So much for rehabilitation

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GG2 I don’t agree that sexual attacks are always about power. There is evidence that this is a very complex area and, while power might well be behind a proportion of such acts, there are other causes and reasons worth consideration.

My concern is not just what it could lead to - although that is indeed very concerning. It could be completely ineffective but that decisions could be made to release someone into the community based on them having received the treatment. This, to me, is more of a mental health problem that led to a criminal one than just a crime.

I do wonder just how voluntary it is OW, when you are in prison and this may be a way out.

There’s varying practices - in some countries if they agree to it, they spend less time in prison. The drugs have well known side effects as well and there must be an interesting medical ethics debate about the prescribing of medication in circumstances like this - similar to the debate about administering lethal injections in prison. I can’t see this being accepted here - but who knows? I expect there’ll be an online petition soon to support it

As I understand it (although I am open to being corrected) chemical castration is done on a voluntary basis and involves the offender continuing to take pills or injections for life. I can't see how it would work with someone who is such a prolific offender as the taxi driver. Like others I am also concerned who else it would be considered OK to "treat" this way.

Too dangerous to consider, castrate those with low I.Q,s , with disabilities , how many innocent people would be included ? The world has had one Hitler

Sexual attack is about power not sex. Above and beyond the fact that I would find something like so called chemical castration very worrying - do we next go for euthanasia for all the mentally disabled? - I don't see why it would work. If you want to have power over women you don't need you own penis to do it and I would have thought the resentment about the treatment might well lead to far worse treatment of women.

You mean like was done to Alan Turing?

I heard on the radio yesterday, on the subject of the taxi driver who assaulted so many women, the suggestion of chemical castration. I had never heard of it but is it something that should be considered for serial abusers? The speaker said that it was something the public would not be told had been done but why not? Surely it would bring some feeling of security for those worried about the release of some people. Are there people so badly damaged that this is the only answer?

Yes, you're right, Minerva.
Its difficult to know what's right for a case like this.

I would like to see the sentencing for downloading and possessing child pornography to be the same as for someone who actually abuses a child. In order for the material to be available a child had to be abused, making the downloader an accomplice.

For what he was charged with, and admitted to, yes. The courts can’t add on 30 years because of the dreadful crime he committed as a 10 year old, nor for previous cases of accessing child pornography. He was sentenced for possession.
Personally I would like the laws governing child abuse, child grooming, disseminating pornographic material and possession of the same doubled at least but you would have to build new prisons to accommodate offenders.

So, a three year sentence is enough?

Smileless2012 Such neglect issues are not as easily dismissed as that. The damage caused to children by neglectful and abusive parenting in the very early years is crucial. Many such feral children are seriously harmed.

Emotional and physical neglect can leave children with no or poor abililty to develop empathy in the very early years.
To say "not all neglected children go on to kill is not addressing the issue. "

A loss of a sound emotional attachment at an early age quite often causes permanent damage the child /adult can never recover from.
Physical and emotional neglect early on actually changes the development of a small child's brain and this can be seen on brain imaging.

People adopting very seriously neglected children often find that further troubles arise when they reach adolescents.

Good post ab. I found the hatred spewed out towards these two boys incredibly upsetting at the time and it gets no better every time the case comes up. Whilst I don’t want to make it sound as though there’s a hierarchy of awfulness in the murder of children, there are many adults who have murdered children and inflicted terrible pain and suffering on them whilst so doing yet as a society we persist in treating this case as particularly heinous - because it was committed by children and people bayed and still bay for punishments for them that they would never expect adults to receive. Also re Venables, a care worker in his secure unit lost her job because she had sex with him whilst he was still resident there - yet I’ve seen this used against him when it as her behaviour was truly dreadful.

Isn't it strange that we have so little success with rehabilitation in our society where the first instinct of many is to throw anyone, including small boys, into prison and provide very little in the way of actually returning someone to a good, healthy, normal life after illness or crime.

On the other hand it must also seem strange to the hangers and floggers who come out at times like this, that other countries where health, mental and social challenges and maintaining as normal a life as possible come first; and using the knowledge we have about how the young brain actually develops is taken into account and continuing rehabilitation is paid for, they keep the numbers in prisons down to a minimum and the crime figures are also better than ours.

It's a funny old world.

Mary Bell ?

The crime was horrific, the adults hammering on the police van taking two children to court was horrific , if they had got to the children what then?

The children were too small to see over the top of the dock .

The children must have know the hatred in the country for them, can a child not be troubled knowing when they leave their prison the press hunting them down, thugs who pass as human beings waiting to kill them . There must have been fear every time they spoke they would let their identities be known.

I agree good post, Absent. John Venables will not have had the chance to have normal sexual relationships I imagine. I am not defending downloading child porn but just making a point. Venables and Thompson didn't stand a chance from the moment they were born. Life was never going to be easy for them. I really hope Thompson manages to have some sort of peaceful existence. So sad all round. Heartbreaking.

* there

I am beginning to wonder if it's actually possible to 'rehabilitate' someone. Anyone. Yes, their childhoods were deeply flawed but what pushed these two children to such an act? Was it learned behaviour? Had they been subjected to similar? Once the act is done, what are we, the public, wanting to happen? That they sense remorse? That they somehow go on to lead normal lives?

At the time I was teaching in a similar area in that city and when the news broke, colleagues were calling each other to speculate was it 'two of ours'? We had children at school who could have been capable of such an act.

What do we mean by 'rehabilitation' for such children if resources and staffing weren't a problem? What exactly is it? Now of course their is an added dimension to the recent imprisonment of Jon Venables. What will rehab mean for him? Do the services even know where to begin to rehabilitate someone with his past?

I wouldn't want to think a 'rehabilitated' child predator was around my family.
It doesn't bear thinking about.

Rehabilitation does not seem to have worked in Venebles case and there is clear evidence he is a danger to children.

I can only hope that Robert Thompson did benefit and is living out his life, somewhere, blamelessly. .

Good post, absent

Feelings will of course run very high for anyone who was aware of events at the time of James Bulger's murder. It was, indeed, an awful crime and truly terrible in more than one way. If, as it seems, one of the perpetrators is now a risk to other children, he should – before anything else – be prevented from causing harm.

However, in general, I do believe that rehabilitation is at least as important as the punishment of loss of freedom. Unfortunately, it comes way down the priorities in many prisons and institutions, partly owing to lack of money, partly to lack of will, partly because prisoners with shortish sentences are not there for long enough for any help that is provided to do much good, partly because prisoners are moved around to different prisons and partly because the public doesn't seem to care.

Changing the revolving door for prisoners must happen, not just for their benefit but for the benefit of wider society. Proper education – a high percentage of prisoners is illiterate – and rehabilitation programmes would be a major step forward.

The issue of serious crime committed by already damaged children is much more complex and requires a highly specialised – and much more expensive and time-consuming – approach. I still think it is worthwhile.