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.