The Socratic Scribe

After posting about the James Bulger case, I received a bit of feedback, calling it "absolute rubbish." It was also assumed that this blog was written by a man, which I am not, thank you very much. I am more than happy to have any comments, be they agreements or conflicting opinions, as they bring more to the table, so I am posting that comment as well as my response to it.

"This blog post is absolute rubbish. He uses the very exceptional Bulger case to make a general point about the British/Western justice system. Only four criminals in the UK have ever been given new identities. It is by no-where means normal practice. Do we really think that a 10 year old child has a proper conception of the effects of their crimes or indeed the indecency of their crimes? Some psychologists do indeed believe that some criminals can never be rehabilitated. This is why we leave these decisions up to the experts in the judicial system, who can look in fair and impartial way at all the factors in a criminal’s case for parole etc. We do not leave these decisions to an uninformed mob or armchair judges like this blogger.

He further undermines his argument by quoting the Daily Mail as a reliable source. This is the paper that recently said that Facebook gives you cancer (for which it is being sued) and should not be used to back up any argument by any person who wants their argument to be taken seriously.

Sorry for the rant. Hope your well!..."


Now, my response:

"First, I find it funny that the blogger was assumed to be male, as this is in fact my blog. Secondly, I do realize that only 4 criminals have been given new identities in the UK. Thirdly, if the link to the Daily Mail is a bother, then I can provide a million more sources from more "respectable" newspapers, textbooks, research papers, etc that state the same thing. I chose that link only as it had come up when searching the news lately.

As far as whether 10 year olds have a proper conception of their crimes and consequences, it can be argued that many adults don't have that either. Every day we make decisions, good or bad, without fully thinking through all of the outcomes of those decisions, and of the full consequences of them. Someone may decide to drink and drive and only think of the possibility of getting arrested, not that they might go out and kill an innocent person on their way home. Because they didn't think of that, does that mean they shouldn't be accountable for that? When you know that something is wrong, you know that you will get in trouble in some way if you are found out, and that you are doing something that is wrong. When I was three, I remember I stole a toy airplane from a friend of mine. I knew it was wrong. I lied to my mom about where it had come from, because I knew I would get in trouble. I didn't know what the full punishment would be, but I knew there would be punishment if I was found out. I argue then that if a 3 year old knows that stealing is wrong, and that they will get in trouble if they are found out, then two 10 year olds know that abducting, torturing, and murdering a toddler is wrong, and knowing that trouble was to follow if they were found out, they placed his body on the railroad tracks to look like an accident. They knew what they did was wrong and they knew that if they were caught they would be in trouble. So they did know there would be consequences to their actions.

As far as leaving these decisions about whether a criminal can or cannot be rehabilitated, or whether or not they should be paroled, up to "experts," the argument is an enthymeme. It is missing an important premise before drawing the conclusion, and for good reason...the premise it lacks is utterly false and would therefore invalidate the argument. The premise that is missing is that those in authority know what it best. I seriously doubt that anyone lives fully believing such a statement, as I'm sure that we've all believed at some time or another that our parents, our teachers, our government, our judges, etc have made incorrect decisions. Hence the reason we protest the war in Iraq for example, or we argue for a better grade on an exam, or we try to talk our parents into not grounding us for the weekend. People are imperfect, which means that those people in authority are imperfect as well. They will sometimes make incorrect decisions. They may believe they are doing the right thing, but part of living in a free society is the ability to voice your opinion about their decisions. I believe their decision to let Venables and Thompson out, as well as give them new identities, was an incorrect but well-meaning decision. And obviously quite a few people feel similarly or there wouldn't be the commotion there is about the case. My point in all of this is that this case is one of those odd scenarios where more justice was given to the perpetrators of the crime than to the victim's family, and the safety of public was overlooked in favor of the safety of the criminals. So many judicial cases are made based on precedents. By that I mean, as rare as this case might be, other similar cases could use this one to sway the judge in favor of ever increasing leniency for their criminal clients.

I only chose to write about this case as it has always disturbed me, both the crime and how the justice system played it out, and because it has been in the news recently. In the USA, we have so many cases constantly of where violent criminals have been released before serving their full sentence and then they commit the same crime again. This is a quite common occurrence with sex offenders especially. Every week on the news you hear about a sex offender who had been "rehabilitated" and who had abducted and killed yet another person. My problem is with the leniency that we give these antisocial criminals. Anyone who's taken any psychology classes at the university level can tell you that antisocial behavior disorder is a disorder that at least at the moment you can not rehabilitate. My problem comes with our justice system, who "knows best," unleashing these people back into society with little interest in protecting the innocent public and more interest in giving the violent offender a second chance. We have people who are in prison for drug possession serving longer sentences than sex offenders. That seems a bit messed up to me. So while I am aware that the James Bulger case was a rather odd and exceptional case, we are seeing more and more of that type of thing in America (children on children crime), and we are seeing more and more leniency being given to dangerous criminals who constantly reoffend. I see a problem, and I want to address it, and because I am a free citizen, I have the right to criticize decisions that I deem to be unjust. I want to point out problems with the philosophies that we are using in the justice system that I feel are hurting the public, because I would love nothing more than to see the trend of releasing dangerous criminals in America reversed."