Your Call (Young Offenders - What Should The Law Do With Them?)

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Product:	Young Offenders - What Should The Law Do With Them?
Date:	02/11/00 (65 review reads)
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Disadvantages: Jamie died

I will never forget this crime, I was in my early teens when Robert Thompson and Jon Venables brutally killed Jamie Bulger, the crime was horrific they snatched him from a shopping marl, and beat him to death in the worst possible way. His body beaten and left to be sliced by trains. The boys from Liverpool were kids then, both 10, both innocent looking, yet they had committed a crime that was so horrific that you would never in your wildest dreams have imagined that ten year olds were capable of it. Since then they have been in detention and been receiving education, care and the supervision needed as kids. They have served eight years but is that enough? Although they were only ten they killed, should they be held responsible for a crime they committed when they were children?. Or should we treat them like adult killers and make them pay?, the manner in which the little boy was killed is unforgettable. We all as children do things that we later regret and will probably not do as adults but that does not include murder. Well I hope it doesn’t.

Justice needs to be done to prevent a repeat but should justice take into account that the killers of this crime were children?

Do we look at the murderers and say they were children?, at ten we should look at what cause them to act in the way they did or do we see them as cold blooded killers. It could be argued that if this dreadful case had happened several months before neither of the boys would have faced trial as they would have been to young. However they were over the age of responsibility and they did face trial. We have to ask ourselves at ten does a child know right from wrong?, does a child know the full implications of murder lie an adults does?,

These days we always say kids are developing faster, and at ten we should expect them to know the difference between right and wrong, a child should know stealing, hitting, beating is wrong and if they do not we should ask why
that child does not understand and who is to blame. And what is failing them.

At ten, we pose legal restrictions on them, we don’t expect them to be out at midnight, take drugs as we feel a child of ten needs protecting, the protection we feel is the parents job, we send kids of ten to school we expect them to learn what is right and what is wrong. And if they don’t we should ask questions as to whom let these boys in thinking taking another person’s life was the right thing to do. These boys whatever we feel were children, who turned into killers, so shall we the people who feel so strongly really blame them or should we look at the causes and those who let them down.

If allowed these boys when released can make descent life’s, get married do the things that Jamie Bulger will never do, we have to ask ourselves do we regard their last eight years as punishment, or should they spend time in an adult prison and really find out what punishment is, and what they have done.

Remember this case has to send the right signals to other young killers, and is eight years in a detention place enough, should the killers be made to pay for their crime, or should we say at Ten they were unstable, blame Society, their parents and who ever is willing to accept blame for their crime and no one else’s.

My view is a mix one, on the one hand I feel that they should serve the original sentence of fifteen years and then if they are fully rehabilitated they can be let into society. They will at least have some time to live in Society, their victim will never have that chance, no matter what, that little boy is dead killed by these two ten year olds.

And on the other hand their age comes into play are we as society so unforgiving that we can not forgive two ten year olds for a crime they committed when they might have not known the difference between right and wrong when they should have. So we should ask ourselve
s, should the punishment fit the crime, or should their age be taken into considerations. It is difficult either way as there is a valid argument on either side.

No one will know what made them kill at such a tender age, what ever the factor’s, they have destroyed their live as much as that of Jaime Bulger. The real question is that we have to answer is shall we continue to punish the boy’s murderess into their adult life or should we let them come into Society and let them get on with their life. That question needs to be answered and whatever the outcome we have to learn and make sure something like this never happens again. Never should a mother have to grieve for her son and to find the killers themselves were no more than children.

Why they did it doesn’t matter, they killed they bludgeoned a child to death. They knew what they were doing, when they tempted little Jamie away like snakes they were doing evil. It’s not me for judge, nor for the rest of us. We can voice our opinions but no more. No one has won here, no one will ever win here. Two boys missed the best years of their lives, a little boy dead and a mother left to grieve.

All I can say is that this is a tragedy, and I hope not a reflection on our society. A sad day when they will be released, but their prison sentences will continue they will never be free of their crimes. NEVER! So I believe the law should look at individual circumstances, individual cases and then decide. If they are rehabilitated and they 100% believe they have changed for the better and that they show remorse for their crime and then and only then can they be considered for release.

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