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 get the shock factor. Of course it's shocking that two young children commit such hideous crime. But they are a product of a drip drip drip of violence, neglect, emotional and physical abuse, alcohol and drugs (given by parents, of all people), over the period of their entire lives. Samcro, how could they possibly turn out like we hope our kids will? It would be a miracle if they emerged a rounded person with that start in life. Abuse begets abuse unless there is constructive intervention. I am by no means trivialising their acts, but I see the tragedy as just as much theirs.

Re Facebook - someone with authority would need to apply for them to be closed. Usually SS and the courts won't, because the accounts belong to the girls. Their parents might, although I guess they've got bigger things to think about right now.

The anonymity order came too late, they've been named across every social media site known to man. I guess they'll get new identities anyway.

Samcro - of course you would only think about your family member.

But the role of the justice system is to protect society from crime - and there are a myriad of ways of doing this, from creating deterrents through punishment to rehabilitating offenders.

As a society we need to understand why people turn to crime to stop it happening. Punitive regimes are really unsuccessful at preventing crime (look at the US). Good education systems, more social equality, support for parents and for families, high quality social service care does seem to result in lower crime rates, as evidenced by the Nordic countries, who are vastly more compassionate towards child criminals than we are.

Well it looks like the one still commentable upon belongs to the one without parental support throughout the trial. I guess that would make sense. Awful all round.

The "if it was your child" is a bit of a nonsensical argument tbh, because the victims cannot be objective.

The eldest girl appears to have some SN, how many threads do we see on here about children coming to harm in schools by others with SN for instance and calls for empathy as a child with SN has additional issues and rightly so. Is this any different?

You simply cannot divide the world into evil and non evil.

Hear hear minifingerz.
Heard a stat on bbc last night - we have handed out around 200 life sentences to children in the same period as the rest of Western Europe has handed down 2. Apparently child crime on the continent is seen more as a welfare issue. I couldn't agree more.

I agree we can't, but then what do we do?

Genuine question, because I'm flummoxed.

Also, to those advocating the execution of ten year olds even when they're eighteen, or those who believe that children should be tried and sentenced as adults:

Do you think that ten year olds should be given the vote? Or allowed to drive? Or legally have sex? And if not, why not? Does bearing the consequences of adult actions only apply if those are detrimental to others? If a child cannot vote because they don't have the maturity to do so why does that suddenly change when it comes to serving a prison term?

By that logic should all under 16s who have sex be convicted of rape once they reach sixteen, on account of the fact that under age sex is illegal?

But they are a product of a drip drip drip of violence, neglect, emotional and physical abuse, alcohol and drugs (given by parents, of all people), over the period of their entire lives.

That is only true for one of the girls. According to the BBC article and judges summing up linked to upthread, the younger girl was not subject to abuse or neglect - her relationship with her parents broke down as she grew up and her behaviour deteriorated. She went "off the rails" despite an otherwise 'normal' child hood. Respite foster care was put in place and it evolved into being placed into the care of the LA.

But kids don't go off the rails for no reason. Kids in nice middle class families who go off the rails do so because something is wrong in their life, even if it's not as obvious as the drug addicted mother and the alcoholic father administering frequent beatings.

Prettybright - in my view every child in care is being or has been failed in some way, whether that's parental neglect, however accidental, a failure to be taught correct boundaries, relationship breakdown, mental illness etc. I agree her 'explanation' is less obvious, but I just don't buy that people are born evil. They are a product. And some are born more eggshell, less able to reflect the bad influences and shake off trauma and more likely to fall victim to older bad influence.

She was on the streets, unsupervised, all night, regularly and frequently. She was in care, known to police, on drink and drugs and completely out of control. Can you put your hand on your heart and say that is entirely her fault?

There's no way, in the absence of some undiagnosed brain disorder, that she came from a "normal" family and ended up in that situation. There just isn't. Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. I know of a very "respectable family" in which the mother was absolutely horrendously abusive to her daughter doing things like burning her teddy bears if she showed love to them, buying her nice clothes and putting her outside in the garden and pelting eggs at her while laughing and jeering etc.

Families where children are loved and nurtured and where there are reasonable normal boundaries in interpersonal relationships and where there's no other unusual factors e.g. child doesn't have an underlying medical/brain-based disorder for unusual behaviour just DON'T produce kids like this at these ages. They just don't.

"the younger girl was not subject to abuse or neglect - her relationship with her parents broke down as she grew up and her behaviour deteriorated. She went "off the rails""
This could have been my dd. Normal childhood, loving family, went completely off the rails in adolescence. If we hadn't had the input that we did she would have ended up in care and who knows where that would have ended up?

Sorry, meant to add that dd has since been diagnosed with a conduct disorder, PTSD, and possibly a personality disorder, but this wouldn't have happened st this time without a m/c parent who pushed and pushed for the best m/h services for her.

She also would have had a different experience had she stayed at the horrible academy chain she was at as she would have ended up at a pupil referral unit (they just get rid of kids who aren't achieving academically, plus they have such high staff turnover that she would have had much less continuity of support) where she would have come into contact with many more criminal and dysfunctional kids. Her LA run community school promised as and her that they would keep her in school, no matter what, gave her a fantastic mentor and allowed her to attend an exclusion unit onsite so she could have some continuity. She left with a small number of GCSE's and this has enabled her to go to college, which she loves. She hopes to go to university next year. Her two closest friends left their academy school with no GCSE's and are now NEETS. :-(

She was on the streets, unsupervised, all night, regularly and frequently. She was in care, known to police, on drink and drugs and completely out of control. Can you put your hand on your heart and say that is entirely her fault?

I'm not suggesting that it is her "fault" - but by looking for an 'explanation' you are judging every parent whose teen does those things despite adequate parenting.

It concerns me that the assumptions of abuse and neglect that are being made could just as easily be directed at many of the parents who post in the teens section at the end of their tether.

The hard thing to swallow really is that some people are violent, aggressive, sadistic bastards. That's something that's part of them. Sometimes they come from a background of abuse and neglect, sometimes they come from a background of privilege, and they can come from anywhere in between.

It's the same as any trait. Blaming background only takes you so far as they have to have that 'switch' flipped inside them In the first place to do it.

I cannot believe how easy it is to find those girls' names. I honestly don't know where I stand on all this. Horrific all round, and I feel sick at the thought of what Angela went through.

Easy to find the names but I failed on the FB profiles! Clearly MN has much better detectives.

I think the problem is that the blogs with the names on are all outside of the U.K. They were published before the anonymity order was made so the judge must have been aware that the names were out there. I guess it is a bit of damage limitation though if you have to actively look rather than having the names and photos on the front page of all of the papers.

The eldest girl's was deactivated.

I had a rather idyllic childhood which ended abruptly when my mother died and my father, after a very short space of time, married a psychopath. Neglect was one word for it. Plenty of emotional abuse, social workers walking away rather than believing me, etc etc. Usual story. I never take 'neglect' or 'a bad childhood' as an excuse because it's an insult to kids like I once was, myself.

I can't believe people on here are discussing how easy it is to find the identity of these girls.

I'm reporting all comments related to that. It's disgusting and wrong. They've been granted anonymity for a reason and so what if people in their community know it was them. There's no need to keep spreading that.

It really isn't a case of keeping spreading anything, or the local community knowing anything the rest of the world doesn't. The names are on Facebook, Twitter and at least 10 hits on the first Google search. It's an interesting point about the anonymity order and its failure. I don't believe anyone who wanted to learn the identities would come here before googling it, and if they did that they would have their answer in seconds.

"I think the problem is that the blogs with the names on are all outside of the U.K. They were published before the anonymity order was made so the judge must have been aware that the names were out there. I guess it is a bit of damage limitation though if you have to actively look rather than having the names and photos on the front page of all of the papers." there is that, but also if they're not published in the UK they won't become household names iyswim. So by the time they potentially are eligible for parole/release most will be unaware of who they are and they are less likely to need new identities etc.

One of the biggest criticisms of the justice system is the fact that offenders are often given new identities when they're released, but people seem to forget that this is generally to protect them from vijilanti attacks etc. If the world at large doesn't know who they are they generally get bored fairly quickly and the story will die down,

I agree, and at least one of the girls has a good number of siblings who will be badly affected if the front pages are covered in pictures of their faces.

I just read the judges comments on the anonymity order. He was aware that they had been named, but felt that the girl who had already tried to commit suicide multiple times during the trial was at high risk of self-harming or attempting suicide again if she saw her name over local papers.

"In circumstances where I might be satisfied that both of you were stable, strong-minded defendants convicted of serious crime, the balance might arguably have been in favour of the lifting of anonymity."

The judge concluded: "I am sure that everything that can be done will be done to try and protect you from yourself.

"Nonetheless, despite the terrible thing that you have done and the sentence that must be imposed upon for it, I am concerned and disturbed by what I regard as a heightened real risk that identification followed by a press blitz will elevate the risk to your life to such an extent that I am satisfied that there is a real and immediate risk to your life if you were to be identified as one of the two girls who murdered Angela Wrightson."

He found that this balanced out claims that naming them would work as a deterrent, saying that this is thankfully so rare that it isn't necessary to deter.

He did also say that lifting anonymity would affect innocent people involved - school friends, their families, etc.

I'm still totally torn on what should happen.