Jamie Bulger case

xoxo

Well people cared enough about the victims of William Malcolm to shoot him in the head. They cared enough about the victims of Brynley Dummett to beat up the 67 year old Brynley Dummett look-a- like Francis Duffy. They cared enough about the entirely imaginary victims of Paul Webster to cause him to commit suicide. They cared enough about the imaginary victims of an imaginary paedophile to firebomb a house, killing a 14 year old girl.

Given the chance, they will tear Venables and Thompson apart, and also tear apart anyone who looks similar. How many weeks until someone gets beaten up for being 18 and scouse?

Certainly though the treatment of victims of crime and their families is not great. And of tragedy in general - look at Leah Betts' parents, now completely trapped and hardened into a particular national role after the accidental death of their daughter. If they had simply been left alone by the media would this have happened? So yes, the Bulger parents are the victims here but they're as much the victims of the red-tops incessant attention as Thompson and Venables are, because their autonomy - their right to try and control how and to what extend their tragedy shapes their lives - has been taken from them.

See also: the poor mother of the kid Hindley and Brady killed. Yes of course her life would have been immeasurably better had they not killed her son. But it would also have been better if she'd not been media-pushed into the role of Hindley's merciless antitype, forever dragged back into the spotlight with the same old quotes again and again.

It's also not just the media, of course. I've been a victim of violent crime - not thank goodness a life-changingly serious one but I was set upon, bottled and beaten up by a bunch of 7 or 8 young teenagers. And what I noticed is that - in their entirely humane wish to empathise with you - people project onto you what they think they would or should feel as a victim. You *must* hate these people. You *must* suffer psychological harm, but then after a certain time (in the case of getting beaten up, at least. In the case of child murder 'a certain time' = 'never ever ever') you *must* move on.

And if you don't fit that profile then you are looked on with - not suspicion exactly, but you learn that people's empathy tends not to step outside how they think you ought to behave. So in my case I felt quite aggrieved that my initial reaction (no bones broken; rest up a few days then get on with things) was seen as a kind of unhealthy denial. And I lost count of how often I was told, oh, a republican is a democrat who's been mugged (switch with British examples), whereas actually the incident had made me much *softer* on crime and punishment: the absolute last thing I wanted to happen to the kids who attacked me was for them to be banged up in an environment where their bolshy drugged-up criminality would get hardened into something much nastier. Far better to try actually teaching them stuff.

God, what a rambling post. Summary, I suppose, is that yes, victims are not listened to but this applies not to their views on the criminals but they're more subtly not listened to about themselves.

Mob rage also relates to guilt denied: when we're faced with some hideous act, one of the things we face is our own capacity to have — inadvertently? — enacted same at some point past. Murderous rage? Drunken violence against endlessly whiny toddler? Who hasn't been there — at least mentally, at least for a nasty, swiftly suppressed moment? I nearly stabbed a kid at school — because he interrupted me at lunch in a maddening way. He never noticed; probably no one noticed. There's a resentment (and sometimes an envy) fuelling the lynch-rage which says, "Why is my unfailing good and decent behaviour (= swift suppression of ordinary human evil) not BETTER REWARDED OR RECOGNISED? My life = rubbish, even tho I am (fairly) good." Its implacability relates to the sense — hidden, but also there — that it's a kind of defiant acting out, at least to start. (This = why lynchmob victims are so often unrelated — it's a mirror-crime disguising itself as a reversal of a crime...)

I was talking last night with some foax abt Big Brother: usual lame stuff coming out, inc, how we're soon going to be watching phone-in gameshows on who shd be KILLED? Didn't think abt this then: but ans = we ARE, already. But of course they're not gameshows, they're Kilroy: and they long predated Big Brother et al (which is an "artistic" response to a phenom, not a vanguard....)

Of course the media are complicit in this, but I've always had the impression about that woman that she didn't need much, if any, dragging. I think her son's murder became an obsession for her (a bit like the Hanratty family's quest to clear their hanged relative's name).

The Betts' situation is clearly different in this sense: mother and father were already professionals with pretensions to being able to protect and advise children: their daughter made her (bad) choice herself, in the context of their (rotten, I think) prior guidance.

Unfortunately it all comes down to the varied reasons we lock people up in the first place. Is it societies revenge, rehabilitation, protecting the public or as a deterent. Bulger's mother is being used / is using the media to put forward merely the idea of revenge and dressing it up as justice. Even if you do not take the worth of a 10 year old moral development into account Thompson and Venables have faced societies revenge. Do you think being branded as the most eveil kids in Britain doesn't fuck you up. I for one hope they join the police.

That said - if anyone asks you about Thompson and Venables just say you think their new TV football pundit show on Channel 5 is a good thing. Especially when John Thompson does his fat goalkeeper character.

As a suggestion to what a bad mutha said Bulger is, he was higher that Tony Hopkins on the list.

Is this true? Maybe in Momus's crazy timelord zone morality.

If their lives are taken away, so be it! Justice will be complete. Thus a cycle of life.

Just my 2c USD worth, flame me or whatever at we.are.all.going.to.die@soon.com

what an edifying thread

think this is an amazingly stupid article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/mar/07/jon-venables-jamie-bulger-peter-sutcliffe

Comparing the two cases throws up an unpopular and provocative question: why treat Sutcliffe differently from the Bulger killers? Admittedly, there are big differences between the cases. Sutcliffe is in Broadmoor and must prove he is sane before a parole board can even consider sanctioning his release.

yeah there is another aspect in that THEY WERE TEN YEARS OLD

idk what the hell i think about their sentencing -- i don't think sutcliffe should ever be released -- but wtf at this.

BBC coverage of this has been fucking disgusting mostly too but hey who wants to hear about shit being complicated when we can all play sofa justice?

Why don't tabloids have torches and pitchforks in their logos? It's the only thing they do anymore.
Oh, and they've got a reaction from Bulger's mom. I wonder what that's going to be.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2881255/Jon-Venables-cover-up-42000-back-us.html

I remember this case vividly. Still follow the articles just because. Now I try avoiding cases like these cause it hurts me even more now that I have kids of my own. (And I mean: not only for the toddler's parents but also the parents of the 10 yos)

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/03/07/jon-venables-sent-back-to-prison-over-child-porn-offence-115875-22090622/

^^^ if that is true then britain is going to go absolutely insane over this. but this bit is desperately sad:

Venables is understood to have been masking severe psychological problems by abusing drugs and alcohol on a daily basis.
Probation officers became particularly concerned when they discovered that he was publicly revealing his identity.

sounds like he's pretty comprehensively internalised the tabloid view of him.

every paper seems to have a different reason

but idk joe i wouldn't think the tabloids have much to do with this guy's inevitable psychological problems. maybe they don't help, but id imagine the guilt would fuck him up even if the tabloids were saying nice things about him.

agreed, although you can't help but wonder what the coverage would do to someone in that position. (mary bell wasn't discussed at all until she collaborated on that book in later life iirc.) i meant really "the view, which is most vocally expressed in the tabloids". just that his sense of guilt seems to have converged with public anger so that both parties agree the best thing would be for him to be exposed and punished, presumably violently.

(assuming any of this is accurate, of course. one way in which venables has "given up his rights" is in libel - he can't sue, even if he wanted to, without revealing his new identity, and the papers know it.)

I wouldn't want to be a Scouser in my late 20s facing a court case in the immediate future for anything right now. Try finding a jury full of folk who aren't thinking "I wonder if he's Jon Venables"...

this whole situation is deeply unsatisfactory. in general though, i don't think it's unreasonable for the tabloids to seek to report on criminal activity by people released under license. i'm not suggesting they have the public interest in mind when they do it though.

how do people react when they see those tv interviews on the streets of liverpool with middle age women clamouring for them to be tortured, killed etc?

Joe that is one big honking libel fact I hadn't even considered. The tabloids need to lay the fuck off. Has this thread been Googleproofed yet? I don't want any more reminders of how badly your average HYS person writes.

One can't help but absolutely despise the narrative that advances a 'lock them up forever and feed them bread and water for life' concept of justice. I mean, I can feel deeply sorry for the loss suffered by the Bulger family but that doesn't give them the right to have any kind of authority or extra knowledge over what happens to his killers. When tabloid media manipulate these survivors (whether they are 9/11 'moms' - I often feel like smacking women who demand some kind of fealty only because they have spawned - or people who'd lead lynch mobs with misspelled sighs for whatever reason) I feel a strange mix of anger at the manipulation and annoyance that the people so willingly play the part of Jeremy Kyle guest. There is a perfectly natural need for attention when you've been wronged but when it is handed to you by tabloids keen to sell papers, the insight required to say 'stop' may not be there, and the vigilanteism of the vox pop is just a form of baiting.

I have no doubt that the adult formerly known as Jon Venables is probably now severely mentally ill in a hospital wing somewhere. Let's see if Mrs Bulger thinks that's punishment enough, but I suspect she'd like to administer any electroshock herself. That makes me lose most of any sympathy I might have had.

Let's see if Mrs Bulger thinks that's punishment enough, but I suspect she'd like to administer any electroshock herself. That makes me lose most of any sympathy I might have had.

this doesn't sound very nice you know
esp given she is also probably mentally ill

Yes, she probably is! Many people in that situation back off from revenge ideas *because* entertaining them is a surefire route to mental health problems. Also mine is a very visceral reaction to a vindictiveness I find unseemly, regardless of any argument over emotions the woman and others like her may feel entitled to.

how do people react when they see those tv interviews on the streets of liverpool with middle age women clamouring for them to be tortured, killed etc?

― nakhchivan, Sunday, March 7, 2010 1:58 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

with total lack of surprise tbh. not surprised that people think it, not that surprised they say it, especially people with kids. upthread there's an element, to my mind, of ilx getting so upset about other people's reactions that the other extreme is reached -- "how could anyone think release after seven years was a problem?" i don't have an answer.

lynch mobs with misspelled sighs

Ironing?

If anyone's interested there's a couple of tv docs in full on You Tube. One slightly hysterical (a Channel 4 Dispatches from 2001) and a sensitive piece about the policeman in charge of the original investigation (a BBC2 doc also from 2001).

Also, here's Will Self refusing to play to the gallery like the usual shower, on Question Time last Thursday:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/8550915.stm

the fault lies almost entirely with those who co-opt this poor woman and it's kinda unseemly to smear her alongside various cottage industry vicarious victimhood reactionaries (jeremy kyle ffs) when someone so vulnerable is led to believe they have a special insight into the justice system

I often feel like smacking women who demand some kind of fealty only because they have spawned

hating on these entitled breeders and proletkult enablers is weirdly vindictive itself, if rather mild by comparison

i don't know why there has to be this liberal consolation of getting worked up about this shit, it's an awful tragedy but we can hope that the institutions of state are resilient enough to withstand malign forces

upthread there's an element, to my mind, of ilx getting so upset about other people's reactions that the other extreme is reached -- "how could anyone think release after seven years was a problem?" i don't have an answer.

this is true

there simply isn't enough to go on in the public domain, occasional insight like this excepted for any forensic consideration of the particulars, so for better or worse we can refrain from trying to provide answers

From the POV of a child-free woman, the way mom status is used as emotional blackmail in certain situations feels cynical to me, because usually someone is trying to get me to comply with them via the expectation of pulled heartstrings when appeals to logic are not forthcoming, or insufficient. This may also be an internecine thing that guys just don't 'get'; I've seen it deployed the most frivolous situations, too, with the same expectation.

And WRT the mobs and their demands, last I checked, we don't live in Murdochistan. The Government will only be doing something wrong if they capitulate, as with the BBC and its recent appeasement strategy. I loved Will Self on QT for trying to re-introduce equanimity to the concept of justice.

Yes also LOL typo, possibly my fifth ever on ILX.

From the POV of a child-free woman, the way mom status is used as emotional blackmail in certain situations feels cynical to me, because usually someone is trying to get me to comply with them via the expectation of pulled heartstrings when appeals to logic are not forthcoming, or insufficient. This may also be an internecine thing that guys just don't 'get'; I've seen it deployed the most frivolous situations, too, with the same expectation.

cosign x1000

Yes, and challenging that status in any way (and Heaven forfend you don't obey them) gives the person free reign to characterize you as some cruel and heartless bitch who could never understand what really being a woman is. You can't even *ignore* these people because a failure to respond is almost the same thing to them.

This may also be an internecine thing that guys just don't 'get'; I've seen it deployed the most frivolous situations, too, with the same expectation

that is well observed and doubtless true but if it was a father campaigning instead things would be no better, trying to frame it in terms of devoted/proprietorial motherhood just prettifies the vigilante tendencies and makes a better sell for rothermere hacks

xpost Welcome to Minnesota. :)

i think you mean "free rein"

Oops I did mean free reign. What would I do without you?

nakh, it kind of depends: in Britain, the men aren't goaded into this kind of shrieky, emotional hot mess in the same way women are.

LOL rein, coffee 2 much.

up to 7, not a good day

Is there a task elsewhere on ILX to cite these as they come? You seem interested all of a sudden.

is there a rhetorical equivalent of the mom-argument for men?

Cop? Priest?

in Britain, the men aren't goaded into this kind of shrieky, emotional hot mess in the same way women are

things would be probably be even worse in these cases if there were more unhinged bereaved dads fomenting the vigilante shit

is there a rhetorical equivalent of the mom-argument for men?

there is that whole don't touch my wife/kids or i'll cut yr eyes out and burn you alive thing

from my detailed research of looking at funny facebook groups, there is definitely a male equivalent but it's more couched in a sort of "I wouldn't be afraid to break the law and kill the bastard if it was my kid" machismo, whereas the mothers tend to work themselves up into a properly out of control frenzy of torture fantasy

xp yeah

I wouldn't want to be a Scouser in my late 20s facing a court case in the immediate future for anything right now. Try finding a jury full of folk who aren't thinking "I wonder if he's Jon Venables"...

― ailsa, Sunday, 7 March 2010 13:53 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

still not sure if this is a Stevie G joke

think it was a sort of layoff to any onrushing tbombers fancying a dipping volley of scousehate

no floppyhaired old etonians around presumably

in Britain, the men aren't goaded into this kind of shrieky, emotional hot mess in the same way women are

Maybe this is, in part, about women being permitted to express rage and a wish for vengeance in this one circumstance: child(ren) at risk, actually threatened, or harmed.

I've been thinking about that, but I don't think that rhetoric gets served nearly as much from a man to another man, possibly because it's unseemly in guy terms. Apart from yr roid rager w/wife and kids to protect with KNIVES.

Has another man said to you that you wouldn't understand what he's going through because you lack a child, or dumped some major work shit on you for the stated reason that you must have more time to do whatever it is? Do men in groups tend to single out the one child-free person in the party for special question time? Maybe this is the stuff that women have to deal with once their 30s begin, but it's awwwwwwful. It's hard being a feminist and watching women pick at each other like this.

That Will Self clip above is amazing, the guy asking the "shouldn't life mean life" question couldn't possibly have got an answer further away from what he wanted

Good to see Vorderman was there to blast all that unwelcome nuance out of the debate with her anvil-fisted moralising

vorderman clearly a maths idiot-savant.

vorderman = potential to be the brit palin, mark my words

vorderman seemed 100% out of her depth despite clearly having done some statistical research and whatnot. i've never liked her since those silly arsed 'benecol: a new yoghurt drink that lowers your cholesterol' adverts a few years back.

oh and suzy yes unmarried child-less 30something men do get 'special question time'.. although usually from women not other blokes i guess.

stevie otm

yeah that's horribly bang on stevie. what a grim thought.

More like a Bachmann tbh.

suzy, as the male half of a married childless couple, I can promise you that we do get something similar, all the time. All of my best friends have children, and one-on-one with me they're generally fine, but get everyone in a group where I'm the only one w/o kids, and it's either I get the questioning, or I may as well be invisible.

Oh, I understand that - but women use it to pull all sorts of proper guilt moves and general fuckery at work. I don't think men go that far.

Tom Tucker: We interrupt this program to bring you grim news out of LaGuardia Airport where a 767 has been forced to make a crash landing
Brian: Awww man I'll tell ya, now that I'm a parent I can't even watch stories like that, I just think, you know, I just think oh my god what if Dylan were on that plane?
Oh my god! I just don't know what I'd do! I don't know what I would do.
Glen: Yeah, yeah I understand that'd be tough
Brian: Oh Oh no oh no, no no no Quagmire, no you do not understand. Until you have a child, until you have a child, you do not understand. Okay
Glen: Damn it
Peter: It's been like this all week. Watch this... Hey Brian what would you do if Dylan fell out a window?
Brian: Oh my god Oh my god I don't even want to think about that! I don't even want to think about that! Oh my god! Oh god!
Glen: Brian, what would you do if Dylan was in a fire?
Brian: Oh my god Oh my god I don't even want to think about that! I don't even want to think about that! Oh my god! Oh god! Knock on wood Knock on wood Knock on wood!
Oh I can't hear anymore of this.
Joe: Peter your dog is giving me diabetes

guys i'm pretty sure this guy kidnapped our maddie tbh

xpost

lol i was totally thinking of that scene upthread

I'll bet he drove the white Fiat that hit Diana's Mercedes in the tunnel in Paris too. Xpost.

joined up thinking reaping dividends imo

Has another man said to you that you wouldn't understand what he's going through because you lack a child

Many many many many many times.

will self totally otm when he said the thing that scares these people the most is the idea that venables/thompson might NOT in fact be pure evil and identifiably separable from the rest of us as "other". If they and their actions can legitimately be placed on the same moral spectrum as those of anyone else then by extension anyone is feasibly capable, in their minds, of bludgeoning a child to death.

usually someone is trying to get me to comply with them via the expectation of pulled heartstrings when appeals to logic are not forthcoming, or insufficient.

Drives me up the fucking wall when someone comes up with this kind of thing and definitely the "walk away" point of an argument.

suzy otm.

regardless of her tragic loss, denise fergus comes across as a remarkably belligerent, vindictive and stupid woman. i find the prevalent lynch mob mentality remarkably depressing; the ideas underlying it, about humanity and justice and rehabilitation, just seem completely alien to me.

we treat criminals in a humane way not because they deserve it but because our humanity deserves to be protected.

If they and their actions can legitimately be placed on the same moral spectrum as those of anyone else then by extension anyone is feasibly capable, in their minds, of bludgeoning a child to death.

erm, this is pretty idiotic. yes, human actions are "on the same moral spectrum", but some things are at one end of it, and others are far away from them. would i bring in "evil"? perhaps not, but i don't know what other kind of language to use for a ten year old. if anyone is evil, peter sutcliffe is -- he may well be on the same "moral spectrum" as me, but, you know, closer to the end that's marked "evil". is that a controversial view?

ok glad HM beat me to it because i would have tried to launch into something similar and not made a very good job of it.

the idea that venables/thompson might NOT in fact be pure evil and identifiably separable from the rest of us as "other". ....................anyone is feasibly capable, in their minds, of bludgeoning a child to death.

i think that latter act is sufficient evidence that they are indeed some kind of 'other', even if you just want to define 'other' as a loooong way towards the end of a linear moral scale.

(allowing for the blurring of the distinctions that can be made when recognising that you're dealing with ten year olds- but then you're saying something akin to "all ten year olds are morally the same", which i think is also very much a simplification)

the thing that scares these people the most is the idea that eg tracey emin might NOT in fact be pure evil and identifiably separable from the rest of us as "other". If they and their actions can legitimately be placed on the same moral spectrum as those of anyone else then by extension anyone is feasibly capable, in their minds, of voting conservative.

I'm not sure if you're calling me idiotic but if you are I think hm is ignoring the "in their minds" qualification, which is to say all they're capable of seeing is the extreme ends of the moral spectrum where only an absolute tiny minority of people reside.

if only a tiny minority of people reside there then isn't that close enough to 'other' to make the argument of 'that could be anyone' sophistry?

quite

The word "evil" has such religious historical weight that it shouldn't be used in arguments about punishing murderers etc. Not even sure I'd want to say Sutcliffe is "evil", he's a diagnosed schizophrenic for a start, are severely mentally ill people being consciously evil when they obey voices telling them to kill?

ffs they were ten years old. I don't know if I believe in the idea of "evil" myself, but i'm pretty certain that a ten year old can't be it.

did they know what they were doing was wrong? of course they did. did they likely grasp how horrifically wrong it was and choose to do it anyway? I can't be certain but i seriously fucking doubt it.

yeah i'm consciously avoiding the 'e' word tbh, because of the variation in what it means for different people.

the other side of it is that i'm quite capable of considering a couple of ten year olds 'little fucking cunts' depending on what they've thrown at my car or w/e.

anyone that can remember being ten should be able to remember that not all ten year olds are blank moral canvasses or anything.

Yeah - hyperbolic statements given after a verdict seem to be all about the guilty party being evil incarnate, when I know there are other words to convey despicability. There's also a contest on to use increasingly enraged language in government statements, which I find irresponsible because the next Home Secretary or Justice Secretary or whatever is locked in a pissing/thesaurus contest with all previous.

Denise Fergus just soundbit on R4, arrrgh this woman. She's not mentally ill but she is dysfunctional (and who wouldn't be with the life she's led) and her rage isn't helping. Has anyone ever suggested to her that there are some public order issues that preclude what she feels she's entitled to? Or would there be a fishwife meltdown if that happened?

The word "evil" has such religious historical weight that it shouldn't be used in arguments about punishing murderers etc. Not even sure I'd want to say Sutcliffe is "evil", he's a diagnosed schizophrenic for a start, are severely mentally ill people being consciously evil when they obey voices telling them to kill?

― Zelda Zonk, Monday, March 8, 2010 11:55 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah im uneasy about the word "evil", but if we're going to have it, then sutcliffe or fred west are your guys.

where does it leave you, the idea that sutcliffe was schizophrenic? if he was in the 1970s, that is, iirc he wasn't diagnosed back then.

put it this way: i have about as much faith in the mental illness establishment as i do in old-timey religious moralism.

as ten year-olds being "evil" -- i don't know. clearly they are not adults. on the other hand, most of them know that killing people is wrong. but i honestly don't know where to go from there.

There's also a contest on to use increasingly enraged language in government statements, which I find irresponsible because the next Home Secretary or Justice Secretary or whatever is locked in a pissing/thesaurus contest with all previous.

aha, well, yes indeed. but amazingly they use emotive language for bullshit offences -- they recently locked someone up for tax evasion (which in my view really is inhumane and absurd) and issued a press release like he was ed gein or something.

there is another gallery being played to where 'not evil' is as salutary as 'evil' is for the emotional incontinents fed by the tabloids etc

the simplest way to kill off some of this posturing would be to treat these and like children as welfare rather than justice cases by raising the age of criminal responsibility to something more becoming of a civilized society

anyone that can remember being ten should be able to remember that not all ten year olds are blank moral canvasses or anything.

no, of course not darragh. but the ten year old that throws something at your car is not a complete alien compared to the one that fries ants with a magnifying glass, nor he compared to the one that tortures the family cat, not he compared to the ones that tortures a three year old. that's pretty shit and i can understand that it's pretty horrific for these women to contemplate because then they HAVE to be scared of all ten year olds and not just these two but, well, tough.

see, i think you're arguing against yourself there?

ie these ten year olds (throwing shit at cars) are not like these ten years olds (torturing a toddler) but....they are?

the simplest way to kill off some of this posturing would be to treat these and like children as welfare rather than justice cases by raising the age of criminal responsibility to something more becoming of a civilized society

― nakhchivan, Monday, March 8, 2010 12:09 PM (5 seconds ago) Bookmark

you have to argue the case rather than say "what i think = civilized". i don't understand, in this case, what you mean. what would it mean to be treated as a welfare case? in the case of these two they'd need protective custody. but they were also a risk to the rest of society, weren't they?

xp sorry, misread you, my mistake.

Then they go and act the way fearfully ignorant people have done since the year dot.

More appropriate statementing for tax evaders would be to put it in terms of how many NHS nurses the collected tax would pay for, or similar - it might be worth it to inculcate a more realistic reason for outrage.

xp but it's a pretty huge jump from ants to toddlers, y'know? in terms not only of the behaviour, but also in terms of society/psychiatrists/the justice/welfare system saying (again) "all kids are capable of this, when you get right down to it"

tax evasion basically means you're a mid-level guy. the high-rollers can afford to evade it legally. and it's those cats who fund the political parties (via 6.30pm radio 4 panel quiz "important point" moment).

xp but it's a pretty huge jump from ants to toddlers, y'know? in terms not only of the behaviour, but also in terms of society/psychiatrists/the justice/welfare system saying (again) "all kids are capable of this, when you get right down to it"

― quiz show flat-track bully (darraghmac), Monday, March 8, 2010 12:15 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark

don't really want to have the argument, but there are some crimes where we really, really want to regard the criminal act as totally "other" and not on the same spectrum as normal, everyday acts.

but really the "spectrum" argument is a variant on original sin, not as modern and tolerant as it sounds

you have to argue the case rather than say "what i think = civilized". i don't understand, in this case, what you mean. what would it mean to be treated as a welfare case? in the case of these two they'd need protective custody. but they were also a risk to the rest of society, weren't they?

that it would be administered under the aegis of social/medical services rather than justice and that the custody would be for their protection, though it may also be seen as under the public good

children of any age can be detained under the mental health act for example

saying all ten year old boys are capable of something like that given the wrong conditions is not the same as saying all ten year olds will do something like that; all you're saying is that they're still ten year old boys and not, in fact, inherently evil.

i don't think they were diagnosed with mental illness at the time. i'm not sure why we think of mental health policing as more civilized than other forms of description -- it still other-izes them. perhaps even more. i'm capable of evil, but i'm not diagnosed schizo.

xpost

what do you mean "inherently evil"? no-one has said that, exactly. they committed evil acts, though.

okay, i'm basically synonymised "evil" with "the other" when i guess, in this context, i meant the latter.

there are some crimes where we really, really want to regard the criminal act as totally "other"

yeah had that argument with grimly fiendish on the shannon matthews thread, and it ended with him getting quite shirty with me on a personal level for some reason.

but, y'know- these people have acted differently to the way other (normal? probably, for the sake of the argument) people act. That's the actuality, and making 'we're all the same, it could, under xcirumstances, be you doing w/e' doesn't alter the fact that it wasn't. one thing you can saw about the 'these people are different' argument is that it's already a fait accompli in a lot of ways.

ps I don't think that 'these people are different, just saying that everybody is basically capable of everything is just as untenable a position.

i don't think they were diagnosed with mental illness at the time. i'm not sure why we think of mental health policing as more civilized than other forms of description -- it still other-izes them

that was cited as precedent for young children being detained for their/the public good

i'd hope that another category could exist beyond explicitly criminal/psychiatric detention for, you know, very troubled children

that was cited as precedent for young children being detained for their/the public good

well, we're still pretty muddy on why people are locked up in general, aren't we? we have the penal system, since time immemorial, and we devise new ideologies to justify it. so we still half-think of it as punishment. but also the idea of the public good is there, because we're uncomfortable with "punishment" and don't believe "deterrence".

don't believe in deterrent, p. comfortable with 'punishment', all for rehabilitation where possible.

What worries me is when the public act like a foaming mob, the detentions happen because the detainee's safety is at risk from that mob rather than vice versa.

I don't think that 'these people are different, just saying that everybody is basically capable of everything is just as untenable a position.

it's a bit of simplification of my position as well. i can have no problem with these boys sitting on/in the same moral spectrum as myself and everyone else i know, without being constantly afraid that one of them will commit an evil act. but these hysterical women really do have a problem with that dichotomy, hence the need to define them and treat them as something entirely separate.

probably poorly articulated (again) but i'm trying to work here.

xpost yeah but that's not what happened here. it's a real blow to the idea of rehabilitation, given that venables was seen as the probation service's greatest success until now.

This front page doesn't quite work, does it?

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2010/Mar/Week1/15569104.jpg

i can have no problem with these boys sitting on/in the same moral spectrum as myself and everyone else i know, without being constantly afraid that one of them will commit an evil act

really? wouldn't really be happy with one living next door to my as-yet-imaginary kid, for instance.

omg at that front page

jon, you were totally a five, fuck the haters

tbh child porn is p much on the same spectrum as the ws thread

I haven't been keeping up with this thread, so don't know if anyone else has cross-referred to this story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4048957.stm

Considering she claims at the time she was going to do the same thing with Venables, and with the allegation that one of the things he's back in for is the inability to keep his identity secret, you'd think it would have been easy. She certainly never got any less angry in the ensuing 5 years and TV vox pops would suggest there are just as many 'well-wishers'.

yeah, as i thought darragh, i failed to explain myself properly. to put it another way, i can see these boys as human without being perpetually afraid of all of humanity. the batshit carol vordermans of this world really can't, hence the calls for life to mean life etc etc.

I do agree with the "otherness". Some people can't be rehabilitated (because they don't want or can't change). But what do you do then? And up to a point it is scary to think (mainly because there are ppl like this living among us). But at the end of the day these are exceptions, no need to get hysterical.

well, we're still pretty muddy on why people are locked up in general, aren't we? we have the penal system, since time immemorial, and we devise new ideologies to justify it. so we still half-think of it as punishment. but also the idea of the public good is there, because we're uncomfortable with "punishment" and don't believe "deterrence".

that's all good but i am not arguing the general case

do you think any form of 'detention' for any person of any age for any espoused reason to be inseparable from this lineage?

to put it another way, i can see these boys as human without being perpetually afraid of all of humanity. the batshit carol vordermans of this world really can't

they really can't? i think you're maybe pushing that a little too far- vengeance on individuals isn't a declaration of fear in all humanity, and is a much simpler and more easily understood reaction.

btw cards on the table just had a nice little re-reading of the details and lethal injection for the ten yr olds, their parents in lifelong penal servitude and the entire mile around their houses burnt to the ground.

i'm not saying that that would be my reaction if i had to make a professional judgement call, but at the same time people are gonna have extreme reactions to a case like this- you can't allow that to affect proceedings, but i don't think that it's right to discount them completely from consideration.

xpost yeah but that's not what happened here. it's a real blow to the idea of rehabilitation, given that venables was seen as the probation service's greatest success until now.

― joe, Monday, March 8, 2010 12:42 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is why i think it's important that this is reported by the serious papers, rather than ignored/meta-reported, and left to the NOTWs OTW to report the story itself.

Have you guys who are arguing over the use of 'evil' actually read tabloid coverage about murderers and paedophiles? The overuse of the word 'monster' is staggering - they do not even consider the question of a moral spectrum, in the grammar of the tabloids these people are not even human.

that sun front page is just amazing

xp because things like this cause serious grief, serious hurt to those involved on the victim side, and yeah the justice system is there as an agent on their and society's behalf, so you don't leave the calls up to the injured party, but there's a reason to punish/deter this behaviour, and a large (the full?) part of it is that grief, that hurt caused to others.

discussions of whether the boys were 'evil' or w/e are well and good, but (and I think this is where I was going on the Shannon Matthews thread) sometimes that should be a side issue- the punishment/sentencing shouldn't be 100% about whether we can make them 'better' or 'no longer a threat to society'- I really believe there's got to be a real element of 'you have caused pain, grief, hurt, and that is an outstanding debt'.

where that leaves you with two ten year old torturers, I give up- I've got no idea.

Looking at that front cover of The Sun, I can't get over how evil a monster he looks like. Put him away for life.

I am, of course, talking about John Terry.

where that leaves you with two ten year old torturers, I give up- I've got no idea.

could use obama's get out clause 'it's above my paygrade'

It's at this point I admit to toying with John Terry Venables as a screen name. xpost to KBP

Have you guys who are arguing over the use of 'evil' actually read tabloid coverage about murderers and paedophiles? The overuse of the word 'monster' is staggering - they do not even consider the question of a moral spectrum, in the grammar of the tabloids these people are not even human.

― emil.y, Monday, March 8, 2010 1:05 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

no i don't read the tabs! i mean, it's doing that that gets people into frankly weird personal trips against bulger's mum. im afraid though that the word "human" implies "monster", doesn't it? if we all get to be human, whatever we do, then it's a bit of a redundant category. so i'm easier with "evil" than "monster". and perhaps even easier with "evil" than "schizophrenic", since the latter also seems to say the sufferer (see what i mean) is not fully human.

xpost

do you think any form of 'detention' for any person of any age for any espoused reason to be inseparable from this lineage?

― nakhchivan, Monday, March 8, 2010 1:00 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark

idk. i think we are kidding ourselves a little to think there isn't an element of punishment, that incarceration is "for their own good". rehabilitation is a much bigger and more pressing issue insofar as it relates to minor crimes, imo. the prison system is so fucked, in creating worse people than went in. whether or not you can rehabilitate murderers is a side issue next to that. im not a christian so don't really have this will-to-redemption thing going on.

murderers generally need the least rehabilitation. it has the lowest rate of recidivism of any crime. basically most people who try it don't like it.

lol. i mean the logical end of that is pretty awful, unless you believe in punishment, which i basically do.

im afraid though that the word "human" implies "monster", doesn't it? if we all get to be human, whatever we do, then it's a bit of a redundant category. so i'm easier with "evil" than "monster". and perhaps even easier with "evil" than "schizophrenic", since the latter also seems to say the sufferer (see what i mean) is not fully human.

I don't actually understand this, unless you are conflating 'human' with 'humane'. And even then I don't get the first sentence - are you saying all human beings are monsters? What? (I'm not trying to be disingenuous here, I honestly don't follow your line of thinking.)

Also, this was spotted on the Daily Mail site. I'm pretty sure it's a troll, but I laughed:

We should have hung them when they were ten. Killing children is wrong and should be punished by death.

- Pritesh Hathalia, Leicester, 8/3/2010 9:02

I don't actually understand this, unless you are conflating 'human' with 'humane'. And even then I don't get the first sentence - are you saying all human beings are monsters? What? (I'm not trying to be disingenuous here, I honestly don't follow your line of thinking.)

well, tbh i was wondering what you meant by human? not just, like, biological species, surely? god knows what we do mean by "human", but we mean more than this. conversely, the tabs don't mean the killers are "monsters" in the biological sense.

so what i mean is, that if we have a category of human being that is a "human" in this special sense, then we must also have a category for the "not-human", i.e. the monstrous (or angelic idk).

Okay, I see what you're getting at. It is problematic, but I think to deny the status of being human (and yes, I mean this as a member of the species - there is lots of evidence to suggest that this in itself is enough to provoke empathy etc) and placing a person into the category of 'monster', there is a denial of autonomous consciousness and all the problems that contains. It seems strange to me, as in some ways it removes culpability, but in such black and white terms the tabloids don't need culpability - a monster is a thing that by its very nature must be removed from our midst, and evil must be purged.

And your assigning of mental health problems to the same bracket as terms such as 'evil' and 'monster' is wrong - it may help to assuage the concern that 'just anyone' can perform the deeds, but it does not remove the agent from society entirely, and there is the intent that the agent can be rehabilitated or 'healed' (as patronising as that may sound).

I mean this as a member of the species - there is lots of evidence to suggest that this in itself is enough to provoke empathy etc

well, sure, on the whole, but the whole point is that these two had a pretty big empathy deficit.

im not quite sure what you're saying, because surely we do want murderers and the like to be removed from our midst, because they are dangerous (and because we want them to be punished).

i think i agree with your second post? im not sure. i mean, the mental health lobby doesn't actually promise to rehabilitate or heal people; it tends to promise to render them harmless (via medication), so...

it tends to promise to render them harmless (via medication),

my gf worked for a couple of summers at a secure unit (violent and sex offenders) and boy, the horror stories. there was a consistent agenda to 'rehabilitate and release' pushed from above and the doctors, nurses and whoever else was involved on a day-to-day basis spent most of their time and energy trying to prevent it in most of the cases.

Sounds like a depressing job tbh, darraghmac.

murderers generally need the least rehabilitation. it has the lowest rate of recidivism of any crime. basically most people who try it don't like it.

But then this is an exception: these killed for pure pleasure and they were teenage boys. Surely an exception to the rule.

it was, but she was only on a work experience kind of gig anyway- she'd never have done it full time.

yeah i think it's very much worth making the distinction btwn those who kill for a specific reason and genuine psychopaths, particularly in questions of rehabilitation vs storage

xpost well they've not killed anyone else yet. score 1 for my theory. also, you're assuming a lot in saying they killed for pure pleasure - their motives seem to have been a bit more unfathomable than that. venables doesn't seem to have taken any pleasure in it.

and they were ten rather than "teenage", which is only just within the age of criminal responsibility in the uk. i don't understand the view that says they are somehow worse because they were younger.

well, sure, on the whole, but the whole point is that these two had a pretty big empathy deficit.

The nature of the actors' damaged ability to empathise themselves is not really a part of what I'm talking about, because that would require access to information we are not privy to. I'm mostly commenting on the media and public view of the boys, which is something we do have access to, so the mention of empathy is coming from whether we as a public can empathise with them as the focus of attention. My point there was that as species beings, we are more inclined to attempt to think through our relationship with other members of the species, whereas if we are told they are not like us, then we don't have to reflect or empathise.

surely we do want murderers and the like to be removed from our midst

I don't consider being put in prison or a mental hospital a removal from our midst - they are part of society. Again, my own commentary is almost entirely an analysis of the media, and the 'removal' of what I speak is the way in which tabloid discourse pumps up those Have Your Say-type people to call for public hangings etc.

these killed for pure pleasure

Is this a matter of public record? The original case was a long time ago so I don't remember if this is the general consensus, but I would imagine that it is a lot more complicated than 'pure pleasure'.

xp

i don't understand the view that says they are somehow worse because they were younger.

i'm finding it hard to express why this is so, but i mean you don't think it was somehow worse that this was two ten year olds doing it?

I find it sadder because it was two ten year olds, but if anything I think that their age deserves more compassion than demonisation - kids may not be completely blank slates, but their morality and understanding of consequences is certainly much less formed than an adult agent.

But again, I don't have access to the contents of their heads, nor do I have access to the entirety of their case files, so anything said on the matter is really based on speculation.

I would imagine that it is a lot more complicated than 'pure pleasure'.

in the absence of further direct evidence from either of the killers, i'd struggle myself to define any possible excuse other that 'pleasure' or 'desire to do it' for it's own sake- no profit motive, no personal contact prior to the killing, possible sex motive? possible but unlikely given the ages involved.

simply by eliminating most of the possible reasons there are for killing someone, you're not left with an awful lot besides.

I've had to actually get on with some work but just popped back to otm emily. so emily, otm.

xxp emil.y otm

you don't think it was somehow worse that this was two ten year olds doing it

More shocking, yes, but shock, discomfort and horror aren't to me the best criteria for thinking through questions of justice, & get in the way of working out how to deal with this.

afaict all we need to do is work out answers these two simple questions:

1) What is it to be human?

2) What is justice?

i don't understand the view that says they are somehow worse because they were younger.

me neither. and i don't know whether they killed for pleasure or what -- unfathomable is how you have to leave it. surely most murders of this level of cruelty and pointlessness are in the end unfathomable... i mean, with all this talk of spectrums, do we really think ourselves capable of what they did? or is it a rhetorical move to say so? surely it *is* very hard to empathise?

their age deserves more compassion than demonisation

again, ok, they aren't adults, and they are not the devil himself, but compassion might be pushing it.

kids may not be completely blank slates, but their morality and understanding of consequences is certainly much less formed than an adult agent.

I don't know the scientific words but I was under the impression that up to a surprisingly high age, kids' ability to really BELIEVE that others are people just like them is pretty thin on the ground. Ie they realize they are a "self" but there's not much understanding that everyone else is too.

Sort of think manners and societal prohibitions (that come from parents or w/e) are tailor-made for keeping kids in line by fear of authority or whatever, up until they grow some perspective. So for whatever reason(s), the system didn't work on these kids, combined w whatever circumstances led up to the crime.

Says someone who doesn't know nuthin about this case or these people cept what google archives just sketched out for me.

laurel otm, but it doesn't really lead us any closer to dealing with them.

blame the parents tho!

That's a really good post, Laurel!

up to a surprisingly high age, kids' ability to really BELIEVE that others are people just like them is pretty thin on the ground. Ie they realize they are a "self" but there's not much understanding that everyone else is too.

tbh, a lot of the time, i dunno if i honestly think of everyone i meet as a fully rounded individual self.

I believe there was some probable sexual element to the killing - genitals disturbed, batteries inserted, perhaps best not to dwell too much on the precise details, other than to note that the current reported crimes are perhaps the most obvious offences one might expect from someone who was that screwed-up as a ten-year-old.

I'm going to reread As Ifby Blake Morrison, which is an absolutely amazing treatment of the murder and aftermath - highly, highly recommended.

xxxpost presumably the parents have not been allowed any contact with their kids since the conviction. so they've been punished.

btw, the daily mail has a "horror picture" drawn by venables weeks before the murder, as if "ten year old boy draws violent picture" is in any way news:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/03/07/article-1256190-089BD4D3000005DC-514_634x343.jpg

Ie they realize they are a "self" but there's not much understanding that everyone else is too.

almost all kids older than 4 pass the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test. or are you talking about something else?

Yeah, see? So why don't we murder more people who don't seem "real" to us? Eh, I'll take a shot at it: better impulse control, adult understanding of consequences, adult sense of squeamishness after having things that are "gross" or violent or w/e shown to us in an environment where our response is almost compelled ("Eww!").

xxxxxxxp

xp Hold on, caek. I'll have to read that.

Not sure 'evil' is a helpful concept outside of religion (otherwise, as several people have pointed out, it loses its absolute) and even within religion, evil is something that makes use of people in certain circumstances. It certainly isn't helpful as a quantity when talking about justice (use of it basically results in the idea that 'evil' people need to be punished more than 'not evil' people).

In fact I'm not sure in a way the problem was not evil but innocence, but in a wider childlike sense - innocence of the responsibilities of life. I don't know about anyone else, but some of the children I knew at school lived in a horrifyingly amoral, or immoral world (making money by charging to see a suicide, perpetually bullying with savage violence individuals, nasty, hidden violence).

Childhood is a violent extreme place that shares the same world as adulthood but is not emotionally the same as it, and furthermore, some children, perhaps many (I was a pathological liar for a bit) haven't developed a lot of the skills of social interaction.

The Bulger case to me has a strong flavour of this sort of behaviour. Dealing with it is a different matter - it depends on how much you feel people can change. That we have to deal with it, and not condemn people either to death, or to one state for their entire life (especially when dealing with children) seems to be the only way that makes any sort of sense.

btw, the daily mail has a "horror picture" drawn by venables weeks before the murder, as if "ten year old boy draws violent picture" is in any way news:

erm... dude, really? i mean, sure it wouldn't be news if he hadn't murdered someone the following week... but he did. thus, news.

So why don't we murder more people who don't seem "real" to us? Eh, I'll take a shot at it: better impulse control, adult understanding of consequences, adult sense of squeamishness after having things that are "gross" or violent or w/e shown to us in an environment where our response is almost compelled ("Eww!").

sure, sure. of course, we accept the basic distinction between adults and children. but this can't in the end account for "why we don't all murder people." better "impulse control"? squeamishness!?

the idea that 'evil' people need to be punished more than 'not evil' people

now that's crazy talk

making money by charging to see a suicide

o_O

just waiting for the whole CHILDS PLAY 3 moral panic to kick in again

I dunno, mostly what keeps me from thinking about doing violence w any seriousness is that I know I would probably remember the sound and feel of the violent act forever, and I don't really want to know what it feels like, sounds like, smells like, etc to bash someone's skull in.

As good a reason as any.

btw, the daily mail has a "horror picture" drawn by venables weeks before the murder, as if "ten year old boy draws violent picture" is in any way news:

erm... dude, really? i mean, sure it wouldn't be news if he hadn't murdered someone the following week... but he did. thus, news.

well, you could probably have found similar material from most ten-year-old boys two weeks before james bulger was killed. it didn't have any predictive or interpretative value: it's of a piece with, "they watched child's play III" or whatever. the mail says the picture was inspired by the movie halloween. really? it could be anything.

i shouldn't have implied that i wouldn't expect a newspaper to run the picture though. but it's a curiosity rather than a peak INSIDE THE MIND OF A KILLER.

xpost w/ ward fowler

I can still sort of remember what it felt like to step out the front door for school and onto a small rodent body the cats had left on the mat: the feel of the crunch of tiny bones still lingers. And when you cut yourself while cooking, for ex, it's hard to forget the way the knife hand felt when you encountered resistance, a certain kind of friction, the feel of shearing through your own skin, maybe a little sound...that's the stuff.

Naw dude. That really is a peek inside the mind of a killer.

you could probably have found similar material from most ten-year-old boys two weeks before james bulger was killed.

hmmm. i played with models of fighter aircraft n shit when i was ten. but i didn't draw pictures of knife-murder. of course it has/had no "predictive" value. but "interpretative"? i really don't see why not, in a casual, newspaper-y type way. other details of his life are presumably also common to other children but at the same time illuminating?

It annoys me that the video nasty thing still lingers around this case

The trial judge Mr. Justice Morland stated that exposure to violent videos might have encouraged the actions of Thompson and Venables, but this was disputed by David Maclean, the Minister of State at the Home Office at the time, who pointed out that police had found no evidence linking the case with "video nasties". Some UK tabloid newspapers claimed that the attack on James Bulger was inspired by the film Child's Play 3, and campaigned for the rules on "video nasties" to be tightened. Inspector Ray Simpson of Merseyside Police commented: "If you are going to link this murder to a film, you might as well link it to The Railway Children"

the idea that movies affect behaviour is completely ridiculous imo

My boys sometimes draw violent scenes, usually 'Captain Underpants' inspired scenes involving some hero or other defending against invaders, but there has been the odd slightly disturbing one that we've had to chat about. I don't think it's any indication of a propensity for violence - just one of these things that in this case fitted in after the event. They weren't even originally planning on beating the child up, they planned to push him in into traffic.

Okay to answer caek, I had to read through this:

Secondary representation adds the ability to model hypothetical situations, making possible the entertainment of multiple, simultaneous, mental models. ... In mental attribution, the operation of multiple models means that the child is able to recognize that although she sees or knows about a specific thing, another individual may not.

That seems to support the Sally-Anne testing results. However:

The second major issue is Call's assertion that ‘insight into other's subjective experience is a key component of the (‘meta-representational’) account’ attributed to one of us 1. This is not necessarily the case. The jury still appears to be out on the extent to which intervening variables, as mental states attributed to others, should be thought to contain ‘subjective experiences’ of the person doing the mindreading, even in humans. Some states, of which seeing and knowing are likely examples, might be represented only in the austere terms of their epistemic or information-processing significance. Perhaps if the mindreading process were to operate by mental simulation of others, as some suggest 9, the notion of attributing ‘subjective experiences’ would seem to become more appropriate. Gordon, indeed, has described simulation models as ‘hot’, in contrast to models that postulate that children use a ‘cold’ theory-building appoach to mindreading 9. However, Gordon is also at pains to point out that his own simulation model does not rest upon introspection. In any case, the extent to which either simulation or theory models are correct remains to be empirically established.

Bolding mine. Without more background reading, I can barely hang on for the ride with this para, but it seems like a rich vein w/r/t the thread topic.

the idea that movies affect behaviour is completely ridiculous imo

Chesterton was good on this 80 years ago

Long lists are being given of particular cases in which children have suffered in spirits or health from alleged horrors of the kinema. One child is said to have had a fit after seeing a film; another to have been sleepless with some fixed ideas taken from a film; another to have killed his father with a carving knife through having seen a knife used in a film.

This might possibly have occurred; though if it did, anybody of common sense would prefer to have details about that particular child, rather than about that particular picture. But what is supposed to be the practical moral of it, in any case? Is it that the young should never see a story with a knife in it?

…

It would be more practical to propose that a child should never see a real carving-knife, and still more practical that he should never see a real father.

All that may come: the era of preventative and prophetic science has begun.

http://website.lineone.net/~darkangel5/sunbox.gif

yeah, i mean, i was trolling a bit. obviously films have affected the way people behave ffs! just as books do. i don't think these kids actually saw 'child's play 3'.

is child's play 3 any good?

According to the police at the time there was no evidence that they'd watched any horror movies in the lead up to the killing.

xp no idea, but as the third part in a killer doll series I'm guessing it's shit

"Video Nasties" is such a weird, babyish term.

Anyway, Galamiel, about your schoolmates making money by charging to see a suicide?

^this

ok enough knee-jerk reaction from me (i got sick of the childs play stuff first time around too). the mail article is more substantive than i thought about "halloween" and quite interesting, so i take it all back:

Venables wrote: 'In my dads I saw howowen is when you a girl and this man and he kiled people especial girls and he has got a mask on that he robed knifes out the shop and the police that it was pice but it was not it was the man.'

Author Blake Morrison, who describes seeing the drawing in his book on the Bulger case, As If, said: 'The drawing suggests how seeing Halloween deeply disturbed an already deeply disturbed little boy. Did something else happen at home to disturb Jon? Was he frightened by Susan's physical chastisings? The knife wielder in his drawing has breasts.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256190/Revealed-The-horror-drawing-Jon-Venables-weeks-killed-James-Bulger.html

i don't understand that letter either laurel, and i'm certainly not qualified to judge (although i have seen rain man), but the sally-anne test seems like a pretty indisputable empirical result about the age of onset of theory of mind in kids. obviously the test is not directly analogous to a 10 year old considering whether if they do something someone else will die though. just wanted to note that, in general terms, most 10 year olds understand there are other people, which i think is what you were wondering out loud.

Gamaliel otm on kid-world. If I put my mind back to that sort of amoral zone of rumours, lies, bullying, cruelty, extreme emotional responses that's under the surface of primary school & think of what it's like to be doing something that you know is wrong at ten (dangerous but exciting, esp if with friend), then it's possible to *begin* to get one's head round the murder. Tho tbh I get a bit sick if I start to try.

But empathy useless as I can barely think of this on the justice/mercy axis at this point: probably don't need to serve more time, trapped inside their heads aware of what they did, also live in fear that they'll be torn apart by a mob if ever discovered, V clearly has deep-seated psych trouble given this offence. Hideous crime, miserable lives. But really they're just a big & quite expensive problem for civil society. What do you do?

Anyway, Galamiel, about your schoolmates making money by charging to see a suicide?

Ah, yes. Bit contracted that - I had to run off to do some work before being able to elaborate. It's only slightly less bad than it sounds. Chap committed suicide in the bogs (poor lad) and, in the relatively small period before the teachers being informed, the boy who found him charged other pupils to see the body. After the whole area had been cordoned off, the boy went around charging slightly less to tell the story of what he'd seen.

Did lead to an amusing mishearing/misunderstanding - friend's mother said 'Gosh, it must have been a dreadful shock', my brother replied 'No, he hung himself'.

Well, you know that people are other because you've been told so, and witnessed them in life, behaving like other people. But do you FEEL for them? Do you care how they feel? For a few of a child's loved ones, the answer is prob "yes, to some degree", but I doubt the ans would be "yes" for any stranger, anywhere.

For heaven's sake, aren't there several civilizations'-worth of jokes about (slightly) older children pinching the baby just to see if he cries? It's exciting to have agency, to compel the reactions of others, and you can make the baby cry every time, by one simple action. How tempting!

dunno. i have no idea if these two knew what they were doing. jus' sayin'.

Well, you know that people are other because you've been told so, and witnessed them in life, behaving like other people. But do you FEEL for them? Do you care how they feel? For a few of a child's loved ones, the answer is prob "yes, to some degree", but I doubt the ans would be "yes" for any stranger, anywhere.

― The other side of genetic power today (Laurel), Monday, March 8, 2010 3:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

im not necessarily disagreeing, but where does this leave us? i actually don't think 10-year-olds are all potential* murderers. what are you saying? i think 10 year-olds, on the whole, don't plan to kill toddlers, and wouldn't if given the chance.

*yes, ok, in the absolute they are. but we must think that some are more likely to than others, for whatever reasons.

really this should be a poll going from "Electric chair" down to "Release them, they were just kids"

sounds snarky/simplistic, but tbh i've been veering btwn both all day. horrible case that i don't want to think about any more.

What do I know, everything I know about this case came from a fictionalization of it by this Scottish mystery/detective writer who sets all her novels in Glasgow.

these killed for pure pleasure

Is this a matter of public record?

Yes, I was of course wrong to add "pure" to pleasure. But why else did they kill? Surely not because of revenge nor for profit. So why else? Boredom? Hm, might be the case. But I rather see these kids (or one of them) as skipping the animal killing and heading straight for humans.

Age of course plays a big role. I do feel some sort of compassion. Maybe the parents kind of left these kids at their own devices, neglected them,... But they were already ten years old and must have known the difference between right and wrong. (This doesn't mean I would treat them as adults in a court, not at all, but it would lead me to feel less compassionate.)

"Deep-rooted self-loathing is a common trait. Often the act of murder, whatever the circumstances, is an unconscious means of proving just how awful the individual thinks him or herself to be – and for many, once convicted, execution would be welcomed as a blessing."

that's erwin james, the writer and murderer whose real identity ilx ended up exposing a while back (he says a bit about that), writing about venables admitting his identity. i think "pleasure" is a a bit inadequate as a motive.

scroll down: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/07/jon-venables-confessed-identity

Pleasure does feel inadequate - its implications are misleading - suggests '***** fun experience would kill again'. You can stretch the word I guess to cover the boredom, native cruelty, seeing what happens, transgression, showing off, things getting out of hand, vented urges, fear and panic that I'm guessing were muddled in there, but it's an iffy one word summary.

I'm going to stop thinking about this now. It's upsetting and quite tiring to pick over, & no solutions of c.

But the hatred that was directed at me was tempered by well-wishers and my own determination live a decent life.

Not by ilx surely? (the hatred that is).

xp re: Erwin.

no, he probably means the daily mail, or maybe he got nasty letters i dunno.

xxxpost presumably the parents have not been allowed any contact with their kids since the conviction. so they've been punished.

Was reading a thing in the *shhhh* Daily Mail the other day by one of Thompson's social workers, he said his mother visited him regularly.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256109/Robert-Thompson-Social-worker-looked-James-Bulger-killer-speaks.html

I'm actually utterly ashamed that some tabloid sockmonster made ILX culpable in that Erwin James story.

thought it was creepy-ish, but can't get too worked up about it. thought it was bs for erwin james to write his column without it being clear what he was in for, tbh -- not, you know, morally wrong, but just fake and bad journalism.

pretty sure lukeybaby wasn't a tabloid sock - they don't usually try to put their stories on wikipedia first.

See, that is even more bizarre to me.

Wait, wait, wait - are we sure that the ILX thread was reponsible for Erwin James' identity coming out?

Yeah I got the impression lukeybaby wasnt just posting about it here, but on at least one other forum at the same time, wasnt he?

what thread?

What crime did Erwin James commit?

good grief. what an edifying thread.

Well, I was one of the people digging around for info on that thread, although if lukeybaby was a tabloid reporter I had no idea. But I think curiosity about the past of a convicted murderer who now has a newspaper column and who refuses to say anything about his crimes is understandable, and in no way comparable to the Venables case, where he committed a crime as a child, has been given a new identity, and has not attempted to create a media career for himself based on his prison experiences. I also think Erwin James is better off now, with his identity out in the open. He is/was planning a book on his time in the Foreign Legion. At the same time, he'd put out some egregious untruths about his experiences there. Much better he make his own mea culpa now, in a general atmosphere of good will, than be exposed later when a book is published.

xp lol darraghmac in being a dick while in an internet argument shocker. sorry suzy!

Zelda otm in that there's not really much comparison between the two, although tbh Erwin James' piece on Venables seems like quite trite 'you don't understand, poor me, poor him' copy that is, tbf, quite a bit below the standard of the other examples of his writing that I've seen.

Meanwhile, The Sun's coverage is being overseen by the paper's chief reporter John Kay. The same John Kay who, in 1977, drowned his Japanese wife Harue in the bath of their Barnet home before attempting to gas himself. Driven mad by the pressure of work as the paper's industrial correspondent, he could see no other way out for himself or his wife, who had been cut off by her family for marrying a westerner. He was convicted of manslaughter with diminished responsibility, and, on his release from Friern Barnet mental hospital, was welcomed back by his employer. The problem for me isn't that Kay killed his wife. I'm happy to accept that he was temporarily deranged. I've been temporarily deranged too, and it's a dark place to inhabit. The problem is that The Sun showed a greater degree of enlightenment and understanding when one of its own transgressed than it would ever have done in any other circumstances. Imagine the reporting of a similar case where the killer was AN Other.

is there another source to corroborate that?

It's on Wikipedia, it must be true - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kay_%28journalist%29

fucking ugh @ other humans, generally

wow that's deeply fucked.

OK yeah no one who got off on a "diminished responsibility" manslaughter charge ever has the right to bay for anyone elses blood.

So, the first lynch mob target is out there (I was given this guy's name at work today as definitely being Jon Venables without recourse to the internet to check the veracity of the claim being made by a pitchfork-wielding colleague).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/09/david-calvert-jon-venables-facebook-jamie-bulger

good ole dail mail never lets u down

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1257055/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Credulous-psychiatrists-pornographic-videos-truly-comprehend-mystery-evil.html

Chucky!!!! He's back!

That's a pretty fair article - not at all what I was expecting.

certainly more interesting and thoughtful than anything i've read about this in the guardian

it seems to actually confront the issue, which is basically "WHY DO THEY DO IT - WHO KNO" though of course still manages to get its 600 words in, chaching, thanks

A bit let down by the comments though:

The lord Satan has the whole world deceived... only the good can discern evil.
Perhaps he in his own way has exposed an infinitely greater evil than himself in his refusing to play along with Jack damned to hell Straw.

- Hugh E Torrance, London England

first line eerily reminiscent of tom cruise scientology interview?

You may be on to something. I wouldn't put it past Cruise to believe that Jack Straw is more evil than the devil himself...

"only the good can discern evil"? seriously? kinda lets the evil off the hook if so imo

well only the good are allowed throw the first stone iirc, so tbh being able to discern them probably seemed like a waste of time without the payoff.

Look, there's some evil- I can see evil! MOM I CAN SEE EVIL!

STFU Bradley, eat your greens.

kinda like being able to see lotto numbers but not having a pen, ennui or madness are the only options.

Tom Verlaine is evil QED

Not letting Richard Lloyd take more solos IS evil

The lord Satan has the whole world deceived... only the good can discern evil.

This just sounds like something paraphrased from the Usual Suspects.

http://www.hanamoira.com/Chris/2.jpg http://www.alltopmovies.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/kevin-spacey1.jpg

is there another source to corroborate that?

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Tuesday, 9 March 2010 11:57 (1 week ago) Bookmark

Finally found my copy of 'Stick It Up Your Punter' and they go into in detail.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2925524/Jon-Venables-sits-in-den-strumming-Oasis-hits.html

the sick bastard

His rights still have to be upheld.

"That means finding him constructive activities to do.

someone message my dad circa 1996 and explain to him that hours alone in a room playing the compositions of n gallagher is 'constructive' please.

On the outside the fee for an hour-long lesson is typically £30.

Should be able to strum 2 Oasis songs after one hour-long lesson really.

The freed murderer of James Bulger - back in prison over child porn allegations - was last night said to be masterbating the instrument thanks to weekly visits from a tutor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10369277.stm

About to become the least popular prisoner in the country.

poor him, etc

Um.

?

Next week will be the 25th anniversary of James Bulger's murder.

A couple of weeks ago I heard Denise Fergus, his mother, interviewed on Woman's Hour, which, while of course very sad, I'd say is very much worth listening to for those interested. She's very candid about her experience, both at the time and since http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09nrsfj

I was 11 years old myself at the time and growing up on the Wirral, so it was all very close to home, but I realise that I'd never thought about the case in any detail until now, which was probably for the best. I've been thinking about it quite a bit since the interview though and it's so difficult to comprehend both the events of the murder itself and to think about what I feel should be the response to it, in terms of Venables and Thompson.

Unrelated bump to Venables conviction for offensive material today?

there are lots of people living normal lives who have done worse as adults. I think it's fair to say not just the nature but the volume of the discourse is indicative that something's fucked

No, I was reading about that just before posting and it reminded me that it had been on my mind to write something here.

How do you mean ogmor?

Don't know if ogmor's reply was even in relation to this, wrong thread?

It's no small feat that Thompson is apparently happily married and living and going about "normally", in a local community, without people knowing who he is. I'm in awe such secrets can still exist tbh.

well what sort of thinking and feeling should people be doing about it? if it's a question of justice then from what I know I'd say it's been a reasonable effort in a situation made almost impossible by the attention and chatter around the case. if we're pondering the scope of rehabilitation then its clear that the acts themselves don't necessarily render it impossible. i think the media has never had good reasons for pursuing this as they have, and the act of opening a national debate on it has put a huge distorting pressure on how people think & feel about it. people's ideas have been forged in the heat of this discourse and they reflect it even in rejecting it. it's a model that informs how ppl think more widely, and i think that makes it very hard to come back to it 'cold' or whatever, but even the desire to do that seems borne of this swamp of feeling.

or, more briefly: the iconic nature of this case is deeply suspect and distorts all subsequent chat around it

Suspect hardly, it's very understandable.

But I agree that it makes it a poor case to focus any debate about rehabilitation around

the reaction to the media coverage is understandable, the existence & nature of the coverage in the first place is the issue. the point's been made before about similar cases elsewhere being resolved much better away from the glare of public interest

Child murderer cases should be held in camera kind of thing?

probably. it seems like a media/public sphere problem rather than a legal one. this 'public interest' that makes people want to read about violent and sexual crime and the media's love of victims and villains should not just be an accepted part of the landscape because it changes over time and it's an appetite that the media develop

Documentary now on c4 is very good apart from allowing kelvin mackenzie a voice on the subject. He should be nowhere ner this and it's unnecessarily confrontational to have him included here

Also a mod should really change the title of tt

i don't really have anything to say about this - other than this crime really perturbed me greatly when it happened, and i was a year or two younger than the murderers. It's sort of interesting to note how Venables has just been a wretched, train-wreck of a human being since being released in 2001 while Thompson is apparently well-settled and in a long term relationship, given that I seem to remember that Thompson was supposedly the ringleader.

I think that's what Krakow was getting at, too. He did mention he was 11 when it happened. The impact it had on you as a child.

And yes, having listened to his mum today, a mod should change the title into James Bulger.