>Apparently in Britain that means, "spend a few years in TIME OUT and then spend tax dollars to ensure that they are shielded from the consequences of FIRST DEGREE MURDER so they may lead happy and productive lives in spite of the fact that they purposefully denied that same right to another in an unquestionably evil act of wanton cruelty."

One of the biggest issues here (or so I would think, I don't know about anyone else) is that it's children we're dealing with here, and they are certainly not adults. To say that they are not responsible for their actions is completely stupid - they obviously are responsible, and yes, there is a need for punishment when there is a crime, but it is also wrong to assume that their minds work in exactly the same way as those of, say, a couple of 25-year-olds. I won't make a judgement over what should have happened, because I don't know the full facts of the case (I'd need to be a psychologist who studied the children to know that) but then again, I think that these children will have guilt hanging over them. If these children are anything like me (I hope not too much like me) then they will have changed their outlook, and if it was me I would be scared stiff that someone would find out my identity and more or less hunt me down. If they ever have meaningful relationships, they will probably reveal who they really are eventually - it would be a worse stigma than HIV. The government is not trying to shield the children from the consequences of their actions, they're shielding them from the actions of an extremely angry public who are spurred on by the demonisation of these two boys by the media, without even thinking that maybe they are just like anyone else. There's a very good passage in a book by Terry Pratchett called Jingo, which has as a general drift the idea that the world is split by everyone into two groups: Us and Them. There is a nasty realisation halfway through the passage for the main character that They are just like Us - perfectly normal people are capable of doing something absolutely terrible.

Is 8 years enough? I don't know. What I do know is that none of us can make a judgement on that without knowing everything about the case.

Phil-"don't make judgements hastily without knowing about them"-bee