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8 Criminology & Crim. Just. 5 (2008)

handle is hein.journals/crmcj8 and id is 1 raw text is: ARTICLES Criminology & Criminal justice @ 2008 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) and the British Society of Criminology. www.sagepublications.com ISSN 1748-8958; Vol: 8(1): 5-25 DOI: 10.1177/1748895807085867 The killing of children by children as a symptom of national crisis: Reactions in Britain and Japan DAVID SMITH AND KIYOKO SUEDA Lancaster University, UK and Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan Abstract In this article, we describe and analyse the public and political responses to two notorious cases of the killing of children by children, one in Merseyside, England and one in Kobe, Japan. We discuss the ways in which the cases were presented as symptomatic of wider social problems, and how in both Britain and Japan they acted as a catalyst for changes in the juvenile criminal justice system. The article describes and attempts to explain both similarities and differences in the reactions to the killings in Britain and Japan, arguing that while the differences may be more obvious the similarities may be more instructive, and setting the description in the context of penological arguments about globalization and the emergence of a postmodern penality. We conclude that neither country is as unique in its responses to juvenile crime as is sometimes claimed, and that despite 'postmodern' anxieties and scepticism in both countries, a 'modernist' welfare approach to the reintegration of the killers remained feasible in both Britain and Japan. Key Words child killing * Japan * media * reintegration * social crisis Introduction In this article we explore the reactions in Britain and Japan to two cases of killing by children of children: the 1993 case of James Bulger and the 1997 5

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