A concern with crime's causes

By EDITORIAL NOTEBOOK: DIANE ROBERTS

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 4, 2000

LONDON -- There is no death penalty in the United Kingdom. And while there are periodic howls from right-wing newspapers and retired colonels to "bring back hanging," the majority of people prefer life in prison for murderers over American-style ultimate vengeance.

Britain is safe compared with the United States. But the British have had their share of notorious murderers, and the question of how to treat them has sparked a heated national conversation.

In the 1960s, Ian Brady and his lover Myra Hindley sexually tortured and murdered at least eight children, then buried the bodies on Saddleworth Moor, near Manchester. Both Brady and Hindley got multiple life sentences. But earlier this year, Brady, now 62, began a hunger strike, saying he had a right to die if he chose. A judge disagreed and ordered Ashworth Prison Hospital to feed Brady intravenously against his will.

Public reaction was divided: Some argued that Brady should be allowed to die, because control over one's body is a fundamental human right. Others -- including the families of the victims -- argued that he should be forced to live to serve out his sentence in the loneliness and deprivation of prison. No one, at least in public, used him as an argument for capital punishment.

Murder in Britain is often seen as deranged first and evil second. Brady and Hindley, the "Moors Murderers," occupy a place in the British consciousness roughly equivalent to Ted Bundy in the American. They are much hated and have been kept in solitary confinement for fear other prisoners would attack them. Still, the Old Testament sense of an eye for an eye, a life for a life, is largely absent in this country.

Rehabilitation is, however, taken seriously, especially for young offenders. In 1993, two 10-year-olds, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, abducted 2-year-old James Bolger from a shopping center, walked him to a lonely spot and beat him to death. It was a horrible crime, shocking the nation. Yet there was no call for the boys to be tried as adults and receive adult sentences. They have spent the last seven years in juvenile detention, receiving psychiatric and other care. They will most likely be freed in 2003 when they reach 20.

Not everybody is happy about this. James Bolger's mother wants them to do some hard time in adult prison. But that goes against European human rights law, which separates the crimes of children from those of adults, no matter how heinous.

It's not as though the British are "soft" on crime: The Labor government of Tony Blair is about as committed to a program of prison-building as previous Conservative governments were. Just like Americans, the British worry about crime. Just like us, they are demanding more police on the streets. But the British are far more interested in the roots of and cures for criminal behavior than we are. "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime," was one of Tony Blair's campaign slogans. We embrace the former and almost ignore the latter.

The British have adopted much that is American: hamburgers, blue jeans, dot com companies, even (now that global warming is obvious) air conditioning. But they don't want to imitate our gun culture, our violence or our apparent disregard for rehabilitation. In arguing the case for treating rather than merely punishing the two boys that killed James Bolger, a government minister said, "We don't want to just discard people like rubbish in our penal system. This isn't Texas."

-- Diane Roberts is a Times editorial writer.

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