.

Interviewed on ITV's This Morning, when Phillip Schofield suggested there may have been other motivating factors behind the violence from the two 10-year-olds, Denise Fergus said she had never been able to believe that.
She said: "The two of them are pure evil in my eyes."

This is not a criricism of Denise Fergus - there but for grace - but it is a comment that 'human nature' is not always synonymous with hate.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 08:54 AM

I think that the problem is that people in general, me included until a few years ago, are under the impression that juvenille courts are the 'soft' option. The popular press know this and are pandering to it. Like Emma, earlier, I am sick of the press and popular media. I have said as much in many threads and the sooner these parasites are regulated the better as far as I am concerned. The fact that people pick up on the headlines rather than investigating what is the real truth just underlines what can and does happen.

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 09:33 AM

Simon Jenkins is a journalist and author as well as broadcasting for the BBC so he may be either accused of biting the hand that feeds him or as having a unique insight when he writes

"The chief enemy of British freedom at present is the British press"

"Following a possible breach in Venables' new identity, he was pursued and allegedly caught with pornography on his computer.
It is unclear whether this allegation, while sufficient to send him back to prison, would be enough for him to stand trial.

The media took up the cry.

BBC News, now chasing ratings with tabloid fervour, covered the Venables case extensively.
His crime was "almost too terrible to contemplate", it announced, before contemplating it at length.
The tabloids went into full outrage mode.
The Sun offered perhaps the most prejudicial front page in modern times, declaring: "On a scale of 1 to 5, Venables' child porn rated 4."

Leading a pack that included the Mirror and Mail titles, the Sun was unfazed by an attempted government injunction of restraint.
It wrote of "experts horrified" at Venables' computer material, "among the most depraved and serious anyone could possess" and involving "an element of sexual violence against children". There was no sign of Venables having done more than allegedly look at porn images.

Denise Fergus, who was demanding "justice" and the "right to know". Why victims' families should enjoy special rights long after a case is over is not explained.

The history of justice is of the channelling of personal vendetta and communal revenge into the rule of law.
Now the law seems to be going backwards, towards the lynch mob."

full article 9th March

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 10:06 AM

In Germany, we have the age of criminal responsibility at 14 and there are some discussions to lower it to twelve. Quite recently, an old woman was tortured for hours by two 13 year old boys and nearly died. The boys will not be punished.

The second step comes between 18 and 21. Below 18, the perpetrator has to be punished by a special youth court with 10 years being the maximal sentence even for multiple murder. And, other than for adults, after half of the time, that is after 5 years in jail, the youth may be set free if the prognosis is good.

After 21, adult law has to be applied and between 18 and 21, youth law may be applied depending upon the maturity of the respective guy.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 10:24 AM

"They are not criminally accountable and can't be prosecuted," -
chief detective Frank Hellwig

Is this the same as they will not be 'punished' in any way?

I'm assuming, rightly or wrongly as I know little about German Child Care legislation (maybe Wolfgang could elaborate), that they will be subject to the authority of the equivalent of social work/child care agencies instead of the law enforcement agencies.

I'm also assuming that Germany subscribes to the international treaty for children's rights, under which children can't be "punished" in the same way as adults.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 10:42 AM

You're right, Emma, in what you assume, "not punished" (as an adult) does not mean child care agencies sit back and do nothing with kids under 14 of age.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 11:09 AM

In theory taking a child into care is not a punishment.

Curiously my late wife (a social worker) used to say that one of the most difficult things about a decision to take a child into care was that you knew that doing so would cause harm to the child, but you had to decide whether not taking them into care would do more harm.

Her mother (who had also been if not a qualified social worker then at least in charge of a home for children in care) was sure that she herself had done untold good, but you know what mothers in law are like.   

I think my brother in law who was a forensic social worker (whatever that means, but he worked on at least one very high-profile murder case) declined to express a view.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 06:57 PM

"Quite recently, an old woman was tortured for hours by two 13 year old boys and nearly died. The boys will not be punished." Wolfgang

I don't understand: later you go on to say that "not punished" (as an adult) does not mean that "child care agencies sit back and do nothing with kids under 14 of age" Why do you say they will NOT be punished? Did you misspeak? I would like to know what processes are usual for underage miscreants.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 10:06 PM

Ebbie, are you in England? Being taken into care is not a punishment.

Of course, Wolfgang is in Germany but surely you see the basic difference between criminal proceedings and care proceedings, don't you?

doli incapax

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Mar 10 - 01:32 AM

I'm currently on dialup, so someone else can search for this... it's interesting and highly relevant.

Recently an Aussie Supreme Court (Vic I think) overturned a tribunal ruling that a child bullied at school was not eligible for victim compensation (under certain state leglislation) because the offenders were children under the legal age where they were 'protected' because of the legal fiction that they were too young to form intent.

Interesting, no? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 15 Mar 10 - 03:31 AM

"Revenge often (but not always) twists and perverts people into hateful, resentful, and bitter beings."


The need for revenge is often born because justice is not felt to have been done.

It is the duty of the police, the lawyers, the judges of this land, along with politicians and society at large to ensure that our legal system DOES give out the correct sentence for crimes. The legal system has been failing thousands of people for decades.

Jamie's mother feels those two boys are 'pure evil'. So far, with Venables continuing on his path of perverse obsession with children, it would seem she is right.

Her innocent little son was murdered in the most horrendous way imaginable. Those visions are with her, inside her, for the remainder of her days. The overwhelming grief she must feel cannot be felt by others. She is absolutely right to feel as she does, because the killers of HER child were let out after a few years, given new identities, new lives.   One of those killers has now gone on to be arrested, this time as an adult, for more crimes against children.

What happens next?

Already they are saying that Venables won't be able to have a 'fair' trial, and also, of course...any trial will blow his cover.

Sorry, but why does he have a cover anyway?

In the link below is a summary of what they did to her little son. Please do NOT read it if you are easily upset, because it is horrific:

Gruesome details of Jamie's death

She has to live with the scene of her little boy's suffering, every single day of her life. The terror, the horror, the feeling of him calling out for her and she wasn't there.

They have tortured the mother, as well as the son, but they will continue to torture her, for life.


To lose a child is the worst thing that can happen to a mother...a father too...but to lose a child in this way.......well, there are no words to describe it...

They set out that day with the full intention of abducting a child and pushing it into busy traffic.

Denise is right. They are pure evil.

If it had been one of my children, I would not rest until I had hunted them both down and dealt out my own form of justice.

EIGHT years for what they did?????? And Venables, far from being curled up in horror and shock even to this day over what he did back then, is out there looking at pornographic images of little children.

Every morning she must wake up feeling that her son should be there, he should be there to see the sunrise, feel the warmth on his face.   He will never feel that. His killers will.

No wonder she feels as she does. I have nothing but the utmost sympathy for her...and every single court in the land should be behind this poor lady.

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 15 Mar 10 - 06:13 AM

Venables & Thompson were charged and processed at the age of 10 under the prevailing UK legal system and sentenced for crimes proved thereunder. Under most other legal systems this would not have occurred at all but they would have been placed on a rehabilitation programme suitable for children under the age of criminal responsibility. There is a body of opinion which feels that the age of 10 is too low and seek to raise it. They may or may not be correct or even feasible but the point is that the legal system is there to uphold the law, not to foment revenge and retribution. This is Old Testament savagery far worse than the original offence. It is, furthermore, unhelpful to speculate on what one of these "convicted murderers" may have done while out on licence. To do so diminishes the prospect of a fair trial and is absolutely not in the interests of "justice".

Subject: RE: BS: Highering Age of Criminal Responsibility
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 15 Mar 10 - 06:17 AM

"the legal system is there to uphold the law, not to foment revenge and retribution."

Absolutely spot on post.