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

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Very far back on this thread, I posted a link to a Harvard Univ web site which briefly summarised a book about murderers written by a James Gilligan, a psychiatrist who spent decades working with them in the Massachusetts prison system. The book includes many case studies which describe the kinds of chilhoods many of these prisoners had. The cases reveal horrific violence against children, eg parents trying to kill them. I think it's very easy for those of us who have not experienced this kind of mistreatment not to realise what some people have been subjected by their parents and how profoundly damaged some people are.

Hulababy, if you get a chance, can you ask these young men what would deter them from committing crime? I would be genuinely interested in the reply.

For the majority of people, prison is a deterrent. And for some, it's a deterrent after they've been inside once. It would just be interesting to hear what a deterrent would be for those who don't fear prison. After all, in the US, even death isn't a deterrent to some people.

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We're back to the nature vs nurture debate again I guess.

But don't you think sm that the two don't have to be mutually exclusive??

Well I have just ploughed my way through the whole of this thread - depressing as it is

What I am particulaly interested in exploring is why there is such vehemence and lack of understanding towards the boys who committed this terrible crime. We live in a world where parents can leave young children to starve to death, in squalid conditions with maggots in their nappies, yet our sense of moral outrage is worse when we are dealing with two children who killed...

Or where children are raped and 'snuffed' by their own families for the titillation of others via the WWW.

All of these are horrible crimes - no denying that. But why the vehemence towards these boys rather than the crap parents, the abusive parents or the peadophiles???

IS it because in this instance we are looking at children who killed children?

I jsut find it odd that we are not protesting about the 6 year sentence of the parents who knowingly as adults almost wiped out their whole family through abuse - yet we thing that an 8 year sentence for 10 year old children is insufficient?

Poor James though - what a horrible end to his short life

But then poor child A, childB, child C child D - ad infinitum. All who too short lives were a living hell :

my personal opinion is it's both, but mainly nurture

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Excellent post soapbox. Will look at that book oldiemum.

Soapbox- thanks for that echo my thoughts exactly x

Good post soapbox and well done for reading it!

thanks for replying dior and this next bit isn't addressed to you in particular:

look people, i'm sorry to disabuse you, but prison is not (and never has been) a deterrent.

the death penalty isn't a detterant...look at the crime rate in the US???????

sorry

Beetroot and Sophable - just for the record - I don't think I ever said 'babies were born evil'. Someone did but wasn't me.

Carry on.

Thing is, one deterrent won't work for everyone. It's why our one size fits all justice system is so cumbersome - there's no way you can make the punishment fit the crime and definitely make the perpetrator never reoffend.

In this case, I'd like to think the powers that be know what they're doing - I cannot believe they'd let out two such notorious murderers if there was even a sniff of them doing something so unpleasant again.

fantastic post soapbox btw

Will join the praise for Soapbox's post (just gagging from maggoty nappies though...parents like that...words escape me...)

sorry for my spelling btw.

gdg. where do you stand on this? you refer to scumbags and the fact that prison is a lovely holiday home...what would your idea of a fair criminal justice system be?

Yes, I was just wondering how GDG would respond to soapbox's post ...

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Would have been better had I previewed and corrected the spelling

What do you all think though - is it children killing which kind of upsets the natural order of things and gets people so worked up????

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Very good post soapbox.

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