His question reminded me of the James Bulger case that happened more than a decade ago in the UK. The 2-year-old James were abducted and murdered by two 10-year-old boys and his mutilated body was found a few days later near a railway line. The crime committed was brutal but being juvenile, the two boys were sentenced to imprisonment at a young offenders institution for 8 years. A few years ago, they were released from the institution and leading new lives under concealed identities.
贝 and i have very different views on this issue. To 贝, he believes that children are too young to really know what's right and wrong. The environment in which they were brought up plays a big part in shaping their behaviours. If the kids have committed any hideous crimes, it is very likely that they were misguided by the people around them or the media. He believes that these young offenders, no matter how horrific the crimes were, should be given a second chance. As they become older and properly guided in the institution, they would realize what they've done was wrong, and their conscience would be their punishment for the rest of their lives.
To me, i'm not that optimistic, or maybe less forgiving. I somehow believe that some people are simply born evil. I'm not particularly referring to the James Bulger case. I'm saying that in general, i do think that there is inherent evilness in some of us, if not all of us. Environment does play a part to morph us further into a better or worse being. That's why similar environment may bear two different beings, because some are just more evil than others.
As for whether or not young murderers should be given another shot in life, i really don't know for sure. On one hand, i know full well that two wrongs don't make one right; so locking them up for life doesn't really right a wrong. Yet, on the other hand, i empathize with the victim's family; the kids are given another chance to live a normal lives, yet their own kids didn't even have the chance to grow up. And how sure can we be that they wouldn't recidivate, given their criminal tendency? Perhaps i just have lesser faith in human's nature.
I guess there are actually two topics here, one being the classic question of nature vs. nurture, and the other being people's acceptance of ex-convicts back to the society. For the first topic, people of different views can argue 'til the cows come home and there still won't be a consensus. As for the second, my friends and i had talked about it before and it seemed like the "acceptance" is conditional. People can accept ex-convicts of minor crime such as theft or maybe white-collar misdemeanour, but not more serious felonies such as murder or rape. Then isn't this another way of saying that some people are indeed more evil and thus even prison can't transform them?
