Mary Kenny: Crime and punishment are far from child's play
Law reform is unthinkable while the Bulger case remains such a sensitive issue in the public mind
FEW events have distressed, upset -- and divided -- the British public like the murder of the two-year-old James Bulger in 1993, whose consequences continue to rumble on.
Just yesterday, the murdered toddler's mother, Denise Fergus, called for the sacking of the "Children's Tsar", Dr Maggie Atkinson, who had described James's killing by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson as "unpleasant".
That word "unpleasant" -- minimising, if not actually excusing, the crime -- symbolises something of the social divide over the Bulger killing.
On the one side, the therapists, the child psychologists, the shrinks, bureaucrats and quangocrats working for the "children's rights" industry -- middle-class professionals on the taxpayer's payroll. (Dr Atkinson, the government-appointed Children's Commissioner, is paid £138,000 (€153,000) a year.
On the other side, the victims of crime and assault and their families, the popular press, the angry, often working-class crowd sometimes called "the mob" who express rage and sometimes vindictiveness about the notorious case. The populist view is that the killers of little James have been mollycoddled and even rewarded by "do-gooder" professionals.
It was a senior psychiatrist who gave Jon Venables a clean bill of health, claiming that he had been rehabilitated and had made "exceptional psychological progress" during his eight years in a secure unit.
"Jon has reached the psychological maturity to be able to cope with release," said the psychiatric report, though it cautioned that his new identity must be protected at all costs.
Venables has, as we now know, been recalled to custody, reportedly for alleged child pornography offences. It is also reported that he will not face any charges because his new identity could be compromised, and this might prompt public disorder.
The case has also triggered a continuing controversy about the age of criminal responsibility, which is 10 in England and Wales (and eight in Scotland, though the Scottish parliament is due to enact legislation to bring it up to 12); many psychologists today argue that it should be 12 or even 14.
Jack Straw's justice ministry has turned down proposals that it should be increased to 12 all over Britain. With an election coming up within months, it is more than their vote is worth to risk such an unpopular move right now.
It could be considered some time in the future. Ten may well be too young for a child to understand the difference between a bad prank and a serious, irreversible crime. After they were accused of killing little James, Thompson said: "Can't they just bring him back to life again?" -- as though real life resembled a Tom and Jerry cartoon, where a character can be liquidated and then suddenly bounce back into shape.
But law reform is unthinkable while the Bulger case remains such a sensitive issue in the public mind.
The Bulger case became an obsessive public concern for a number of reasons. One was because the image of the two boys leading little James away to his death was caught on CCTV camera and has now become almost iconic.
And then it emerged that Venables and Thompson beat and tortured the toddler before killing him.
It greatly shocked people that children could kill other children. For the previous 50 years the accepted view of childhood was that it was innocent. Children could be the victims of bad adults, but children themselves were not naturally bad.
And then how should children who kill, or who act in a dangerous or devious way, be treated? Should they be punished or rehabilitated? As it was, a huge investment was made in rehabilitating Thompson and Venables, providing them with tutors, psychologists, security, and a new identity.
It seems to have worked with Thompson. In custody, he showed an interest in dress design, and soon after release came out as homosexual and is now living with a long-term partner.
Venables, by contrast, seems to have led a troubled career since his release and has reportedly been involved in a series of incidents.
Both boys had had broken family lives: both were deserted by their fathers. All that has to be factored into the case.
Yet where there is too much attention on rehabilitating the offender -- and that tends to be the focus of the psychologists and other professionals -- justice for the victim seems downgraded. Certainly, Dr Atkinson calling James's tormented death "unpleasant" -- as though it were a breach of manners -- is deplorable.
And the therapeutic approach needs to be constantly subjected to evidence-based tests: that is, does it work?
The clerical abuse situation in the Catholic Church is a discouraging test here. Before the 1960s, clerics found guilty of sexual abuse were ceremonially unfrocked; there was even a special rite for the unfrocking of a priest or bishop, which entailed a humiliating "naming and shaming".
After the 1960s, the church replaced penalty with therapy. Even Pope Benedict, as Bishop Ratzinger, reportedly recommended an accused priest for counselling and therapy rather than scrutiny and punishment. The church has vehemently denied this.
In ordinary life, deterrents work: at a very basic level, parking penalties reduce illegal parking, and tax penalties usually incentivise citizens to remit their taxes.
It must follow that deterrent and penalty apply in the sphere of crime and criminal justice.
But how to apply that to children -- especially those who have had highly troubled backgrounds -- is another matter. And not one on which the therapy industry and ordinary folk are likely to agree.
- Mary Kenny
Irish Independent
