Your post doesn't make a lot of sense, firstly because the age of criminal responsibility is 10, so why make an exception in the Bulger case and not for other same-age perpetrators? Your last point doesn't really make sense either, because child criminals once released will be given a new identity away from their home area and if they have truly atoned for their crime and keep their head down they should not suffer detriment as you put it.
I find you quite grating. When you say I am not making sense, you are not being constructive, you are being insultative in that you are implying that I am not thinking coherently. I think you do understand what I am saying and you are doing this on purpose to annoy me. But let's assume you don't understand. I'm not sure what you expect me to do about your inability to understand, but perhaps if I try and spell it out for you, that might help you?
So let me try:
The exception should have been made in the Bulger case for very obvious reasons. It is a particularly notorious case and very many people become emotionally distressed, irrational and angry at things that don't directly concern them (as it happens, you are an example of this phenomenon, albeit in a different sort of way). This was demonstrated very well in the reception for the two culprits outside their first criminal court appearance, with grown men running at the custody van and attempting to intimidate them, all of it captured on film. Even today, people are still irrational about the case.
Looking at the situation overall, allowing the media and press to disclose their names and identities was not a sound decision. It created all sorts of undesirable unintended consequences. But that was an exceptional case and good law is not made on the basis of bad or exceptional cases. As a general rule, I do think disclosure should be made as a matter of course - even when the culprit is 10 years old - but as I have just explained, there are situations when, exceptionally, disclosure should be barred. When there are exceptional circumstances, it should be a decision for the judge to make.
Your second point overlooks that I am not just referring to notorious child criminals, whose identities may or may not be withheld, but to child offenders generally and also adult offenders as well, whose identities may have been made public. People should be punished for offending, but the punishment at some point has to stop. Information should still be retained and discoverable in newspaper archives and what not, but it should not be freely available to anybody who casually searches for a name or enquiries of a public body or even a private business, as that results in unfairness towards people who may be making efforts at rehabilitation.
Furthermore, your assumption that simply changing somebody's name and identity will be enough would only hold up if the offender is granted the dispensation of a new birth certificate, which would have to be exceptionally rare. Without that redux step, any past identity remains potentially disclosable to employers and other bodies who ask for such information, as well as enterprising individuals who develop suspicions and know how to conduct searches of the relevant public records.
I hope the above explains things. I would appreciate it if you could stop wasting my time. My posts are not directed at you and if they are not to your liking, you can ignore them, or you can ask me to clarify things. Thank you.
