In the Media

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

PUBLISHED July 5, 2013
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On the matter of Jon Venables' release from prison, there isn't much to discuss ? he served his sentence for the murder of the toddler James Bulger, and he has now cleared the parole board hearing for release from his second, two-year sentence, for accessing and distributing child pornography. Whatever you think of child pornography, the sentence for it can't be indefinite. The distress of the Bulger parents is understandable, but Ralph Bulger's proposition ? that it is too dangerous to let Venables out, in case some other, innocent third party were to be mistaken for him, and harmed or even killed by a vigilante ? isn't a sound reason to keep someone jailed indefinitely, either.

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