Paul Vallely:
The public wants violent criminals to be locked up. When the criminal is a child who has perpetrated a coldly sadistic act, many people's first instinct is to want that evil banished from the public gaze for a very long time, if not indefinitely.David Wilson:
But when our heads overrule our hearts we want something more. We want children – like the two young brothers from Edlington, near Doncaster, who were sentenced yesterday to indefinite detention for shocking acts of gratuitous violence against two young children – to understand and acknowledge the impact of their actions. We want them to demonstrate genuine contrition. We want them to be changed.
As for thinking of them as "evil" this might bring some form of temporary comfort to many. Labelling them in this way absolves us from having to acknowledge that no child is born "evil" but any child can quickly become socialised into doing awful things – and seeing such behaviour as "normal" – if the only thing that has characterised their upbringing has been abuse and neglect...So, given the relative youth of these two boys, an indeterminate sentence with at least five years is probably about right, and already we have been advised that – removed from the toxic world they were being brought up in – they are responding well. However, we should not expect any quick fixes, nor pander to any knee-jerk demands that their identity should be revealed, or that they should spend the rest of their lives locked up.Loretta Loach:
Some might go so far as to say that it is inappropriate to subject these children to a hearing in a criminal court, let alone issue them with a custodial sentence. Again, like the Bulger case, this raises the question of whether children so young should receive punishment for such crimes when the evidence shows they are profoundly disturbed.Barbara Ellen:
...the "feral underclass" become the human equivalent of toxic waste – people don't care how or where they dump it, so long as it's nowhere near them. However, if we accept this culture of learnt indifference, and that it helps create and sustain social deprivation ghettos, don't we also have to accept the consequences?Who knew a disgusting crime could be the personal springboard for all kinds of social theories?
Indeed, while this case is appalling, it is even more sickening that those who live by "them and us" are the first to make a noise when the trouble starts. Enter Cameron. "Broken Britain"?
Tell the people who've had to live in these areas (some since the Tories were in power) something they don't know.
Theories be damned, what those two did was sick, yet if they can be rehabilitated so be it, though I suspect they'll be fairly institutionalised by the time anyone thinks to release them back (at massive cost in new identities etc) However the questions cameron raised were valid enough even if he did have an agenda behind them. Parts of our society are broken, children are growing up feral, spawned by an underclass who can't, wont nor ever will escape the benefits trap they live in as they have no incentive to do so.
ReplyDeleteNo I don't have any real answers either, but it's going to have to be tackled.
We want them to demonstrate genuine contrition. We want them to be changed.
ReplyDeleteNOTHING makes them do that more than an oxycetelyn burner to the bollocks, IF they have any.
If not the eye balls are always fun to play with.
Of course, you COULD just "accidentaly" arrange for them to be put on the open wing of an adult sex offenders prison.
(By the way Julia, NOW it won't let me join Google from here before I give my mobile phone number! WTF is going ON?? NO other site asks that.)
See! There it works!!
ReplyDeleteI go to Mummy Longlegs place, sign in, then come back here. NO problem. E-Mail, password, done.
Here Join Google from start, as if they had never heard of me, then give them all my phone numbers, bank details, C.V, and birth certificate.
We need a good descriptive name; I know lets call it 'projection'.
ReplyDeleteApart from the batshit insane demands for 'contrition', do none of these people understand that regardless of the assembled might and witterings of British sociologists, psychopaths are extremely unlikely to either show contrition or be rehabilitated?
If they can't be made to show contrition and then released as "reformed characters" so that we can rearrest them again following their next killing we might have to sack a few trick-cyclists
ReplyDelete"If they can't be made to show contrition..."
ReplyDeleteOf course they can be made to show contrition; that's easy enough. I'd be ever so remorseful if it'd get me early release from the slammer. What we need to do is make them feel contrition, which is rather harder.
The problem is, the trick cyclists can't tell the difference.
if they can be rehabilitated
ReplyDeleteAre there any statistics available on the success rate of rehabilitation in such cases? 10%? 90%? What?
"Tell the people who've had to live in these areas"
ReplyDeleteI'll bet a million pounds against a pebble that Barabara Ellen isn't one of these.
Her conscience surfing on the backs of real people, as always.
"Are there any statistics available on the success rate of rehabilitation in such cases? 10%? 90%? What?"
ReplyDeleteIf we are talking psychopaths, which has been mentioned in reports, the success rate is nil.
To talk of contrition or rehabilitation for a condition which is defined by a lack of compassion or empathy is nonsensical.
"Theories be damned, what those two did was sick, yet if they can be rehabilitated so be it..."
ReplyDeletePlenty of other children have been brought up in equally appalling homes, yet don't show the level of cruelty that these two displayed, though they may be equally damaged in other ways.
I think psychopaths are born, not made.
"I go to Mummy Longlegs place, sign in, then come back here. NO problem."
That's most bizarre! I don't seem to get that at any website, I simply sign in. I have noticed that sometimes, the cookie 'loses itself' and I need to sign in again, most often when I've added a new Firefox update.
"Of course they can be made to show contrition; that's easy enough. "
And they don't have to be Oscar material to fool some of our 'experts' either!