Rehabilitation (teenagers' murder conviction) *Harrowing subject*

[lougle]

I started a post and lost it all. I'm struggling to marry my usual stance on rehabilitation (Christian concept of redemption, Grace, etc.) with the news reports of the two young girls who have just been convicted of Murder (I won't link to the news stories as they are horrific).

Given that these girls could be released from detention before they are 30 (starting sentence is 12 years), do you think that our justice system can rehabilitate these girls so they are safe to live in society? I'm not sure I do, which is so unlike me. I even manage to feel sorry for Hitler and have compassion for the boy he was before he turned into a murderous man.

I wonder if it's because the woman they murdered was vulnerable (alcoholism) and I know that my DD1 is going to be a vulnerable adult (SN brain condition)? Perhaps I am projecting my fears onto the situation. I just can't comprehend the nature of this murder and can't understand how these girls got to this point.

I don't think we know if they can be rehabilitated, and until we do know they should be kept locked up for everyone's sake.

whatthefreakinwhat

I work in the health service, in a non-forensic setting and we have a treatment programme for the most common PD we see, Borderline PD. Interestingly enough the majority of people in the programme are women, and one of our Doctors has a theory that whilst BPD affects both sexes, women are more likely to harm themselves and men with BPD are more likely to end up in the prison service than the NHS. No idea if that's true though.

Interesting laguna, I work solely with high risk males but I'd be interested to test that theory! I'll ask my colleagues in the women's estate and see their take on it. It could well be the case though, rates of self-harm is far higher in the women's estate, but there are certainly some very prolific self-harmers on our PD unit too.

I think the very least that individuals should expect if they've committed a serious crime like this and are believed to be 'rehabilitated' is (if there even is such a thing) a small tracking device under their skin somewhere which is completely invisible to the naked eye.

They can start a new life, no-one but the authorities and themselves need know it's there and they can be quickly ruled out of being accused of future crimes and allowed, if they've truly rehabilitated, to live a normal life effectively. On the flip side, if they do commit any other crimes, it's likely they will be caught quickly, which could also work as a deterrent.

I know that some will say 'what about their human rights' but I think it would be a very small price to pay for what they've done.

Incidentally I have a cousin who works at Broadmoor as a senior Psychiatrist working with patients who have committed horrific crimes. She obviously hasn't been able to talk about any of the cases that she's worked on but she said that it becomes apparent fairly early on (not that it's documented but experienced staff talk about it among themselves) which criminals and patients (who have not committed crimes but are very mentally unwell and a risk to themselves/society) will likely stay in Broadmoor for the rest of their lives. She isn't married and doesn't have children and with some of the things she has said about the crimes that have been committed, I don't know how she switches off and I don't know how she sleeps at night. I guess it must help to have some insight into how the mind works, maybe that makes her a bit more removed.

I think that is very true laguna. Women usually turn their anger inwards, men turn it outwards. This is culturally driven. Which is why it is rare to see two girls behaving like this.

NightWanderer, the problem is that post Venables we absolutely cannot say that those examples show rehabilitation with any sort of certainty. Because a few years ago you would have added Venables name to that list because in the absence of any information you would have assumed the best.

In fact, he was openly flouting his bail conditions: entering the 'buffer' zone which was there to keep him away from the victim's family; taking hard drugs; committing violent offences. And those are just the things the authorities were aware of and ignored. We also know he was looking at child abuse images online and trying to pick up mother's of young children online too. He wasn't even being monitored well enough for that to be picked up, it was only discovered because the police attended his house for his own safety after he started revealing his identity to other people.

Post Venables the only thing we can say about those people with any certainty is that they've not committed offences which are considered serious enough to sacrifice a multi-million new identity and cause political embarrassment for them to be arrested. Or that we're told they haven't reoffended, but they're probably not being monitored closely enough for that to be said with much certainty.

I think it's a big problem when you have people with a vested interest in saying that the rehabilitation is working being the only ones who assess it and who know the details of how it's working (or not). I think the system needs an overhaul for the public to feel confident in it.

That american case is awful. Those girls were broken and their damage rippled on and killed someone else.

The two girls here, we don't know so much about their backgrounds but what we do know leads me to think they've been horrifically let down by their own families and by the services that are supposed to look after them. I don't have time for a long post - but again the results of the damage to the girls rippled out and an innocent person died.

Although again that person should have had support under adult protection around the giving alcohol to minors. Everyone here seems to have needed help they didn't get.

This is local to me. We've just had another murder, an old lady too.

The victim of this particular story was well known in the community, a bit of a character if you like. Extremely vulnerable and what those girls did to her was beyond comprehension

Can these women be rehabilitated?

DH does a lot of work in this area and from what I can gather it doesn't look good.

Given a good education, job prospects, a separation from toxic relationships, education about what healthy human interaction should look like, ending the drug and alcohol dependency and also the general fact that most people grow out of this sort of behaviour by thirty (assuming they have all the above nailed), they should be fine.

In real life, currently the most successful crime prevention strategy with murderers appears to be to literally pay them not to murder people.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/06/01/the-case-for-why-baltimore-should-pay-murderous-residents-not-to-kill/

I think if you look at the backgrounds of people who kill, 99% of them had horrendous childhoods - abuse, neglect, being abandoned by their parents, poor access to education, dysfunctional home lives. I think if that's all you know, it must be pretty damn hard to overcome that, especially if you live in a deprived area and all the people around you are going through similar struggles.

Mary Bell has been mentioned but she had a horrific childhood - her mum was a prostitute and sold her to clients, left her for days at a time with relatives (not telling Mary she wasn't going to come back) and she was exposed to her mum having sex with strangers at the age of 4 onwards.

But she hasn't re-offended since. She was let out (I think at 19 or 21 after a whole load of treatment, therapy etc.) and she's not done anything since - not even shoplifted. She's gone on to have a child and a grandchild - so for all intents and purposes she's a functioning member of society.

These children need help BEFORE they end up comitting murder. But I do think that sentencing CHILDREN to life in jail when they've had such horrific starts in life an could be rehabilitated and introduced back into society is callous and totally ignorant of how much of an impact a bad childhood can have on a person.

After 30 years working in mental health with numerous people with anti-social seasonality disorders ( which will be the mental health problem at least one of the girls has) I have sadly concluded that the way in which our society today deals with these very vulnerable individuals at a young age sets them up for failure. These girls are likely to have experienced years of deprivation / abuse(emotionally as well as practically) before being taken into care, numerous attempts to keep them in their 'home' situation will have been made exposing them most likely to further neglect. Once in a care home staff cannot create a normal family life, they are so restricted when it comes to forming boundaries.Many of this children when they get to teenage years run rings around the system,as seen by the girls ringing for a police car to take them home. If society wants to change the outcome for these deprived children then unpalatable as it is for many then we need to rethink if it is always right to keep them in the environment which is forming their personalities and views of normality. My work involves dealing with many 16/17/18 year olds who are not able to cope with life, harming themselves engaged in risky behaviours and crime. Almost all have been through the care system and /or experienced abuse and deprivation. In most instances there are plenty of signs with the home life that things are terribly wrong but society keeps these children in an abusive environment because any family life is seen as better than none.

Personality not seasonality!

I am struggling with this. In my head I truly believe that nobody is born evil. I understand from local.knowledge these kids didn't have a good upbringing and had some issues.

On one hand I think how did that turn from that to this.

On the other hand I think of the millions of people who have worse upbringing don't spend hours torturing and then killing a vulnerable person.

I wonder who was involved in their care. From what I've heard from people who know them they have had plenty of intervention from various sources and well on the radar for their behaviour.

It's such an awful story

I agree there should be intervention before it gets to that stage. But many people have tough childhoods and do not go on to commit murder. Your argument Hermione does a real disservice to those who do overcome their circumstances.

The age of criminal responsibility is 10 - I presume there is a good reason for this.

A friend worked with one of the Bulger murderers, and said the childhoods of both were the worst she'd ever come across in thirty years of working with damaged children and adolescents . We only hear about the ones that reoffend not the ones that have managed to become functioning members of society.

I'm not excusing the girls in this awful case but we seem to have a particular level of approbation for young murderers which is not the same for adults, yet the latter are the ones who really should know better.

It can be what happens when abused children are taken into care and adoption passes them by either because of their age or other issues so they are in the system until 18, passed around by LA to foster agencies/lots of different foster families and SWs. By then they trust no one their attachment to others is very poor. Result is damaged child and unfortunately some, not all turn to violence. As dottycat says they're set up to fail. How could anyone thrive and be happy in that set up?

There's something wrong with our society when it takes two children to become murderers before they receive the specialised psychiatric/psychological help they need to overcome their desperately poor start in life, which ironically is what they'll receive in whichever YOIs they end up in. Why aren't there resources being deployed into better supporting people like this while they're still at the "victims of sorts themselves" stage? (That's a rhetorical question, I know the answer - cost.)

But if that support had been there, a poor vulnerable adult who is now dead might still have been alive and two girls who have to live with being killers may have already been well on their way to being able to function safely in society. Given how every single study on the subject shows that the vast majority of serious violent offenders come from backgrounds like this or worse and/or have BPD or similar, it's a false economy not to put some sustained resources in earlier rather than later.

I was a supply teacher for a while in the school where Mary Bell was a pupil. I was there in September after it had all happened and everyone was in shock. She was a quiet little girl with a most horrific home life. It was believed that she didn't really understand that dead meant forever! She had been liked by school staff, she had few friends and was often dirty and uncared for.
The parents of the two toddlers she killed had to live through a life time of horror but I honestly believe that Mary herself was thoroughly rehabilitated and I am glad she has managed a decent life.

Truer words were never spoken, dottycat.

Fwiw I believe there can be a difference between children who kill and adolescents who kill. The biggest horror of Venables is that he was only 10 at the time of the murder of James Bulger and that he has grown up to be as depraved as though he had never been through a programme of rehabilitation.
In most cases I do believe that children can be rehabilitated and go on to lead good and useful lives whereas adolescents who murder 'for kicks' may be already beyond redemption.

Your argument Hermione does a real disservice to those who do overcome their circumstances.

I think most people who do overcome horrific childhoods have a lot of help - intervention through school, therapy, being removed from their abusive homes, or outside support from neighbours, friends, relatives etc. Yes, some people do overcome horrific childhoods but does that mean it's okay to write off the people who don't manage to do that?

The age of criminal responsibility is 10 - I presume there is a good reason for this.

Are you really willing to write off a child at such a young age, though? To say that at 10 years old, they are capable of making a decision that means they will be in jail for the rest of their LIVES with no chance of getting out (according to some on here).

Wouldn't it make more sense to give them the help they so obviously need? I think if you are capable of committing murder at such a young age, there is obviously something massively wrong with their upbringings/mental health.

Sadly, yes, I think they will can and possibly will be rehabilitated. The sadly comes from the fact that they never would have received the kind of car and attention they will get in prison for being high profile youth offenders in the outside world. These girls will finally receive the care they need, and, horribly, they had to kill someone to get it.

It's so awful and harrowing to read.

I have worked closely with looked after children involved with crime, running away frequently and generally being a risk to themselves and to others. The interventions do nothing to heal those damaged and damaging children. Meaningless reviews, care staff on minimum wages and ever changing rotas with very different approaches and no therapeutic intervention.
I can't feel it's worse that young girls did this, it's certainly more shocking when children or teens inflict horrific violence but men do this more often, more severely and if we start having no release categories for those sane then I would start with the adult repeat offenders.

This case was so awful I only read the headlines and couldn't click on the story to read the details. Just the headlines was enough to turn my stomach.

What the poor woman endured is horrendous. Let's not forget that someone died an awful slow death, scared witless as she was tortured for 5 hours by these two girls.

I don't think making excuses for their actions helps anyone. However, these girls have clearly had troubled childhoods and if, as someone says earlier, they were known to be working as a pair, getting into trouble and drinking etc then I just wonder why on earth the system didn't split them up and remove them both from the area.

My niece was in care from the age of 13. She was completely out of control despite my sisters best attempts to get her help. And there was the problem. No one could offer her help so she ended up going to SS who offered to put her in care. That was it. No offer of counselling, therapy or anything else to help keep her at home but just 'put her in care'.

With two young children to think about and helpless to stop her running away from home and drinking etc she put her into care and this is where it gets ridiculous. My niece was sent to see a psychiatrist but she refused to engage. So that was it, not sent back to him. Instead they gave her a very large weekly allowance plus a monthly clothes allowance and my niece just did what she wanted.

She's married now and has a baby on the way but her behaviour is appalling (as can be seen from two threads I've started about her) and I worry for her baby's future.

Imagine the kind of 'home' life these children have been subjected to in order to turn them into cold blooded killers. I remember hearing lots of cases of horrific child abuse in the news where the poor vulnerable child has died as a result but thinking 'if they'd lived without intervention, what kind of adult would they have become?' I think the girls in this case were extremely vulnerable themselves. I don't know if they can be rehabilitated. But I do know that they have been failed by everyone and society has a collective duty to try to right this. I have doubts about the effectiveness of the methods used to rehabilitate them though. I also tend to think that there may be more chance of rehabilitating a child who has done something like this than an adult such as Ian Huntley for example, where the motivation is sexual and perpetrated against children.

However I also believe that our justice system focuses too much on the offender and not on the victim, or the family of the victim. Many people have a huge capacity for forgiveness in the most dire circumstances. Some will never feel they are able to forgive, and nobody would blame them for that. But what support are they receiving, who is listening to them, while the person who committed the heinous crime against them is being punished/ rehabilitated?