Children Who Kill

In Britain today, there is a controversial court case taking place regarding a 10 year old and and 11 year old who are charged with killing two other boys in Doncaster in April 2009. This is a tragic case as there is the potential for not only two lives to be destroyed but rather four young lives never mind the impact that this event has on their families.

This case raises so many questions for me that it is not possible to include them all here:

Is Britain in moral decline?

The claim made by David Cameron (Leader of the Conservative Party), according to the media, is that the Labour government has led us to the point of moral decline. I must admit that this term 'moral decline' is a term that I loathe, not because I don't believe in morality and ethics, but rather that it implies that there was a golden age of morality from which we are moving away from, which is not true. If people claim that there was a golden age of morality then I wonder when that was? Perhaps it was the the 1900s where our understanding of caring for the needy was to throw them into workhouses where disease spread and people were badly abused. Perhaps it was during the war-time, in which case do you claim that the killing of millions was morally upright because we were able to justify it. Maybe, it was the 1960s and 1970s during the period of the sexual revolution and the mass increase in drug usage - I doubt that this would be classed as a moral golden age.

Does the notion of two children killing disturb us?

It is interesting that we are concerned about these two children, and whilst I think it is right that we should be very concerned about them, we have for years ignored or turned a blind eye to the many child soldiers around the world (who are as young as 9 years old). If we are concerned about this case then surely we should be even more concerned about the children who are being trained to kill! For more information see www.child-soldiers.org

Who is educating our children?

We, as a society, often leave the duty of educating our children to the government or local authorities. Please don't mistake me, there are many, many parents who do a fantastic job of working alongside schools in educating their children, however there are also children and young people whose family lives are so chaotic that even trying to keep a regular appointment to attend school is an incredibly difficult task, and even when they get there, the notion of formal education is so far from the experience of the young person that they cannot relate to it and become frustrated by it. This is only one reason, among many, that I see a need for youth workers and community workers - to come alongside people identifying their learning needs and help them to learn in the way that is most relevant to them. School can never meet all the needs of our Children and young people and therefore we need to create other opportunities to do this. This is one of the reasons why the Church is best placed to reach those most in need with good news. This is not a good news is told but rather good news that is experienced. Throughout the gospels when someone is need of help or healing, we do not see Jesus taking them through a 10-week doctrine course but rather he forgives them (often without them asking for it) and heals them.

Do our young people, children and communities not deserve to experience that same good news!