Reform possible?

[Sleepyjack]

Has anyone else been sent the email about the petition against the ruling to grant 2 boys anoymity, who kidnapped and killed a toddler?
Here are the exact circumstances of the story:

sorry for the formatting, it's how i got it


Do you remember February 1993 when a young 3 yr old was taken from a
shopping mall in Liverpool by two 10-year-old boys? Jamie Bulger walked
away
from his mother for only a second and Jon Venables took his hand and led
him
out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson. They took Jamie on a walk
for over 2 and a half miles, along the way, stopping every now and again
to
torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mummy.
Finally
they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him, threw
stones
at him, rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his bottom. It was
actually worse than this... What these two boys did was so horrendous that
Jamie's mother was forbidden to identify his body They then left his
beaten
small body on the tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess
they
had created. These two boys, even being boys, understood what they did was
wrong, hence trying to make it look like an accident. This week Lady
Justice
Butler-Sloss has awarded the two boys anonymity for the rest of their lives
when they leave custody with new identities. We cannot let this happen.
They will also leave early this year only serving just over half of their
sentence. One paper even stated that Robert may go on to University. They
are getting away with their crime. They disgustingly and violently took
Jamie's life away - in return they get a new life.


i know this will be a divided topic but I don't really agree with this. I think it's unfair to say that the young boys had a full scope and understanding of waht they were doing. As horrific as it is, the boys would've known what they were doing was wrong, but i don't think they couldn't known what was absolutely happening and the consequences of waht they were doing?

That said, they are actually my age (19/20) and so they surely would've changed a bit as well, as part of natural maturity and development as everyone expeirences. And they are human, so i think they would feel remorse and be asheamed and disgusted by what they did to the poor boy.

Consequently they'll have to live with that in their dreams and thoughts for the rest of their lives. I don't think they need to be subjected to anymore greif?
So a right to anoymity or new identities would be justified to me.

Also, do you believe reform is possible? even after the most hideous and sadistic crimes? I don't think the boys were mentally ill at all, so it's not really a question of reform there, but moreso, that they are now becoming adults, so they hvae a much better and larger intrepretation and awrness of consequences and thier actions. So they can fully undertsand what they are doing now.

I think that the petition is largely filled with anger and they seem to fail to understand that poeple can change, especially after they were kids?

Peoples thoughts on this?

also, sorry if this has been mentioned before, but i can't really use search atm

[remiel]

I'm english, so this was all over the papers... 3 years ago when it happened.

I think that rehabilitation from crimes committed when you were younger is not only possible, but essential. People change, people grow. Should someone be in prison for life for something theyt did when they were ten, no matter how horrible that act was?

Maybe it's because I don't believe in the concept of evil, but I don't think anyone is beyond rehabilitation. We at least have to try.

[Sleepyjack]

remiel said
I'm english, so this was all over the papers... 3 years ago when it happened.

oh shit, i didn't know it was that old, how embarrasing. Although i only got sent the email today?

So, did the boys get granted anoymity then?

[remiel]

they got anonymity, and I'm actually glad they did. Without anonymity they would have been lynched the week after they got out probably.

and no problem on it being 3 years old. This kind of stuff circulates for years after the event it talks to ends. I think Snopes has a page on this one

[Kaos]

I've gotten that e-mail 3 times in the last week. Some people will forward just about anything...

[water_boy1999]

Better 3 years late then never.

This is a tough question because although reform is possible, there are so many stories about how someone was let out of prison after serving half of their sentence and having gone through therapy. Then, the next thing you read in the paper is how they went back to their old ways and killed, or stole, or took drugs, or whatever it was that got them in there in the first place. It's like all these stories about sexual predators who are let out of prison, labeled by the community as a predator, then gets caught in some pedophilic act again.

What if these boys went to college and it was your kid that had to be in the dorm with this person? Would you still feel comfortable with your decision that they have been rehabilitated and that they should go on living a normal life?