They say the past can come back to haunt us. However, when it comes to minor crimes committed as children, this should not be the case. No one should be punished as adults, for having committed minor crimes as children. For employment opportunities to be blocked, or past misdemeanors placed on a police record it is clearly wrong. This is especially so when it comes to blocking opportunities for employment, later in life.
It is more akin to saying to someone that because he or she were like that in the past, they will still be like that now. That, of course, is unreasonable in the extreme. However, there are cases in which past crimes committed as children, have been so serious that they do indeed stay on a person’s record for the rest of their lives. The point in question has to be the murder of James Bulger in 1993.
This murder, which happened in Liverpool, [United Kingdom]. was committed by two ten year old boys who had been prowling the Bootle shopping precinct looking for children to abduct. They had already tried, earlier that day to abduct a child, but their plan was thwarted and so they looked for someone else. They soon found their victim, two-year old James Bulger.
The Bulger murder shocked the nation at the time – more so because it was children who had committed one of the most horrific crimes in British criminal history, the murder of a two year old boy. This also brought heated debate on numerous talk shows around the country at that particular time, about whether the death penalty should be reintroduced, even for children who commit such horrific crimes as the Bulger case.
Although, even now within the city of Liverpool, the names of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the two boys who had committed the horrific murder of James Bulger, is met with utter contempt and hatred, time has not tempered the rage the city felt. There were many who rang up the local talk shows on the radio. Their rage was such that they wanted, and still want, the two to hang for their crime they committed as children, themselves.
This, even though the crime was committed when they were ten year old boys. Such a crime – even though it was done as a child, should stay with a person for the rest of his or her life. Because some crimes are so bad in nature, that the perpetrator deserves nothing less. However, if we are talking about minor misdemeanors done in the flush of youth, that is clearly different. They then should not follow on when we are adults, to affect us for the rest of our lives.
