Venables 'should be identified'

[mattx]

I like many others most probably remember the terrible terrible crime a few years back now. So much I actually re-frained from reading and having to watch anything about it it sickened me so much.

What has happened now has opened up a new kettle of fish in regards to Jon Venable's anonymity. His anonymity is for the remainder of his life apparently so in effect he could offend again and again and again and the general public would never be made aware of who this person actually is.

This is going to bring out strong and moral opinions but I for one think why on earth should this be the case ? I didn't agree with the original anonymity aspect of his punishment but to carry it on is for me nothing more than taking the pi55 and a license to offend again and again.....

As the majority of the members here work in schools and with children - what's your take and am I missing something in regards to him and this anonymity nonsense.

[srochford]

If he breaks the law, he goes to court and is dealt with for that offence. We don't know what he's alleged to have done but he should be tried on the basis of the evidence and not on the basis of what he did 17 years ago (appallingly bad though that was)

 

I despise the lynch mob mentality that's being aroused about this. I've no intention of defending Venables but I want to defend our legal system which more or less works and will not be improved by people saying "person X did a bad thing a long time ago so therefore he's guilty of everything else alleged against him and we must never, ever move on from the past"

 

If he has committed another offence against a child then perhaps we have to think again about the anonymity but for pretty much any other offence I think he should be treated in the same way as any other person committing an offence.

[Quackers]

I am in total agreement with what srochford said. Venables should most DEFINATLY NOT be identified, if he was, you would have a group go looking for him, which is in no ones interest, and then what if which is very likely there is somebody who looks quite close to him gets killed by this mob? or somebody who just looks like Venables in general, just walking down the street would make that persons life unlivable.

[elsiegee40]

The lynch mobb mentality worries me, but that is not why they will continue to conceal his identity for the time-being. Personally, I think that he's old enough to face the music now and his identity should, eventually, be revealed.

 

Whatever he's done to get himself locked up again, means that he is undoubtedly going to have to go in front of a court in the next few months. For that reason, anonymity is important so that when the time comes, the court can do its work rather than have to scrap the trial because the press have exposed detail meaning that he gets off on a technicality.

 

For the time being, I'm content not to know.

[mb2k01]

Well. To be frank. This should not be an issue, as he should have never got out in the first place.

As unrealistic / unpopular as this comment will be... as far as I am concerned, murder (where proven with no doubt) should be punishable by death.

 

To answer the question, yes - his name should be revealed just before he goes back to prison for a very long time.

 

**Views are my own, not that of my employer, friends, pets or alter egos etc etc***

[6Foot2]

I have always found coming to a decision on topics like this difficult.

 

Imprisonment is not just about punishment. It is also [hopefully] about rehabilitation [one hopes that individuals will not need to spend their entire lives in prison and that they will cease being a threat to society]

 

I feel I have to make a sweeping generalisation of a statement here [i try to avoid these but it does summarise how I my thinking]

 

I feel that you cannot want to torture and kill another person AND be of sound mind. With that in mind surely it follows that it would be inappropriate to punish someone who commits a crime under these circumstances with a lifetime of incarceration regardless of how their condition improves?

 

Now having said all that and with the limited information available about Jon Venables it would be easy to jump to conclusions. I must admit though:

It seems like Venables' condition will not improve no matter how much time is allowed.

His anonymity is in place to protect him from vigilante style attacks and also to protect those would be vigilantes. However is does leave a feeling that something has gone wrong somehow when an offender appears to have more protection than law abiding members of the general public.

I probably have not expressed my views very well. As I said at the start of the post it is a difficult subject with strong views on both sides. I am sure there are other views which will be expressed here.

 

I hope what I have said here does not offend anyone. If it does I will remove it as soon as I am made aware of it.

Edited March 6, 2010 by 6Foot2
Add word missing from post: Clarify and improve grammar.

[mattx]

I think you have put your thoughts across very well Dave.

[tmcd35]

I was watching Question Time the other night, as you do, and this very subject came up. It was Will Self, someone I can very rarely stand - something about him rubs me up the wong way, any way I digress - he asked a very interesting question that nobody could answer. And to be honest I couldn't answer either.

 

(paraphasing) "Why do you really want to know? How would knowing effect your life? What would you so with that information if you found out? Do you really honestly need to know?"

 

And the fact is I don't really want or need to know. What I do need to know is that our crimanal system works and that we can believe in justice and feel safe in our dailey lifes.

 

In order for this to happen he's identity at this stage does need to be kept secret. Of course it does. He deserves a fair trial for what ever he is accussed of doing this time. If is identity is released it would obviously and unfairly negatively bais the jury.

 

If he is found guilty then of course something needs to be released to the public so we can see justice in action and continue to feel safe in our lifes.

 

On the other hand IF he is found innocent by an unbiased jury then perhaps he is a reformed character. Would good then would releasing his identity do? He's orginal anous (sp?) crime was 17 years ago and he has been living free(ish) in out society for around 9 years now! He was a child of 10 when he commited that act.

 

EDIT: And if we are worrid about Vennables being free in our society, then what about the other one - Thompson - who remains free and annonamous?

Edited March 6, 2010 by tmcd35

[laserblazer]

I'm not sure if he will go to court, if he broke the terms of his parole then hopefully he will simply go back to prison. No doubt though, he will be out again in next to no time and will need a new identity because this one is blown. That will cost tax payer's money. Still, I suppose some impoverished lawyers will earn a crust!

[tmcd35]

As unrealistic / unpopular as this comment will be... as far as I am concerned, murder (where proven with no doubt) should be punishable by death.

 

I am fully for both corporal and capital punishment. I agree with bringing back the death penality and for some crimes life should mean jsut that. I also don't agree with parol and time off for good behaviour. A 12 year sentance should be a 12 year sentance.

 

However nothing in life is truly so black and white. There are various shades of grey.

 

Are you seriously advocating hanging 10 year old boys rather than re-abilitating them?

 

And we shouldn't forget the case of Darek Bentley, a simpleton hanged because his friend who was under age, and with him at the time, shot a policemen. This case led to the death penality being removed in the first case.

[mb2k01]

Are you seriously advocating hanging 10 year old boys rather than re-abilitating them?

 

And we shouldn't forget the case of Darek Bentley, a simpleton hanged because his friend who was under age, and with him at the time, shot a policemen. This case led to the death penality being removed in the first case.

 

Advocating, no.

I don't have all the answers, and I'm sure there are many more experienced and qualified who could make it work. Theoretically, if the punishment for murder was death and society knew it and accepted it, you might find that society automatically placed more importance on teaching basic values and ensuring children stayed within them a lot stricter. This might not ever have happened.

 

As much as I / we would like these kind of punishments in general the conversation is a complete waste of time. We have absolutely no control over our country, live with a corrupt self-serving government who have no interest in working for us. Nothing will change as they don't want it to, and the general UK public are too lazy or scared to force a change.

[torledo]

I'm not sure if he will go to court, if he broke the terms of his parole then hopefully he will simply go back to prison. No doubt though, he will be out again in next to no time and will need a new identity because this one is blown. That will cost tax payer's money. Still, I suppose some impoverished lawyers will earn a crust!

 

did they ever spend time in an adult prison ?

[GrumbleDook]

1 - I am not interested in knowing his identity. The people that need to know it (including the police and social services) already know.

2 - I *am* interested to see whether he is dealt with according to both the law as applied to the alleged offence he may have committed since being released on licence, and the law as applied to the licence he was released on. Not specifics ... just that it *is* dealt with, with due process, correctly, without vigilante intervention and done with the knowledge that it is aimed at trying to prevent this again in the future. To some extent I have to trust the system to deal with this, but there is nothing wrong with challenging the system to ensure it takes place.

3 - I dislike media hype and witch-hunts. I dislike the fact that pretty much all journalistic avenues will view this as a chance to sell or push their particular piece of propaganda.

[glennda]

I'm not sure if he will go to court, if he broke the terms of his parole then hopefully he will simply go back to prison. No doubt though, he will be out again in next to no time and will need a new identity because this one is blown. That will cost tax payer's money. Still, I suppose some impoverished lawyers will earn a crust!

 

they may only find out he has broken his parole by taking him to court. They will have put him back in prison as soon as he was arrested/charged with an offence that was against his parole although the offence he may have been charged for is suspected to be totally different to what he was orginally convicted with. and you also have to think maybe he did not actually commit and offence a girl friend found out his real identity and decided she didn't like the fact he lied to her about his identity and in which case he may have been living life normally and not actually broken the terms of his parole.

 

I am not saying that i think what he has done in the past is acceptable. you just have to see both side of the current situation.

 

It is not my intent to offend anyone. I am just trying to make people realise that he could of actually this time done nothing wrong.

[glennda]

did they ever spend time in an adult prison ?

 

nope i think they spent most of it in youth detention although this may be wrong

[tmcd35]

nope i think they spent most of it in youth detention although this may be wrong

 

According to sky news (so you may want to double check the 'facts' ) they served 8-years and this would be his first time in an adult prison.

[glennda]

According to sky news (so you may want to double check the 'facts' ) they served 8-years and this would be his first time in an adult prison.

 

thats what i said

[witch]

We have one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the world - in many other places the Bulger case protagonists would not have been sentenced to anything anyway.

Not agreeing, just stating

 

Does anyone really think that putting a 10 year old in detention for 8 years for anything is actually going to result in a balanced human being?

 

Again, I'm not condoning anything or saying that they should or shouldnt have been locked up - what I am saying is that it was an intolerable situation that has resulted in this mess.

 

But I don't believe that we have a 'right' to know who they are.

[Guest richard_s]

Sorry but he and Robert Thompson should have been hung when they turned 18. The worst thing this country ever did was to have gotten rid of the death penalty.

[Arthur]

3 - I dislike media hype and witch-hunts. I dislike the fact that pretty much all journalistic avenues will view this as a chance to sell or push their particular piece of propaganda.

Me too. It seems everything is hyped-up by the media these days. What ever happened to just reporting the news impartially?

[sted]

Sorry but he and Robert Thompson should have been hung when they turned 18. The worst thing this country ever did was to have gotten rid of the death penalty.

 

so lock him up for 8 years (over 3/4 of his life would of been spent in prison at that point) then hang him? dont see the point IF you are going to hang anyone then it needs to be relatively quickly as keeping people hanging round waiting for death seems wrong to me

 

NOBODY accused of a crime ANY crime should have their name made public until they are convicted in my opinion as whether you are proven guilty or innocent mud sticks

[localzuk]

Capital and corporal punishment are not effective - they are shown time and time again not to work, both in terms of it being a deterrent and in terms of wrongly being convicted. Just look at the Texan system - they're forever killing people, then finding out that they were innocent, but due to some idiot in a police station somewhere, the evidence never came to light. The mere chance of getting it wrong precludes it ever being an effective punishment to me.

 

The main problem I see here is that murder should mean life in prison. Not 8 years, not 12 years. Not 'released on good behaviour'. We have a situation now in our court system where people who have committed fraud, or conspiracy to commit criminal damage are getting sentences as long or longer than murder. I know some people who were locked up for drunkenly saying they should go smash up a car belonging to an animal testing technician, in a pub. They got 8 years.

 

Personally, I don't want to know who this murderer is. This entire issue is irrelevant - the court system failed by letting them out in the first place!

[Guest richard_s]

so lock him up for 8 years (over 3/4 of his life would of been spent in prison at that point) then hang him? dont see the point IF you are going to hang anyone then it needs to be relatively quickly as keeping people hanging round waiting for death seems wrong to me

 

 

Thats what I would have liked to have seen, anyway it would have given them something to thinkabout instead of playing computer games and being waited on hand and foot.

 

Any punishment should be seen as a deterent to others not some sort of cushy holiday. If we don't bring back the death sentence then all custodial sentences should be full length not serve x number of years before we release you and life should mean life with no chance of parole. The other thing would be to make all sentences hard labour, get rid of things like televisions, games consoles etc and make them suffer like their victims suffered.

[localzuk]

Thats what I would have liked to have seen, anyway it would have given them something to thinkabout instead of playing computer games and being waited on hand and foot.

 

Any punishment should be seen as a deterent to others not some sort of cushy holiday. If we don't bring back the death sentence then all custodial sentences should be full length not serve x number of years before we release you and life should mean life with no chance of parole. The other thing would be to make all sentences hard labour, get rid of things like televisions, games consoles etc and make them suffer like their victims suffered.

 

So you see prison as pure punishment? A system designed to make their lives a living hell, then release them after that time embittered and hateful towards society for treating them like that? ie. turning what could be a stupid mistake into a hardened criminal?

 

Or do you think that the prison system should be trying to rehabilitate these people (not talking about murderers), to change the course of their lives from one of crime to one where they actually help society?

[SYNACK]

Capital and corporal punishment are not effective - they are shown time and time again not to work, both in terms of it being a deterrent and in terms of wrongly being convicted.

 

I disagree in part, capital punishment is very sucessful at lowering the reoffending rate. You are correct though that they don't really work as a deterrent and it is not possible to bring someone back to life if they are later proved innocent.

 

As to the implementation of it and the application of it to this case I can't comment as I don't know about it. I do agree however that details should only be made public if they are proven guilty otherwise you are preconvicting them to a form of punnishment without a trial.