ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2002 two British schoolgirls, aged ten, went missing from Soham, Cambridgeshire, a peaceful rural town, and were subsequently found murdered. Their disappearance and tragic deaths attracted media attention around the world, and was marked by public mourning, the like of which had not been seen before. During the same year two boys, who had abducted and murdered the toddler Jamie Bulger in Liverpool, Merseyside in 1993, while only ten years old, came of age and were released from juvenile custody. The decision to release them rather than send them to an adult prison, and to provide them with new identities and protection to start a new life provoked an equally loud media and public response. These two examples of childhood in the UK capture twin contemporary fears about children as both at risk in public space, and as a cause of trouble in public space. This book is about these fears and the extent to which childhood might be considered in crisis.
