I was trawling through
Facebook updates this morning when I came across the ‘Justice for James Bulger’
group and an application that invited me to ‘release a balloon’ in the child’s
memory (if you don’t do Facebook, then you’re probably lost by now, but keep
with me anyway). The introductory blurb to the application claims that the
boy’s killers should never have been released from prison and that ‘the key
should have been thrown away’. We can all understand the sentiment, I’m sure.
But is this a sentiment that any Christian should be in agreement with? I
suggest not.
Little Jamie Bulger was
killed in the most callous fashion by two other children in 1993. His
murderers, Venables and Thompson, were soon caught and convicted of murder.
They were both sentenced to prison until they reached adulthood and then kept
inside until 2001 when they were released under lifelong license. It would
appear the Venables broke his conditions recently and is now once again behind bars.
Whether the initial
sentence was long enough or whether they had both made sufficient progress to
be allowed their freedom in 2001 is a matter for others to consider. The main
deliberation would probably have been whether they were still considered to be
a danger to the public upon their release and the process the state follows in
order to decide such things is detailed and lengthy.
It is obvious that many –
the Facegroup page has over 45 thousand ‘like this’ comments – believe they
should never have been released. And it is this sentiment that I
disagree with. For at the heart of our faith and the good news about the
Kingdom is the possibility of redemption and restoration. Denying this
possibility seems to me to be a denial of the gospel itself.
The pain the Bulger
family are going through now that the whole episode is stirred up once again
must be immense. Knowing that the child’s killers were free and rebuilding
their lives must also have been very difficult to live with. But there is
healing for their pain too – it’s just not connected to Venables and Thompson’s
incarceration.
