Is there a ‘right’ way to deal with children who commit crimes? | Gaby Hinsliff

A film about the murder of James Bulger has reopened the debate about punishment versus rehabilitation

How does an 11-year-old boy end up alone in a London police cell? Eleven years old, for heaven’s sake. That means either still in primary school, or at best in the nervous beginnings of secondary. Eleven still says muddy knees, flapping around in a blazer several sizes too big, and wanting a bedtime story – or at least it does for the parents of the lucky children. Life is not like that for every 11-year-old, however, and it is the unlucky ones who are perhaps most likely to end up in the bowels of a police station. His solicitor didn’t say what he was accused of doing, when she posted on Twitter earlier this week that “no child should be in a cell. Period.” Her point was that a custody suite is no place for a kid that small, no matter what they might have done.

Related: James Bulger's parents 'disgusted' as film about son's killers gets Oscar nomination

Related: Jon Venables: how attitudes towards criminality have changed and hardened | Zoe Williams

Continue reading...

from Children | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2FYE5Gc