Children have rights even when they do wrong: (and even when they are called Rat Boy, Blip Boy, Spider Boy and Boomerang Boy)

Most of the offences committed by children are of a minor nature. Such petty crimes rarely, if ever, feature in media coverage as it is more concerned with the most extreme cases. The awful death of two-year-old James Bulger, killed by two ten-year-old boys, appears to have been used as an excuse in the UK to ‘get tough’ with all young offenders and change their treatment before the courts. Most children who come to the attention of the police and social workers were victims before they became villains. The need to exact retribution should not be used to obscure the lack of care extended to them early in their lives, nor used as an excuse to treat them as adults or, in some cases, more harshly than adults.