As the title of this post will doubtless raise eyebrows, I would like to say that I hope Mr Livingstone appreciates what I have to say about him. At the moment, he needs all the defenders he can get, even if he probably would not like what I say here. As he and I differ on the vexed issue of Palestine, he can expect nothing better.
Let me start by saying that if Ken were on trial for his statements yesterday and I was his defending lawyer , I would be advising him to plead insanity. His comment, made yesterday on BBC Radio London was crassly stupid:
"When Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews."
This is utter nonsense; there was no state of Israel in 1932, as has been pointed out by Professor Timothy Snyder. Nor did Hitler "go mad"; his genocidal intent towards the Jews was clear from the day he became leader of the Nazi Party in 1921. Yesterday, Ken defended himself against the infuriated John Mann by saying that he was simply sticking to historical facts. What a pity that his knowledge of facts is so inadequate - Hitler came to power in 1933, not 1932. Nor did the Nazi dictator "go mad", as Ken says. By conquering Europe, Hitler had the means to carry out a policy of annihilation that he had outlined in "Mein Kampf" (1925), and which he implemented with fanatical venom. In mitigation, then, we can say that Ken did not get his facts right, and should read more history. Perhaps he is simply getting old and forgetful?
Now, Ken has rightly been condemned for what he said. Owen Jones (no Tory!) vehemently attacked Ken on TV yesterday - please see here. Sadiq Khan, Labour candidate for London Mayor said:
“Ken Livingstone's comments are appalling and inexcusable. There must be no place for this in our Party".
Tom Watson, M.P. has pledged action against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. The BBC says here: " Mr Watson said he and Mr Corbyn had been looking at whether "Labour's own structures" needed changing "to make sure that we send a very clear signal to people in our party that we will have a zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism".
"Do we need to change our rules to explicitly rule out racism and specifically include anti-Semitism in that?" he said.
"We are going to deal with this."
After a number of anti-Semitic outbursts by Labour activists recently, that is very good news. It is also good news for the Jewish community, who are rightly concerned. In defence of Ken, though, when challenged on his statements yesterday, despite sticking to his inaccuracies about Hitler, he went on to say that he was concerned about what he saw as the true face of anti-Semitism, which is the growth of anti-Semitic hate crime. He mentioned the increase in attacks on Jews, synagogues and cemeteries. If I remember rightly, he said that such crimes dropped during his tenure as Mayor of London and he seemed genuinely shaken by the controversy he had aroused.
So, I do not believe that Ken is an anti-Semite, at least according to his understanding of the term. Rather, I think he sees himself as an anti-Zionist. I wish I had a tenner for every time I'd heard someone say that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism; the proponents of this view repeat it mechanically, and seem to think they are saying it for the first time. Far from being devastatingly original, it is simply facile. What this view fails to acknowledge is that 72% of British Jews regard themselves as Zionists, which is understandable, as so many have relatives in Israel. As Keith Kahn-Harris says in the Guardian:
" While for some anti-Zionism is always synonymous with antisemitism, it is more accurate to suggest that in at least some cases many anti-Zionists are naive to assume an absolute distinction between Jews and Zionism."
Nor do anti-Zionists endear themselves to people like me when we hear of outbursts like Ken's, like those of Naz Shah and the presence of Hamas and Hezbollah on pro-Palestinian rallies, regularly attended by Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn. Ken has problems with facts, and there is another factual problem of which he is woefully ignorant. The perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks are made up of three main groups: The far Right, racist yobboes and Moslem extremists opposed to Israel - the latter group being composed of people who probably attend the same rallies as Ken and Jeremy Corbyn (Neo-nazis attend as well, but without a banner).
In a nutshell, I support the decision to suspend Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party. Not because I believe him to be an anti-Semite, just a steaming great prat. As Hugh Muir has said:
"With a light shining brighter in his direction than he might wish, Livingstone will again face charges of antisemitism. He will deny them now, as in the past...
But what he will struggle to deny is that once again, his own quirks and a lack of care and precision in his language have allowed those charges to be repeated, and at a time when both he and his party are vulnerable to them. He will have to explain why he is a repeat offender, knowing that each time his explanations seem less credible.
The wound is self-inflicted. It was unnecessary. And if this time it proves fatal to his place in the party and public life, he has only himself to blame."
Friday, 29 April 2016
Monday, 25 April 2016
The End of Social Mobility and the Demise of Opportunity
Social mobility, or "bettering yourself", as it used to be called, is seen now as being in a bad way. The Guardian, which takes an interest in this subject, has devoted a whole web page to it - see here. Those who take the time to read it will find some very astute, if depressing, articles, to which I shall refer occasionally. I take an interest in this subject because, like many of my friends and contemporaries, I am a beneficiary of social mobility, albeit in an unusual way.
Like most people of working class origin (Father a storeman; mother a barmaid) born after the Second World War, I was given opportunities for social advancement of which my parents' generation could only have dreamed. The opportunity was provided by a massive expansion of education, with government investment in schools and the introduction of comprehensive education. The outmoded class society that existed in Britain was seen as being overthrown by the opportunity for working class kids to go to university, supported by maintenance grants, and aspire to the top jobs that were previously open only to the privileged few who had benefitted from private, elitist, education. This brave new world was symbolised also in the fields of art and popular culture, with singers and actors of humble origin, such as the Beatles and Michael Caine, rising to fame and acclaim. Most of my friends who continued in education at that time gained university degrees (or equivalent) and entered professional jobs. By doing this, of course, they rose in social status, from working/lower middle to middle class.
My own story was somewhat different. Because of ill-health, I missed out on full time education, and left school with no qualifications. At that time, however, there was very good evening class provision in my hometown of Southport, Lancashire. Over time I gained several of what were then called "O" (Ordinary) GCE levels. After my health improved, I began working as a Parks Gardener, and took an English "A" (Advanced) level in 1977, again at an evening class at what was then Southport Technical College. After gaining a good grade, a friend in Southport, who I shall call "JB", advised me that Salford University would accept entrants with one "A" level. I applied successfully, gained my degree in 1980, and qualified as a teacher in 1981. Some people find my story unusual, but there was a number of other mature students, as we were called, on my course and on others in the university. A remarkable thing for me was finding myself financially better off on a student grant than when I was working. This is my social mobility story. Despite my earlier problems, opportunity still existed for me. Oh, the rich were always better situated than we were, but surely we lived in a meritocracy?
Well, we might have done then, but we don't now. As Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett says in her Guardian article:
"The gap between rich and poor remains a gulf. Even when you’ve been to the same university and had the same education, the disadvantages of coming from a poor family can mean earning around 20% less."
And that, of course, is if you can afford to go to university in the first place. As we know, the student grants that my generation enjoyed have been replaced by student loans. This measure has made life much more difficult for poorer students, who lack the extra financial support that richer students get from their families. Gaining a B.A. or B.SC is one thing, but only richer students are able to progress to higher or research degrees nowadays. If you wish to advance in the academic world, these degrees are essential. They, plus private education, can even make a difference whether you get a job or not. As for top jobs, Owen Jones says in his Guardian article:
" More than seven in 10 of Britain’s top military brass had parents with the means to send them to private schools; the proportion is even higher with top judges. The world of journalism is dominated by gilded backgrounds: according to the study, over half of the top journalists are privately educated, with just 19% having attended a comprehensive. As for politics: well, half the cabinet went to fee-paying schools very few of their electors could hope to attend."
Besides this, there are the people who find themselves in a similar situation that I was in from 1966 to 1977: those who did not do well at school but want to better themselves. This apparent "failure" on their part can happen for a number of reasons: ill-health, family breakdown, bullying, truanting, moving house frequently or being part of an anti-school culture. A year or so back, I wondered what would have happened if I had been in the same situation I found myself back in the seventies. At that time, Southport Technical College, as it was then called, offered a wide variety of examination classes in the evening at both "O" and "A" level. When I looked at similar courses on offer today, at what is now called Southport College, I was shocked to see that there were very few such courses. I mentioned this to my old friend JB; he shook his head and said:
"There's no social mobility any more"
Southport is a small seaside town in the north of England, but things are not much different here in London. My local council, Hounslow, offers very few examination courses, as does the nearest provider of post-18 courses, West Thames College. Nearly every evening class is geared either for leisure or for English as a Second Language students. West Thames College provides what are known as "Access" courses, but not subject related, and during the daytime only, which is not helpful for people working during the day. It is possible to take "A" levels by correspondence course, but the cost, on average, is £400 per subject, and not the best option for someone on a low wage or benefits. Even should someone in this situation get to university, they will struggle financially, with no certainty of a better job at the end of it - and then be stuck with loan repayments. Again, this is an easier burden ( or none at all) for richer students. The Open University is an option, but it takes six years to get a degree, and is not cheap. For those who fall through the educational net nowadays, it is going to be much tougher to improve their circumstances than it was for me - perhaps impossibly so.
Sorry to have laboured the above point, but it is something of great personal importance to me, and I am well aware that Britain's brief meritocratic dalliance is coming to an end in other ways. In the field of the arts, for example, there is a growing imbalance towards children from privileged backgrounds. Poorer students are unlikely to take up a career in acting when they simply cannot afford to fund themselves while training, or struggling to establish themselves as actors. As Stuart Maconie says in the New Statesman:
"The great cultural tide that surged through Harold Wilson’s 1960s and beyond, the sea change that swept the McCartneys, Finneys, Bakewells, Courtenays, Baileys, Bennetts et al to positions of influence and eminence, if not actual power, has ebbed and turned. The children of the middle and upper classes are beginning to reassert a much older order. In the arts generally – music, theatre, literature for sure – it is clear that cuts to benefits, the disappearance of the art school (where many a luminous layabout found room to bloom) and the harsh cost of further and higher education are pricing the working class out of careers in the arts and making it increasingly a playground for the comfortably off."
He is right. Florence Welch, Laura Marling, Cara Delevigne and James Blunt, to mention but a few, were all privately educated and, as Maconie pointed out in the Radio Times last week, all three male leads in "The Night Manager", as well as Jack Davenport, Emma Watson and comic jack Whitehall all attended the Dragon boarding school in Oxford. This school has an outstanding drama department, and charges £28 000 a year per pupil. Maconie quotes Alexei Sayle as saying of "The Night Manager":
..."even generic Arab terrorist number four has been to Balliol College".
Very few people with any sanity could describe this a healthy situation. If we are reverting to a society governed by class, wealth and privilege, we are excluding very many talented people from important places in our society. History teaches us that when such people feel excluded and alienated, then serious problems can erupt violently. Bastilles fall; Winter Palaces are stormed; mansion houses burn; intelligent criminals grow in number. What is the alternative? None appears to be on offer.
Like most people of working class origin (Father a storeman; mother a barmaid) born after the Second World War, I was given opportunities for social advancement of which my parents' generation could only have dreamed. The opportunity was provided by a massive expansion of education, with government investment in schools and the introduction of comprehensive education. The outmoded class society that existed in Britain was seen as being overthrown by the opportunity for working class kids to go to university, supported by maintenance grants, and aspire to the top jobs that were previously open only to the privileged few who had benefitted from private, elitist, education. This brave new world was symbolised also in the fields of art and popular culture, with singers and actors of humble origin, such as the Beatles and Michael Caine, rising to fame and acclaim. Most of my friends who continued in education at that time gained university degrees (or equivalent) and entered professional jobs. By doing this, of course, they rose in social status, from working/lower middle to middle class.
My own story was somewhat different. Because of ill-health, I missed out on full time education, and left school with no qualifications. At that time, however, there was very good evening class provision in my hometown of Southport, Lancashire. Over time I gained several of what were then called "O" (Ordinary) GCE levels. After my health improved, I began working as a Parks Gardener, and took an English "A" (Advanced) level in 1977, again at an evening class at what was then Southport Technical College. After gaining a good grade, a friend in Southport, who I shall call "JB", advised me that Salford University would accept entrants with one "A" level. I applied successfully, gained my degree in 1980, and qualified as a teacher in 1981. Some people find my story unusual, but there was a number of other mature students, as we were called, on my course and on others in the university. A remarkable thing for me was finding myself financially better off on a student grant than when I was working. This is my social mobility story. Despite my earlier problems, opportunity still existed for me. Oh, the rich were always better situated than we were, but surely we lived in a meritocracy?
Well, we might have done then, but we don't now. As Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett says in her Guardian article:
"The gap between rich and poor remains a gulf. Even when you’ve been to the same university and had the same education, the disadvantages of coming from a poor family can mean earning around 20% less."
And that, of course, is if you can afford to go to university in the first place. As we know, the student grants that my generation enjoyed have been replaced by student loans. This measure has made life much more difficult for poorer students, who lack the extra financial support that richer students get from their families. Gaining a B.A. or B.SC is one thing, but only richer students are able to progress to higher or research degrees nowadays. If you wish to advance in the academic world, these degrees are essential. They, plus private education, can even make a difference whether you get a job or not. As for top jobs, Owen Jones says in his Guardian article:
" More than seven in 10 of Britain’s top military brass had parents with the means to send them to private schools; the proportion is even higher with top judges. The world of journalism is dominated by gilded backgrounds: according to the study, over half of the top journalists are privately educated, with just 19% having attended a comprehensive. As for politics: well, half the cabinet went to fee-paying schools very few of their electors could hope to attend."
Besides this, there are the people who find themselves in a similar situation that I was in from 1966 to 1977: those who did not do well at school but want to better themselves. This apparent "failure" on their part can happen for a number of reasons: ill-health, family breakdown, bullying, truanting, moving house frequently or being part of an anti-school culture. A year or so back, I wondered what would have happened if I had been in the same situation I found myself back in the seventies. At that time, Southport Technical College, as it was then called, offered a wide variety of examination classes in the evening at both "O" and "A" level. When I looked at similar courses on offer today, at what is now called Southport College, I was shocked to see that there were very few such courses. I mentioned this to my old friend JB; he shook his head and said:
"There's no social mobility any more"
Southport is a small seaside town in the north of England, but things are not much different here in London. My local council, Hounslow, offers very few examination courses, as does the nearest provider of post-18 courses, West Thames College. Nearly every evening class is geared either for leisure or for English as a Second Language students. West Thames College provides what are known as "Access" courses, but not subject related, and during the daytime only, which is not helpful for people working during the day. It is possible to take "A" levels by correspondence course, but the cost, on average, is £400 per subject, and not the best option for someone on a low wage or benefits. Even should someone in this situation get to university, they will struggle financially, with no certainty of a better job at the end of it - and then be stuck with loan repayments. Again, this is an easier burden ( or none at all) for richer students. The Open University is an option, but it takes six years to get a degree, and is not cheap. For those who fall through the educational net nowadays, it is going to be much tougher to improve their circumstances than it was for me - perhaps impossibly so.
Sorry to have laboured the above point, but it is something of great personal importance to me, and I am well aware that Britain's brief meritocratic dalliance is coming to an end in other ways. In the field of the arts, for example, there is a growing imbalance towards children from privileged backgrounds. Poorer students are unlikely to take up a career in acting when they simply cannot afford to fund themselves while training, or struggling to establish themselves as actors. As Stuart Maconie says in the New Statesman:
"The great cultural tide that surged through Harold Wilson’s 1960s and beyond, the sea change that swept the McCartneys, Finneys, Bakewells, Courtenays, Baileys, Bennetts et al to positions of influence and eminence, if not actual power, has ebbed and turned. The children of the middle and upper classes are beginning to reassert a much older order. In the arts generally – music, theatre, literature for sure – it is clear that cuts to benefits, the disappearance of the art school (where many a luminous layabout found room to bloom) and the harsh cost of further and higher education are pricing the working class out of careers in the arts and making it increasingly a playground for the comfortably off."
He is right. Florence Welch, Laura Marling, Cara Delevigne and James Blunt, to mention but a few, were all privately educated and, as Maconie pointed out in the Radio Times last week, all three male leads in "The Night Manager", as well as Jack Davenport, Emma Watson and comic jack Whitehall all attended the Dragon boarding school in Oxford. This school has an outstanding drama department, and charges £28 000 a year per pupil. Maconie quotes Alexei Sayle as saying of "The Night Manager":
..."even generic Arab terrorist number four has been to Balliol College".
Very few people with any sanity could describe this a healthy situation. If we are reverting to a society governed by class, wealth and privilege, we are excluding very many talented people from important places in our society. History teaches us that when such people feel excluded and alienated, then serious problems can erupt violently. Bastilles fall; Winter Palaces are stormed; mansion houses burn; intelligent criminals grow in number. What is the alternative? None appears to be on offer.
Sunday, 3 April 2016
Victims, Do-gooders and What Lies In Between
A long way back in the 1970s, I recall, if my memory serves me well, a TV programme hosted by David Frost, before he became a "Sir". It was a discussion about capital punishment, held with a studio audience composed of people with many differing opinions on the subject. It was rather like the current BBC programme, "The Big Questions", but more edgy and confrontational. One remark has never faded from my memory. During the lively debate, a Scots social worker who favoured lenient rehabilitation for offenders was asked: "What about the victims?" His reply, which I have never forgotten, was:
"Victims? What can you do for them?"
This remark outraged me, as well as most of the studio audience. One young girl, whose brother had only recently been murdered, became terribly upset, and had to be helped from the studio.
About ten years later or more, Granada TV in the North-West ran a similar debate. This time, the most memorable audience member was a lady who lived in my hometown of Southport, Lancashire - Joan Jonker. Her point of view was the complete opposite of that expressed by the callous Scot I mentioned above. Ms Jonker belonged to what, perhaps unfairly, we sometimes call the "hang 'em and flog 'em brigade". She repeatedly blamed the rise in violent crime on "the do-gooders".
To be fair to Ms Jonker, she was no armchair warrior; she ran a charity called "Victims of Violence" and was unafraid to challenge anyone of opposing views, however famous, even, on occasion, confronting hardened criminals. Besides this, she herself was a victim of mugging and burglary, and could provide much-needed empathy for fellow victims. However, like most people who use the term "do-gooder", she was very vague about what the word meant. She gave no clue as to how to recognise a do-gooder, either by dress code, age, political views or occupation. Nor did she ever define what a non-do-gooder was - perhaps a "do-badder"? As might be expected, Joan favoured strong punitive measures for offenders, with little scope for rehabilitation. Not only this, but Joan's admirable charity work might qualify her to be described as a "do-gooder". Now, there's an irony!
These are, I would contend, two opposing, if extreme, views about violent crime which are still prevalent today. Happily, most proponents of the first view are much more compassionate than the heartless Scots social worker mentioned above. They recognise that justice must be done, but assert the need for education and habilitation (many offenders are alienated from society from the first), in order to make criminals into useful members of society. I would welcome any information about the success rate of such programmes. Many people, of course, and especially the tabloid press, regard such treatment as mollycoddling and "soft treatment" for evildoers. This controversy is particularly intense when the issue of lethal youthful and children's violence is raised. A list of such murders includes the Mary Bell case, the murders of James Bulger and Rhys Jones in Liverpool, Lilian Lilley in Oldham, Jimmy Mizen (murdered 2008 by a youth of 19), Ann Maguire (teacher murdered, 2014) and, more recently, the tragic death of Bailey Gwynne in Aberdeen.
This is not the place to offer solutions to this abiding and complex problem, but a number of observations can be made here. Firstly, Mary Bell responded well to her treatment, is now married with a family, and living in happy anonymity. John Venables, one of the murderers of James Bulger, has not adjusted well to normal life after his period of treatment and has served time for child pornography offences; his accomplice, Robert Thompson, has not been caught for any wrongdoing. Ann Maguire's killer has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, despite being 16 years of age. This sentence has been criticised by some and welcomed by others - including me. This is because I know very well that there are some young school students who would find light sentences, such as that of the Bulger case killers, who only received eight year terms, something of an encouragement. Bailey Gwynne's killer has received a nine-year sentence for manslaughter. He probably will serve only half of his sentence, and that will be noteworthy to pupils of this type. Anyone who doubts the existence of such youngsters is being hopelessly naïve. The recent trial of two teenage girls for the murder of Angela Wrightson, in Hartlepool, is evidence of this problem. The double murderer, James Fairweather, who admired the Yorkshire Ripper and who committed his crimes at the age of 15, is another example of this type of young killer.
All of which leads to the question that I was trying to avoid: why are they like this? What makes children and adolescents into killers? No-one, still less me, can answer that. I can, however, point to people who are soon forgotten, and those are the relatives of the victims. Books have been written about Mary Bell, but none about those who lost loved ones because of her childhood crimes. The film maker, Julian Hendy, who runs the "100 Families" website (see "Links") has said that after his father was murdered in the street by a released mental patient, his family received no support from any agency. All the care and attention was lavished on the mental patient. All perpetrators get are fixed term prison sentences; the families of their victims get Life. These families, too, are victims.
"Victims? What can you do for them?"
Well, society and the media could care more than we do now. Commendably, some relatives of murder victims do not remain passive, but take positive action. Jayne Zito, whose husband was stabbed to death by a paranoid schizophrenic almost 17 years ago, founded a charity in his memory; Julian Hendy, as mentioned above, runs the "100 families" website which chronicles victims of released mental patients; the redoubtable Denise Fergus, mother of James Bulger, has campaigned tirelessly for justice for her murdered son. But, for the most part, relatives of murder victims suffer and grieve in silence. Some, no doubt, simply wish to keep their sorrow private, while others find that victimhood is just not newsworthy enough for the mass media.
"Victims? What can you do for them?"
This remark outraged me, as well as most of the studio audience. One young girl, whose brother had only recently been murdered, became terribly upset, and had to be helped from the studio.
About ten years later or more, Granada TV in the North-West ran a similar debate. This time, the most memorable audience member was a lady who lived in my hometown of Southport, Lancashire - Joan Jonker. Her point of view was the complete opposite of that expressed by the callous Scot I mentioned above. Ms Jonker belonged to what, perhaps unfairly, we sometimes call the "hang 'em and flog 'em brigade". She repeatedly blamed the rise in violent crime on "the do-gooders".
To be fair to Ms Jonker, she was no armchair warrior; she ran a charity called "Victims of Violence" and was unafraid to challenge anyone of opposing views, however famous, even, on occasion, confronting hardened criminals. Besides this, she herself was a victim of mugging and burglary, and could provide much-needed empathy for fellow victims. However, like most people who use the term "do-gooder", she was very vague about what the word meant. She gave no clue as to how to recognise a do-gooder, either by dress code, age, political views or occupation. Nor did she ever define what a non-do-gooder was - perhaps a "do-badder"? As might be expected, Joan favoured strong punitive measures for offenders, with little scope for rehabilitation. Not only this, but Joan's admirable charity work might qualify her to be described as a "do-gooder". Now, there's an irony!
These are, I would contend, two opposing, if extreme, views about violent crime which are still prevalent today. Happily, most proponents of the first view are much more compassionate than the heartless Scots social worker mentioned above. They recognise that justice must be done, but assert the need for education and habilitation (many offenders are alienated from society from the first), in order to make criminals into useful members of society. I would welcome any information about the success rate of such programmes. Many people, of course, and especially the tabloid press, regard such treatment as mollycoddling and "soft treatment" for evildoers. This controversy is particularly intense when the issue of lethal youthful and children's violence is raised. A list of such murders includes the Mary Bell case, the murders of James Bulger and Rhys Jones in Liverpool, Lilian Lilley in Oldham, Jimmy Mizen (murdered 2008 by a youth of 19), Ann Maguire (teacher murdered, 2014) and, more recently, the tragic death of Bailey Gwynne in Aberdeen.
This is not the place to offer solutions to this abiding and complex problem, but a number of observations can be made here. Firstly, Mary Bell responded well to her treatment, is now married with a family, and living in happy anonymity. John Venables, one of the murderers of James Bulger, has not adjusted well to normal life after his period of treatment and has served time for child pornography offences; his accomplice, Robert Thompson, has not been caught for any wrongdoing. Ann Maguire's killer has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, despite being 16 years of age. This sentence has been criticised by some and welcomed by others - including me. This is because I know very well that there are some young school students who would find light sentences, such as that of the Bulger case killers, who only received eight year terms, something of an encouragement. Bailey Gwynne's killer has received a nine-year sentence for manslaughter. He probably will serve only half of his sentence, and that will be noteworthy to pupils of this type. Anyone who doubts the existence of such youngsters is being hopelessly naïve. The recent trial of two teenage girls for the murder of Angela Wrightson, in Hartlepool, is evidence of this problem. The double murderer, James Fairweather, who admired the Yorkshire Ripper and who committed his crimes at the age of 15, is another example of this type of young killer.
All of which leads to the question that I was trying to avoid: why are they like this? What makes children and adolescents into killers? No-one, still less me, can answer that. I can, however, point to people who are soon forgotten, and those are the relatives of the victims. Books have been written about Mary Bell, but none about those who lost loved ones because of her childhood crimes. The film maker, Julian Hendy, who runs the "100 Families" website (see "Links") has said that after his father was murdered in the street by a released mental patient, his family received no support from any agency. All the care and attention was lavished on the mental patient. All perpetrators get are fixed term prison sentences; the families of their victims get Life. These families, too, are victims.
"Victims? What can you do for them?"
Well, society and the media could care more than we do now. Commendably, some relatives of murder victims do not remain passive, but take positive action. Jayne Zito, whose husband was stabbed to death by a paranoid schizophrenic almost 17 years ago, founded a charity in his memory; Julian Hendy, as mentioned above, runs the "100 families" website which chronicles victims of released mental patients; the redoubtable Denise Fergus, mother of James Bulger, has campaigned tirelessly for justice for her murdered son. But, for the most part, relatives of murder victims suffer and grieve in silence. Some, no doubt, simply wish to keep their sorrow private, while others find that victimhood is just not newsworthy enough for the mass media.
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