Am I missing something? I think all the children - the original victims and these tiny perpetrators - also victims - should be looked after and cherished and protected and educated by society.

Why is the majority response "Hang the little monsters"? And when we suggest treating them with love and care "What about their victims?". Are people incapable of thinking we should be nice to everybody?

These cases really bring out the worst in our species. Spite, vindication, nastiness, bile.

One good thing. Surely these boys are perfect future employees for News International or Associated?

Well said! Echoes of the Bulger case 17 years ago. Hard to believe a baying mob wanted to beat two ten year olds to death in the street! You're wrong JK. I believe the rot set in about 1992. Since then we've simply been decaying fast. However I remain optimistic...I believe we will find a solution. Unfortunately that would mean demolishing a lot of what many of us hold dear. A free press, government, and monarchy. No please. Open mouths closed...I'm serious. A revolution entails tearing everything up and starting again.

I'm not best equipped to lead this revolution of course. It needs a bright, colourful enigmatic character. And I only have a large stick, a laptop, a collection of 50+ year old teddy bears, and a clapped out old Range Rover.

I certainly don't have the physique nor the stamina to rush the gates of the palace just yet.

A furrowed brow aimed obliquely at points of power around the capital isn't quite enough.

JK2006 wrote:
Am I missing something? I think all the children - the original victims and these tiny perpetrators - also victims - should be looked after and cherished and protected and educated by society.

Why is the majority response "Hang the little monsters"? And when we suggest treating them with love and care "What about their victims?". Are people incapable of thinking we should be nice to everybody?

These cases really bring out the worst in our species. Spite, vindication, nastiness, bile.

One good thing. Surely these boys are perfect future employees for News International or Associated?

A good point well put untill you read the last paragraph. Seems inappropriate to me given the circumstances. Tut tut.

I have to disagree totally, this is one of the most obnoxious crimes of the century. These kids are pure evil and I don't want to live in the same society as these evil people.

I wouldn't shed a tear if they were hung.

You may be right Robbie and they may be "pure evil" but I think as a society we should try to help and improve and change bad people, especially children. Otherwise we could be considered to be evil ourselves.

Would you hang them Robbie? Or would you remain dry eyed whilst someone else did it?

I came from the worst kind of broken home, one where the parents stayed together for the sake of the kids. I witnessed a lot of violent rows between my parents when I was a child and there were times in my childhood that weren't very happy at all. And yet none of this turned me into violent thug. In fact, over sixty years later, I still haven't harmed anyone. I had no intention of being like my father. So what does this suggest? Only that different children are affected in different ways by their childhood experiences. What would be like water off a duck's back to some kids, seriously affects other kids.

Here is a little anecdote about my childhood to try and prove my point:

When I was a little boy and was being bullied by other boys, I just would not retaliate, no matter how much I was hit or kicked. I would just roll up in a ball and take the beating. Even at five or six years of age, despite being exposed to frequent domestic rows and violence between my parents, I believed it was wrong to hit people and hurt them and I wanted no part of it.

One day in 1952, when I was five years old, I ran into the house complaining to my father that this boy had been hitting me. My father strolled outside into the street with me and grabbed the boy, who was aged about six or seven and pinned him against him with his strong arms, so that the boy could not move free from my father’s very strong grasp. “He can’t touch you now”, said my father, “Now hit him...go on, hit him as hard as you can and keep on hitting him until he cries enough!” Well, I just stood there, staring at this strange sight. But I could not bring myself to hit the boy. After a while, my father looked very disappointed at me and let the boy go and the boy ran off.

So I have to agree with robbiex on this one. Some children are just born evil and some are not. Some may use their home life as an excuse for terrible behaviour, but in truth, no one knows why some children are like those two boys in Edlington and why some are like I used to be.

I'm against the death penalty on the basis that 2 rights wrongs don't make a right, however imagine the lives that these victims are going to live. I don't know the details of their physical injuries, by the sounds of it they were in intense pain for a very long time.

Also the pshychologoical damage will last for many years. This crime is intolerable and someone must be brought to justice, if not the children, then the parents.

Yes we should help them, but also punish them as a deterrent and also keep them away from society, as we don't wan't a repeat of this kind of terrible offence.

It's not the punishment I object to, Robbie, nor the "keeping them away from society" (or, at least, the vulnerable) but it's the vindictive glee and superior sneering I loathe. The tabloids and all media to a degree, reflecting that cruel streak in so many of us (oddly mirroring the same instinct that provoked the crime - there were nowt else to do). We love nasty, vicious crimes, preferably with a sexual element to them.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

I may not be a Christian but some of the words attributed to Jesus make a great deal of sense to me.

Of course, when I was a little boy in the 1940's / 1950's, there were violent households even then as there are today, but the drug scene was unheard of; television was in its infancy; films at the cinema were tightly censored and controlled; video games and the Internet were undreamed of and porn, whether featuring children or adults (or both), was practically unobtainable. I don't know what other influences those two boys were subjected to besides domestic violence and rowing, but whatever it was, I wasn't subjected to it in my childhood and I can honestly say that my parents never hit me and the only abuse I suffered was emotional and mental abuse caused by their unhappy marriage. You really would have to have lived in a household like that as a child to appreciate how bad it is for children.

The media should be focusing their "evil" radar at the parents. Lets not forget that the 2 kids who carried out the crime have been robbed of a proper childhood. Lock up the parents. The real monsters in this story.

Kirsty Young summed it up on this morning's Andrew Marr show. They are the product of our society not'devil kids' as the tabloids say. They weren't born like that, their DNA is not that much different to most children, it is something that has happened in society that has caused this.

The media should report the facts instead of whipping society into a frenzy. I'm sure society is capable of making up it's own minds on various subjects.

I wonder if these boys committed their acts with a full sense of reality, or whether their own lives were so bad that they created an alternative reality where nothing matters very much. It is right that they be detained so that they cannot repeat these acts, but while detained they should be treated decently while the reasons for their behaviour is properly investigated - with a view to rehabilitation rather than vengeance.

If the boys committed their acts as a result of something bad that happened in their lives, then the families of their victims who call for their deaths are behaving in exactly the same way, and are no different.

I really do believe there is a chance of reform for everyone.
These kids became what they are because of bad parenting and the useless social services who failed to act.

Society has a right to be protected from their ilk,but it also owes them the right to earn a reform.If they can sensibly reform themselves withg help then under strict supervision they can useful contributing members of society,rather than a financial drain in prison.

Just a note,the Bulger killers were let out some time ago,and we've heard nothing.Had they have done something else it woulde have made the news,you can't stop things getting out on the net.Proof that therapy can work,and should be given a chance.

Society is sick when it bays for the blood of two young kids,especially when it was to blame for them being unsupervised in the first place.