I'm 10, I killed you, what should happen to me? Options

[*NatiMarie*]

I had this in the death penalty question, but I think it's a different issue. What if they were younger than 12 or something and they committed a crime of this extent. What should be done to them?

Okay, what's I'm talking about...I should have specified, sorry is the Jamie Bulgar case.

The story is a three year old was brutally tortured and murdered by one 9-year old boy and a 10-year old boy. He was abducted and by a course of hours, died a terrible death. What should have happened to these boys?

Years later, at the age of 18 they were released from prison. Is that a suitable penalty?

EDIT//--from a website
Here's brief summary:
On February 12, 1993 a small boy who was to turn three in March was taken from a shopping mall in Liverpool by two 10 year old boys. Jamie Bulger walked away from his mother for only a second and Jon Venables took his hand and led him out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson. They took Jamie on a walk for over 2 and a half miles, along the way stopping every now and again to torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mommy. Finally they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his anus.

It was actually worse than this. What these two boys did was so horrendous that Jamie's mother was forbidden to identify his body. They then left his beaten small body on the tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created. These two boys, even being boys understood what they did was wrong, hence trying to make it look like an accident. This week Lady Justice Butler-Sloss has awarded the two boys anonymity for the rest of their lives when they leave custody with new identities. We cannot let this happen. They will also leave early this year only serving just over half of their sentence. One paper even stated that Robert may go on to University. They are getting away with their crime. They need to pay, and we have to do something to make them pay for their horrific crime. They took Jamie's life violently away, and in return they get a new life.

[usnstgwife2011]

For those of you that believe they didn't know what they are doing...Have you ever heard of Jeffery Dahmer? I'm sure you all have. He started out when he was4 laughing when they found some birds under the porch crying. When he was 6 he brought some tadpoles to school and the teacher gave them to another classmate. He went to the boys house and killed the tadpoles with motor oil out of rage at the kid. Not every child starts like this. But those boys knew what they were doing. I have a 9 year old and she knows what the consequence is for killing someone. She would never do it but she knows what happens and knows it is wrong. The only way they didn't know what they were doing is if their psycological profile says they aren't competent and can't understand a crime of such nature. They would have to have a disease that prevents them from knowing wrong or right. For example, a disease that revents their brain from aging, someone with downs may not understand right from wrong at that age as their brain develops slower than others. Anyway, my opinion is that they knew what they were doing was wrong. They should have been released unless they have had extreme psycological evaluations that determine that at the time they weren't competent enough to understand right from wrong. But that;s thinking logically. If it were my child that were killed in such a heinous manner I would say they should have been tried as adults and sentence to a term of life inprisionment or the death penalty.