anthony hinchliffe...

[oxeyedaisy]

what posseses anyone to lead a small boy away and leave him with neck ligatures and bruising.?? the story sickens me as i have two small grandchildren and the poor little boy will probably be mentally scarred for life..are children so bored they have to do things like this??its allmost a jamie bulgar act all over again without the fatal end..i am sure all you answerbank people will wish the little boy a speedy recovery..those that did it will probably live it up in the lap of luxury in a young offenders.why do people do things like this ??its just something i cant get my head round why anyone could be so cruel no matter what age they are.. .

[jake-the-peg]

I suggest you read Lord of the Flies (again?). Golding answers these sort of questions better than any of us.

[Loosehead]

40 years of liberal thinking have destroyed any respect for anyone or anything "if a crime is committed then it is fault of the state for creating the necessary conditions", the lefty mantra I'm afraid. What we have now is second generation yobs and lowlife bred by the first generation of yobs and lowlife. I'll bet the parants of the children that did this try and blame someone else and spend all their effort denying it was their little angel's doing rather than correcting the ever increasing and dangerous tendency to this sort of thing. No respect for adults, authority of any kind, total knowledge of their rights but none of there responsibility and the latest aid to our slip to oblivion, the naffing HR act. Remember people if the public do not feel safe they will protect themselves we are a hairs breadth away from Vigilantism and that is the way to true horror.

[silly moo]

This may be an unpopular idea, but I feel that one of the problems is that children so often are not taught that every action has a reaction. If you do wrong or hurt someone then you are punished in some way.
Sitting and talking is not always enough
Another problem is that of 'rights' without responsibilities - you cannot have one without the other.

[silly moo]

P.S.
I forgot to say that I also just cannot understand the mindset of anybody - of any age - wanting to inflict such cruelty. With very young children maybe they don't understand the consequences of their actions?

[jake-the-peg]

15 year old James Booty raped of a 5 year old girl.
15 year old Elizabeth Morton murdered  two of her employer�s children.  18 year old Sarah Shenston murdered  her ******* child. Fifteen year old Elizabeth Marsh was convicted of the murder of her grandfather.

This was in 1722, 1763, 1792 and 1794 respectively all were hanged for their offences.

Given the population is now much bigger and these are a quick trawl I think the "kids these days" argument is as much tosh as the "capital punishment deters argument" 

I think we've always been one step from barbarism

[kaktus]

Hear hear Jake!!

[Lillabet]

jake-the-peg does have a point. The number of children convicted each year of offences which would nowadays carry a maximum / automatic life sentence in an adult has remained remarkably consistent over the past century regardless of the political climate. It does not seem to be ever increasing under any objective standard.

There is a perception that the world is much more violent nowadays and the recorded crime figures seem at first glance to back this up. However the rise in violent crime fits neatly with a change in crime recording practice. Before the police recorded each 'incident' as 1 crime. So a fight involving 10 people was 1 violent crime. Under the new system crime is recorded on a victim basis. So a fight involving 10 people where each is assaulted now equals 10 violent crimes.

Also that prisons and young offenders institutes are somehow luxurious, nice places to be. Having been in both (professionally - not as a criminal) I can assure you that they are not pleasant. That removing your freedom and separating you from your family is a punishment and not something that most take lightly...

An awful lot of children do something at least once in their life that is risky or stupid and could lead to serious injury. In this case there has been the suggestion that the boy might have been tied to a tree as part of some game. It would have been incredibly dumb to tie him round his neck -but I can certainly remember playing cowboys and indians and if the indians caught a cowboy then tying him to whatever was being a totem pole could quite conceivably have been part of a game. Of course there are some individuals who are sadistically cruel in any circumstance and at any age (If a child is sadistically cruel to animals is actually one of the strongest indicators of the possibility of sadistic behaviour towards people later in life). But this is not a recent phenomenon.

[Lillabet]

I have actually never heard anyone utter the opinion that the state creates crime and is fully responsible - whilst the criminal should bear no blame. As someone in my 20s I guess I would be part of Loosehead's first generation of yobs and lowlifes. I would like to assure him that both I and my contemporaries are, in the main, as law abiding as any previous generation. I am perfectly clear that I have responsibilites along with any rights I may have. As for the Human Rights Act. I've never met anyone who dismisses it out of hand who has actually read it. A right to a fair trial, a ban on torture, a right not to be killed by the state for no reason. These don't seem unreasonable to me.

Equally to dismiss out of hand the idea that social circumstances have an effect on behaviour and criminality seems to me to be shortsighted and unhelpful. Social influences have a massive effect on the likelihood of someone becoming a criminal. Altering these circumstances could be the most effective - and I am including cost effective - crime prevention tactic.

Just a couple of examples. Over 60% of those convicted of serious violent offences including murder in one prison were found to be below basic literacy standards and to have a variety of learning disabilities. In the population as a whole the level is around 10%. The conclusion that the study came to was that those who are unable to express themselves effectively in other ways are far more likely to express themselves through violence. Effective adult education and literacy programmes had a significant effect in reducing the levels of aggression and violence. So if we can raise literacy in society we may well reduce violence - surely this is worth a try?

[Lillabet]

People who sexually abuse children are far more likely to have been a victim of abuse themselves than people in society as a whole. (Of course not all victims become abusers) This is much, much more likely if the person who abused them was never convicted and they never received any form of counselling to address their abuse.

As such if someone is identified as having abused children it is certainly arguable that you should make every possible effort to contact anyone who may have been a victim of this person and provide them with the counselling and support they as a victim need. In this way future abuse is likely to be reduced.

There are many many other examples that could be given here. We are the product of both nature and nurture. Society does have an effect as such addressing social problems can also have a positive effect whilst not addressing them can have a negative effect.

I absolutely agree that parental responsibility and personal responsibility is needed. People including children can be cruel and clear moral guidance is needed. But to dismiss any role for society as 'a lefty mantra' of no value is frankly wrong.

I deplore cruelty and of course wish the child in this case a speedy recovery. As for why people do this - that question has been addressed for centuries with no definite answer. Sorry it's such a long answer...

[kaktus]

It might be long lillabet, but I think it is so true. Sorry to keep posting these "I think you're right posts".

[delilahcat]

Lillabet, there is really nothing to add to your extremely erudite and well thought out reasoning.

Agree with absolutely every word.

[El D]

Ditto - education is key, in all senses of the word.

[netibiza]

Although I find it abhorent and unbelievably I think children are becoming immune to horror as they see it on so may Games consoles and tv etc.  Start monitoring them seriously at home.

[bruce5755]

I think the main point seems to be going un-mentioned.  The pure and simple morals of the difference between "Right And Wrong".  I ask myself, are these being taught to children, the same way that they were taught to me?

I remember going to Sunday School, I may not have enjoyed it as I should have, but maybe this set out my standards from an early age.

I still have respect for authority, the police etc, and try to do unto others as I would wish to be treated.

It all starts in the home, from day one, a learning process that carries on all our lives!

[TEAK36]

Im sure these chidren know the difference between right and wrong,but do they really understand the consequences of their actions. I was brought up in a decent loving household,in a decnt area,did reasonably well at school, but this did not stop me being arrested at 13 years old for throwing bricks at cars from a motorway bridge.I knew 100% that what I was doing was completely wrong and dangerous,but I did not think for a minute that my actions might kill someone.25 years later I now consider myself to be a decent law abiding family man, but it could so easily have gone wrong.Its all too easy to shake your head in despair and call these kids scum, but I dont believe they are 'evil' which is what the tabloids are writing.

[Peter Pedant]

Well done teak

I think you have done a very brave thing - [confess to various weaknesses]

everyone tends to conclude that because they have never done something stupid, no one else could, unless they were deep dyed criminals

[catra1]

it was terrible to read about this case. It is possible that equally if not more distreesing cases than this are occurring every now and then and not getting into the public domain... it really does put me off wanting to be a parent.

[Lillabet]

I think that the difficulty with saying that we all need to learn right from wrong is that children can get mixed messages. It isn't as straightforward as someone being able to answer a question what is good or bad behaviour correctly. It requires a full understanding - as TEAK36's example demonstrates.

I remember my mum (a teacher) telling me about a little boy who came up to her at the start of school and proudly showed her his new outfit. Being polite she said it was lovely and asked where he had been shopping. To her surprise he then told her that his mum had taken him and his sister swimming and at the leisure centre they had looked all round the changing rooms and got the new clothes. The class had all talked about good and bad behaviour and if asked whether stealing was wrong this boy would have known the right answer. But he saw no problem in his mum's 'shopping' technique - he didn't even think that he shouldn't freely tell people about it.

In the same way a child can know violence is wrong but if at home s/he sees aggressive behaviour and violence getting positive results and being treated as acceptable - the violent person being treated respectfully and so on then that sends a stronger message than school or sunday school ever can.

I'm certainly not making excuses for what happened but when people say that schools don't teach good behaviour or that not going to church leads to moral degeneracy it annoys me. I don't go to church and was never christened / baptised etc. This does not preclude me from being a moral or ethical person.

Almost all children who commit serious crimes are themselves victims as well. As such to dismiss them out of hand as evil or monsters is too facile. The act may be monstrous but the child is rarely inherently evil or incapable of redemption.

[LeMarchand]

Lillabet: Your point about the link between (il)literacy and crime is a good one, but I have to ask why so many people are illiterate. In this country there is a free education system available to anyone who wants to learn, and whose parents are willing to encourage them to learn. There are obviously a few people whose learning difficulties preclude them from the education system, but how many of those who are illiterate are that way because they spent their time at school disrupting the learning of others, and received no encouragement from their parents to do otherwise? That, I believe, is the problem that needs to be addressed.

[Peri]

Watching our kids and asking questions in the home is where it has to start.  It is tiring and very hard work.  But if we, as parents, dont monitor our kids and discuss everything and guide them as best we can, there is nobody else to do it.