James Bulger's mother demands right to find freed killers

[suzywong]

as reported in the \link{http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news1.shtml\news of the world.

Should she have the right?

Discuss

well thats me told! I'll try better.

talking of having to dehumanise before inflicting pain.

Did you know that Robert and John took James and spent quite a lot of time with him, playing with him, held his little hand in theirs, and comforted him when he cried?
then they dehumanised him.

That's putting an adult rationale behind it. They didnt have the capacity to do that.

What would you have done with T&V then JoolsToo?

Not read last couple of days of this anymore as find it all a bit upsetting, but thought some people might like to know the verdict on prison like by my class of YO and adult inmates:

"it's a doddle, too easy"
"not that much of a deterrent"
"we have it easy - no cooking, no cleaning, ...we don't even have to work or learn if we don't want to"
"we can get pretty much anything we want to in here - drugs, alcohol..."
"I didn't have as good a TV and stereo on the outside"
"Get better food in here"
"I get to see my kids more regularly as xxx has to bring in to see me"

etc.

And this is a top performing reasonably high cat prison.

As gar as my blokes are concerned their only punishment in prison is lack of freedom, but they honestly don't seem bothered by this that much. I found it very startling to have this kind of debate and very suprised to find that they were the ones telling me it was too easy.

Probably a whole new debate that though. BTW, YOs start at age 17. Before that they are juveniles I think.

hercules - they certainly had the capacity for unspeakable violence - they showed James friendship and played with him before they killed him. Must you always find excuses?

sm - I would have held them until they were at least 25 years old and fully repetitent and aware of the gravity of their crime - then it would be up to pyschologists to decide if it was acceptable for them to be recieved back into society. As I said earlier - only one of them has accepted responsibility for what he did.

I think it's more important to find out the reasons why 10 year olds did this.

I completely understand Denise Bulgers reactions. I saw a documentary on this a while ago and it showed one of the saddest things I have ever seen. James Bulgers father still regularly goes to the train tracks and sits there trying to fathom why on earth someone would kill his precious baby. I completely saw myself sitting there in the same place thinking the same thing. Should she be able to find them. No. This is why we have a legal system, a judiciary which is not controlled by victims. The courts have decided on the punishment (rightly or wrongly)and that is what stands. People have listened to the evidence, the judge has sentenced, the sentence has been served. I could never feel like some of the posters on here, I would never feel forgiveness, i could never move on. I don't even think i could live with knowing what happened to my child to be honest. Emotions can't control the judiciary. She should not have the right to find them IMO.

Message withdrawn

leglebegle - my feelings exactly.

I agree with leglebegle too

joolstoo, i too would like to know if you have some inside information that qualifies you to say who has been rehabilitated and who has not. I'd also like to know what "repetitent" means.

Message withdrawn

sounds like something from dead ringers sm...repenitification

yes soph it does!

Hulababy - thanks for your post. I did say earlier on in this thread that prison was not deterrent as many don't care if they go there - noone believed me but you've brought it to life from the horses' mouths.

I have no experience from a children's "prison" at all though. They are probably very different.

The thing I foun most suprising was that inmates actually choose whether they want to work/attend education. I had always imagined it was compulsary. But no, if inmates wish they can lay around in their pads all day watching day time TV.

What more evidence do you want Beetroot - my police officer friends are told it daily by scumbags who get away with allsorts. And Hulababy has just given you quotes from inmates!!!

It's interesting to hear your experiences Hula. However I would say that a handful of remarks from some YO cannot really be used as evidence that prison is not a deterrent. I'd guess there was a bit of bravado going on there.

beetroot - I am only repeating exactly what the guys told me in last week's lesson. I was suprised at the time, as I said. My response was very similar to yours - about the fact they were locked up with no freedom to come and go as they likes. It wasn't an issue for them particularly and I was genuinely shocked. They felt they had it easy (their words) and that many people outside had much harder lives than them. I followed this up in my afternoon session and got a similar response from the group I was chatting too.

Granted I only teach 2 classes of 10 inmates (YOs and adults mixed) so not a huge sample, but it did make me think that maybe there should be better deterrents than the current system - at this prison atleast.

Oddly the inmates also commented that they didn't like the idea of the Open Prisons (have one just down road linked with one I work at) and felt that that was a harder environ,ent as the temptation to abscond was too great.

What's the point?

Look, if it were a real deterrent, why are the same people being locked up over and over and over again and inbetween they go about wrecking people's lives?

Notorious scumbags who've been in and out of prison just recently burgled my parents neighbours house - they are an elderly couple and the husband has had strokes in the past. He collapsed and was admitted to hospital. THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT!!! Get it into your head!