God it's really emotive and very much down to the individual crime.
I think it's interesting that the OP mentions Jon Venables in their post. The 2 convicted murderer served 8 years and were released. One lives a quiet life with a long term partner & one is back in prison for accessing thousands of indecent images of child abuse. What's really interesting is how much we, as a nation, hate them.
We do. I think we hate them because we know their names. We saw their mugshots and we know their names. So no sentence will ever, ever be long enough.
Apparently the last time Jon Venables was caught with images the David Blunkett was 'mildly surprised' that his own parole officers had breached JV's conditions of release but not providing regular access to psychiatric help.
It beggars belief.
A few years ago in Norway (I think it was a Norway, maybe 10 yrs ago) 2 little boys aged 5 & 6 murdered a 6yr old girl. They were not named & were back in Kindergarten a week or so later. It didn't even make the news here. They were immediately started on long term rehabilitation & cannot be hate figures because hardly anyone knows their name and what they look like.
I guess my point is, we can't have it both ways. We can't name and photograph violent child murderers, imprison them, tell them that lying and violence is wrong & then upon their release build them a legend, give them a new identity and make them lie to everyone they ever meet. Forever.
It's asking the almost impossible. Very few have managed it. I can only think of Mary Bell and Robert Thompson.
We are very backward in the U.K. with the age of accountability.