Venables
So, Jon Venables, one of Jamie Bulger’s killers, is back in prison.
I’ve written about the Bulger case before on my blog, but I’m afraid the post was lost. The thrust of what I said (so far as I remember) was that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, while guilty of an unimaginably horrible crime, are actually the products of a society that failed them – they were not born murders. They were failed by family, by community, by wider society, by the state and, in those vital moments, they were failed, as 10 year olds, by their own judgement.
As a social liberal, it saddens me that Venables is in back inside. I would have loved to have believed that some sort of redemptive process could take place. I know that the way we treat offenders (young and adult) is about punishment, rather than rehabilitation, but there are plenty of offenders who do manage to change despite this. It would have been great to know that somebody who committed even this crime (even before adolescence) could go through a reflective process and come out ‘clean’ on the other side.
Very Hollywood.
But as a realist, Venables’ re-imprisonment offers a glimpse of a painful edge to society that I have to remember. The fact is that we cannot redeem ourselves by our own efforts. There can be the moves towards an improved humanity that we see and cherish, but just like a teenager’s bedroom, we continue in our entropic move towards mess. Pain, oppression, injustice and violence become more and more ‘normal’.
As a Christian, I really do only know one answer. Not a pie-in-the-sky Heaven that we might see when we die, but a re-creation that is current and with us, where even death can work backwards. I know that my faith can appear to lack the answers that we need sometimes, and I know that words are far too easy, but in a situation where redemption is so desperately needed, I can’t help but see a clear answer emerge.
05.03.2010(00:36)
[...] of the blog anyway. Apparently, they were discussing the Jon Venables case that I blogged about here yesterday. I’ll try to catch the debate on their catch up service when I can, but I hope it [...]
06.03.2010(01:31)
I have followed the news recently with interest re this case. For an offender to overcome their offence and undergo a process of redemption, and also to weather the attitudes and prejudices and profound hurt of those who (understandably) won’t or don’t or can’t understand or conceive of redemption, is unimaginably difficult. I have much I could say on this particular case, but two themes emerge in me everytime I see this on the news -the inconceivable prospect of a life built on ‘new identity’ in which an individual can never, without huge consequence, reveal the truth about themselves, or their past. That is to say – to live without identity, and therefore the privelege of integrity, towards themselves or others. And the challenge of the time of their conviction – how the British justice system could administer justice, but also discipline, mercy and grace towards two 10-year-old boys who would (whether their society likes it or not) have the rest of their lives to endure, salvage, redeem, squander. Was Britain’s justice system prepared for such a challenge? Is it any more prepared now?
I have tried to imagine being in the shoes of Jamie Bulger’s mother, family and friends. The pain of it is beyond imagining. I have tried to imagine being in the shoes of Venables and Thompson post-sentence, since their release some years ago. That also is beyond my imagining.
I suspect the solution is beyond mine or any of our imaginings. But, as someone who believes in the profound love of God, I don’t believe that means a solution/answer does not exist.