h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Could it be that those kids in Norway were able to be rehabilitated because they were

a. six
b. not T&V's parents' kids
c. not left to sit in front of the telly with Chucky
d. any/all of the above, and numerous other factors.

Niwt's posting seems to suggest that Norway's social/moral environment is implicitly better than Britain's, and hey, maybe it is: but that's not the issue. I wouldn't dare assume that Britain is a haven of compassion and forgiveness, I know from my own experience that it's far from it; reactions to T&V's situation has more than demonstrated that. But it's not all death threats and stuff.

I've heard plenty of horror stories about the deathmetal culture up in Norway, stories of satan-worship, church desecrations and burnings, ritualistic rapes and murders. This does not speak of a great moral environment, but I know it's not Norway or its system that's inherently to blame. If I truly believed that - said so, and an impressionable mind took note, then they might grow up with the kind of compartmented resentments that lead to who knows what.

Things won't improve by finger-pointing. The fact that they were forgiven by the victim's mother speaks of something great about her - and should not be taken as something implicitly bad about Britain, or its code of ethics, because it doesn't have one. There's millions of codes of ethics out there.

After all, it's swings and roundabouts, wherever you go.

kk (only two k's k?)

To my mind, one of the reasons why the two Norwegian kids were not vilified in the manner of V&T is in the reaction of a) the victim's relatives and b) the press.

As far as I am aware, there was an attitude of "more in sorrow than in anger" which is notably lacking in the Bulger case. The press and James' mother have both fed off each others' statements and worked up "the mob" into a frenzy. Again, I sympathise with the loss, but disagree fundamentally with the reaction.

Again - note the difference with the Damilola Taylor and Stephen Lawrence cases. Here, the outcry has been for the perpetrators to be brought to trial and about the failures of the police, not for the killers to be locked up forever and hunted down should they ever happen to get out. I hope that this is nothing to do with the fact that Damilola and Stephen were black, and more to do with the fact that the relatives did not pour out messages of hate and revenge, leading to the tabloids not being able to start whipping "the public" into a frenzy. Although I generally hate things to be blamed on the press (especially when it is politicians complaining about them), I do feel that the tabloids have a lot to answer for here.

In Norway they said it was unthinkable to hold kids under 15 in custody

The law in most European countries doesn't allow children as young as Thompson and Venables to stand trial. If they'd been a few months younger they wouldn't have stood trial in Britain either.

Interesting...but if they had been treated like those Norwegian kids were...they were treated like really dangerous people weren't they? Okay, so maybe they are...oh I don't know

I doubt they'd say boo to a goose now. Too much at stake.

To point this out yet again (response to post on last page) I wasn't comparing what they did with a child's 'punishing' another for doing something they didn't like. I was trying to illustrate how children do not think of the consequences of their actions at all, see things in clearly-defined ways, and think more or less only of themselves. All children, no matter how well-behaved, are selfish and amoral but it does not make them 'evil'. (If you knew this wasn't my point then why did you seemingly go out of your way to misconstrue it?!)

And (speaking for me, anyway) there wasn't any 'rubbishing' of the emotionally involved. It's just that some things about James' mother hint at slight instability to say the least (and not just that brought about by losing her child. At least people should understand that she's not in a position to think rationally and not take her more sinister comments as much to heart as they are.)