Monday 8 March 2010

Poster Child For The Labour Generation

Jon Venables has been heavily discussed all over the weekend; Angry Exile, over in a whole other continent, notes that you can hardly pick up a newspaper or switch on a news report without seeing the latest speculation or rumour being discussed eagerly by talking heads.

As Leg-Iron points out, for most, it's all about Venables.The bleeding hearts are out in force, as the 'rehabilitation' banner starts to droop in the mud.

Erwin James (CiF’s tame ex-prisoner columnist) take a predictably sympathetic look at the Venables recall:
The arrest of Jon Venables, convicted alongside Robert Thompson of the murder of James Bulger in November 1993, calls into question the idea that people convicted of serious offences, especially those convicted of murder, can ever be "rehabilitated".
It does?

That’s a surprising thing for Erwin to adm…

Ah:
Or does it?
Yeah, that’s more like it…
A prison governor once told me that his problem with rehabilitation was that, "as a society we believe in it – but we are not sure how rehabilitated we want prisoners to be". That is because, first and foremost, we insist on inflicting punishment on those who cause us serious harm and distress.
We do? Oh, my god! We’re the monsters..!
We want them to suffer. Perhaps if they suffer enough they might stop harming people. Although, if we think about it, we also want perpetrators to come out of prison less likely to do it again to us, or to anyone else. So we provide a measure of rehabilitative facilities in prison; education programmes, counselling, work skills training.
And if they choose not to take that up, Erwin?
The problems that cause criminal dysfunction in those we imprison – mental health issues, social inadequacies, behavioural and psychological difficulties – are varied and myriad and because of our reluctance to commit seriously to rehabilitation, what we provide in relation to the scale of the need barely scratches the surface.
In Erwinland, no one is ever bad. Just mad or ‘disadvantaged’…
We know little about his life and that of his co-accused in the years since they were convicted of murdering Bulger. At the time when they killed the toddler they were both 10 years old. It was obvious to anyone who read about their lives before the crime that their formative years had been abusive and damaging.
As had a lot of children. Ones who didn’t go on to abduct and murder babies…
They were rough kids who had experienced more of life's degradations than any child should. They knew about life on the streets.
But that’s not what made them unique, is it, Erwin?

If that was the sole cause of the crime, then there’d be an epidemic of baby murder by ten-year-olds.

When are people going to realise it isn’t nature OR nurture, but a combination of the two?
Worldwide injunctions have helped to maintain a veil of secrecy over their lives, though intermittent leaks and whispers indicate that both have been able to form loving relationships. It is known that Venables, believed to be a born-again Christian, had settled down and was planning to marry. But he is also reported to have been involved in several aggression-related incidents over the years, including one in December 2007 when he was said to have been stabbed after accusing someone of chatting up his girlfriend.
That doesn’t sound much like a ‘loving relationship’ to me, Erwin…
. If Venables has committed a serious crime then due process must be followed. But for this failure, however trivial or grave it turns out to be, we all must share some of the responsibility.
No. No, we must not.

‘We’ share none of the responsibility – if it truly were up to ‘us’ these creatures would have been kept behind bars for the rest of their natural lives.

It was the judiciary, totally unaccountable to ‘us’, that allowed their release.
According to Dr Bob Johnson, former consultant psychiatrist for five years at maximum-security Parkhurst prison, where he instituted a radical therapy regime for some of the most dangerous murderers in the country and where his methods achieved unprecedented results, "all murder is a tantrum/revenge, and when murderers 'grow up', they will/can/have no possible need to murder again – once the damage is cleaned out 100%, then it is gone for good. All murder is infantile in origin, the cure is emotional maturation. Once this is achieved it is better to exercise social skills than killing skills."
Well, that’s just fine and dandy for Dr Bob, but may I ask, how many of these ‘rehabilitated’ killers does he have over to stay at his house?

What’s that? None?

How surprising...
My fear is that he will never be safe in prison, for prison is the most difficult place to keep secrets. The longer Venables is in there, the more he will be at risk of having his secret identity blown - and with it any chance at all of resuming his rehabilitation. And that would not be justice for James Bulger.
That rather presupposes that ‘justice for James Bulger’ is served by allowing his killers to walk free once more.

Even in the Guardian, there’s not many that agree with that…

And it's a measure of the public dissatisfaction with and suspicion of the government that Anna Raccoon's speculation on the timing of the announcement of his recall seemed not just plausible, but likely.

6 comments:

Longrider said...

What is it with these idiots? I have no responsibility for Venables' crime. None. That is his responsibility alone. Those two boys chose to kill Bulger and at ten years old they were plenty old enough to be aware of what they were doing. The usual "poor background" bollocks is cockwaffle and we, the rest of us are not responsible for it.

From the snippets we have been drip fed, I get the feeling that he has been incapable of reintegrating under an assumed identity. I have a problem with this speculation as it undermines any future trial, not just for him but for any defendant of a similar age facing similar charges.

Anonymous said...

Venables was the kid who was not from a broken home or poor home but, by all acounts, from a very loving family.

At the time, there was speculation that it was Thompson that led Venables on. Now I'm not so sure.

Wonder whether Erwin would say the same about Sutcliffe, Hindley, Brady etc. Some people are better locked up for our own good.

Dangerouslysubversivedad said...

Gotta laugh at the fact they didn't even bother opening comments, let alone closing them after one terrified look.

blueknight said...

Jack Straw's diIemma is that if 'V' goes to Court, the jury will guess who really is and find him guilty accordingly. (I assume the Judge will know) We do not know what 'V' has done. The rumour changes by the day. It looks to be serious otherwise they would settle for a recall.
I like others wonder if this would have been swept under the carpet had not the story broken. The co accused Thompson is said to have been rehabilitated, but, if he is still offending, how are we the public ever going to know.
As I have said before, they could be living in the same street as any of us and we do not know if we could have been at risk. This comes on the day that a convicted sex offender has been convicted again for the rape and murder of the girl he met on facebook.

JuliaM said...

"From the snippets we have been drip fed.."

That drip feeding is still ongoing too. This is being druiven by the media now.

"At the time, there was speculation that it was Thompson that led Venables on. Now I'm not so sure. "

It's possible Venables was a lot smarter, rather than more passive. I wonder if anyone considered that?

"Gotta laugh at the fact they didn't even bother opening comments, let alone closing them after one terrified look."

Indeed! CiF is starting to know its audience...

"I like others wonder if this would have been swept under the carpet had not the story broken."

I wonder more and more just how this story broke in the first place...

Ashtrayhead said...

I've just received a text message which is doing the rounds and it supposedly originates from a prison officer and gives Venables new name, the offence he's been put back inside for, where it happened and what unit he was kept in.