Empathy, Crime and Punishment

 

For the last week, we have been reliving the horrendous case of the murder in 1982 of two year old Jamie Bulger by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson who were then themselves aged only 10. We are seeing again the video of him being led away by the hand to his death.

His murderers were the subject of trials which were criticised at the time by the European Court of Human Rights because they took place through a court system designed for adults rather than children. The verdict, however, stood and Venables and Thompson spent 8 years in Youth Offending Institutes where no doubt every attempt was made to reform them. The backgrounds of Venables and Thompson were of parental neglect and abuse and no doubt as a consequence of this they would have had little or no empathetic ability. The job of the psychiatrists was to try to create an ability to empathise in them long after they would normally have acquired it. Empathy is one of the qualities which we acquire very early on in our lives. We are able to understand and feel what others must be feeling. Even if we do not feel other's feelings with the same intensity, we normally react sympathetically. Clearly, though in the case of Venables and Thompson, these feelings of empathy must have been beaten out of them or never have been allowed to develop in the first place.

Now, it seems, Venables, although not Thompson has re-offended. We do not know what he has done, but we know it to be serious. Immediately, there was a clamour in the tabloids to know what he had done, that he should be identified and that this time he should be kept in prison for ever. Jamie Bulger's mother has demanded that she be told precisely what has happened and clearly objects to the fact that Venables and Thompson were ever released from prison and given new identities. Jack Straw has said that to give any further information may prejudice a fair trial for Venables. In addition, of course, it would almost certainly lead to a breach of the permanent injunction preventing his identification. The injunction (a so-called Mary Bell Order') was granted on the basis that threats had been made to his life by, amongst others, Jamie Bulger's father. Ironically, therefore, this means that the father's reaction is part of the reason why there is so much mystery and why the mother's request cannot be complied with.

We imprison people for a number of reasons. There is the protection of the public, punishment and reform. At the moment punishment and protection of the public are uppermost in the mind of the general public. As well as the wish to say "I told you so. You can't reform people like him.". Of course, as a society, we could simply lock such people up and throw away the key. There are some psychopaths for whom it may be the only possibility, but I am not convinced that I should like to live in a society where that was the normal way of dealing with serious criminals. I personally feel that we should place considerable emphasis on the reform of criminals. Punishment is a part of that and the public needs to be protected while it is attempted, but revenge as such is not or at least should not be a part of our criminal justice system.

On the other hand, I can see that the victims of serious crimes are, understandably, tremendously affected and what my reaction would be I cannot know. It seems that their traumatic feelings continue indefinitely. So what can we do to address this? Perhaps we should look at 'Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome'.  Where soldiers and others are affected by the terrible things they see, then they can become fixated on them and be condemned to live lives which are governed by those events. Treatment for it, whilst not perfect, can be very helpful. 

In this country, however, help for the indirect victims of murder, the family and friends who suffer from the collateral damage of the murder, is poorly addressed. The murderer may receive professional help, but those still living who are most affected by his actions will not. This is surely wrong. Surely, we need to start to try to provide real support for the indirect victims of crime as well. In that way, in time, they may also be able to overcome the understandable prejudice that prevents them accepting that at least some criminals can be reformed. In other words, they may understand better the lack of empathy which leads to such crimes in the first place. We may then eventually see a reduction in the shrill protests from the newspapers designed simply to profit from such prejudice.


 

 

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