In 1993, a mall security camera captured a shaky image of two 10-year-old boys leading a much smaller boy out of a Liberpool, England, shopping center. The boys lured James Bulger, 2, away from his mother, who was shopping , and led him on a long walk across town. The excursion ended at a railroas track. There, inexplicably, the older boys tortured the toddler, kicking him, smearing paint on his face and pummeling him to death with bricks before heaving him on the track to be dismembered by a train. The boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, then went of to watch cartoons.
Today the boys are 18-year-ole men, and after spending eight years in juvenile facilities, they have been deemed fit for release--probably this spring. The dilemma now confronting the English justice system is how to reintegrate the notorious duo into a society that remains horrified by their crimes and skeptical about their rehabilitation. Last week Judge Elizabeth Butler-Sils decided the young men were in so much danger that they needed an unprecedented shield to protect them upon release. For ht e rest of their lives, Venable sands Thompson will have a right to anonymity. All English media outlets are banned from publishing any information about their whereabouts of the new identities the government will help them establish. Photos of the two or even details about their current looks are also prohibited.
In the U.S, which is harder on juvenile criminals than England, such a ruling seems inconceivable. “We’re clearly the most punitive in the industrialized world,” says Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University professor who studies juvenile justice. Over the past decade, the trend in the U.S. has been to allow publication of ever more information about underage offenders. U.S. courts also give more weight to press freedom than English courts ,ewhich, for example, ban all video cameras.
But even for Britain, the order is extraordinary. The victim’s family is enraged, as are the ever eager British tabloids. “What right have they got to be given special protection as adults?” asks Bulger’s mother Denise Fergus. Newspaper editorials have insisted that citizens have a right to know if Venables of Thompson move in next door. Says conserbative Member of Parliament Humfrey Malins;”It almost leaves you with the feeling that the nastier the crime, the greater the chance for a completely new life.”
79. What occurred as told at the beginning of the passage?
A. 2 ten-year-olds killed James by accident in play
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