The Bulger case is a tragedy.
Anyone who would deny the horror of what happened is a fool.
However, an awful lot of people are just falling victim to chain-jerking sensationalism by the press.
There are between 150 and 200 people who killed someone whilst under the age of 18 in jail in England. Some killed other children, others killed adults.
I'm pretty sure that there will be a statistically similar number in other countries.
The only reason that the boys who murdered Jamie are the victims of the lynch-mob mentality generated by the press is that their names were released to the press after their conviction. This was quite unusual, as normally in cases like this the names are not released in the UK.
There are seventy to eighty others who will, as a result of European Human Rights legislation, be released in the next year or so. It used to be that people in such cases were detained 'at her majesties pleasure', and could be held until a politician decided they could go free.
Funnily enough, that's a breach of human rights; endless sentences based upon political whim.
All these others will just melt into society, unknown and unremarked, but having to live 'on licence', a stringent form of parole, for the rest of their lives, just like the two boys in the Bulger case will.
But, just because these two boys were named by the trial judge, they do not get to serve the sentence passed upon them, they get to serve a life sentence of fear.
Whether they deserve it or not is to a large extent immaterial. It is not justice, as it could only be justice if it happened to all such people.
And how people can whip themselves into a fury at children I don't get. Can you imagine for one moment exactly what sort of background that they had to get them to the point where they did what they did?
Their backgrounds shocked experienced social workers, so don't come they high and mighty. We all know how our minds can be twisted by our background, so I am surprised so many people just want to punish without asking why it happened.
They were children, wharped, yes, but that is not their fault. You can get a ten year old to believe virtually anything. Why do you think that there are ages of legal competance? Because the very young are not legally competant.
If you disagree, don't winge about 'when I was blah I blah'. That was you, this is them. Ages of competance, just like consent, are artificial figures that generally fit the circumstances, and they have gone up and down with societies opinions. If you disagree with the law, lobbey for change, don't attack two kids who are just the tip of the legal iceberg because it's easy and convenient and served up in bite-sized portions of hate by the press. Have a little more respect for yourselves than to be so ignorant as to destroy three lives instead of just the one.
Adults who kill children don't have the same excuses. Parents who tortured and killed their children get to melt into society when they are released from jail. Why not attack THAT? They are, at least to one extent or the other, legally culpable.
Of course, you might not believe in rehabilitation, or redemption, or forgiveness. You might believe in doing them to their death or locking them up forever. In that case, fuck off. We are obviously not going to agree.
I think people can be rehabilitated. We all have been or are being rehabilitated from our background, and just because someone was wharped in a different more violent way than they way we were wharped does not give you the right, in my far from humble opinion, to become a judge.
I do believe in redemption, that someone can turn their life around. We mostly have, and just because other people have further to go than we have doesn't mean you have the right to judge.
And whilst I agree that, if it happened to me or mine, I would try to have my revenge, I think as a society we cannot live like that. If we did there would be no end to the bloodshed, not ever.
It's the 21st Century for fucks sake. Haven't we learnt anything??? The greatest enemy of humankind is despair, and despair is all we have left if we cannot be rehabilitated, redeemed or forgiven.
You might think a needle, noose or puff of gas better. Build a time machine and go back to where contempt for human life was more fashionable. Just because there are people LIKE them, doesn't mean we have to be LIKE them. We can be better, take a high ground. Set a fucking example rather than imitating those we punish.
I do put caveats (conditions) on this. If someone presents a likely potential harm, reasonable efforts should be exercised to reduce that harm. Prison, probation, monitoring, registration; what extent would depend on the case and the class of crime.
Yes, it's cheaper to just kill them, but only if you don't have an appeals system. And even if it were cheaper just to kill them, I don't want to live in a society like that.
Returning to the Bulger killers, if they fart menacingly in the next half-decade they are going to be back inside. After that, they'll still be monitored at least every three weeks for many decades. If they ever get stopped by the police for anything, it will be logged, noted, and acted upon. They have either convineced the psychologists they are rehabilitated, or are rehabilitated, and given they present very little danger it seems fit they should be re-intergrated into society if possible, as if they are shaming at some point they will trip themselves up, and be back inside, and it is almost certain tht would be before they did anything wrong. I can't remember the last time a murderer, released at the end of their sentence on licence, re-offended.
With people who have something wrong with them, as distinct from those who did not realise what they were doing in the way that you or I would, but have a mental imbalence or sickness continuing to affect them, it is more difficult to guarantee safety. Compulsory drug treatment for sex offenders or the extremely violent is a possible alternative to permanant incarseration.
And then you have the evil ones. The bad, not mad. I don't think these two little boys fell into that catagory, not whenthey did it, not now. You can lock them (the bad ones) up, as they deserve confinement for the rest of their lives as they would act in a similarly sociopathic fashion if allowed to go free. Serial killers, war criminals. People who deserve our contempt and rage far more than two screwed up kids.
Are those of you foaming at the mouth about these two kids as strident in your demands that Milosovich be tried in The Hauge? I sincerely hope you know who Milosovich is, as otherwise your rage looks ill-informed.
In short, these boys, however awful the thing they did was, are very unlikely to ever do anything like that again. There is no point in punishing someone for something they aren't that responsible for.
I am surprised that so little comment has been made about Jamie's mother. She has been through hell, and is still there, and is obviously in need of a good psychiatrist as her statements to the press ring with all the signs of someone who has still to finish grieving properly. I am not saying she could 'get over it', as I don't pressume to say you can, but she is not 'living with it', and is showing all the signs of paranoia, assuming that her survivng children are under threat and that the murderers of her son would want to contact her. That is so obviously barking mad. Her former husband should be commended for the restraint he is showing.
But the press print it, report it, as they, despite their posturing, are just looking to stick something on the cover that sells more issues, or somehing in the headlines that stops people flipping the channel. They don't care that the woman is so traumatised she is menatlly ill. They don't care that they are virtually party to precuring vigilante killers. They just want the ching ching of ad revenue.
So, persecute two people, victims of their childhood, victims of a bad call by the trial judge, who have been punished and rehabilitated for and from the awful thing they did, and who would, given the chance, in all probability would drop into society without leaving any ripples and never do harm again.
Persecute them all you like, rant and rage. But don't try to make out it is the right thing to do. It's just revenge, not noble, not right, just revenge.
