Introduction

Morality is a strange recursive concept. It implies ‘to do the right thing’, but what the right thing might be depends on your view of morality, on what is right and what is wrong. Some rights and wrongs are easier to define than others.

The sexual, physical and mental abuse of children is abhorred by people across the world. Government today accords children special protection when it is thought that they might be at risk of abuse. Formal child protection plans are then made to improve their future safety. When a child is killed who was or should have been identified by the authorities as at risk, there is a great outcry of moral outrage and anger. This anger is not directed only at the killer but also at the authorities who failed to prevent the harm, for example by using a child protection order to allow the compulsory removal of the child from the ‘at risk’ situation. In the poorest 60 per cent of areas in Britain children are subject to child protection plans in almost direct proportion to their likelihood of living in poverty. The children most likely to be abused are those living in the very poorest neighbourhoods. It does not take a great leap of imagination to extend part of the blame for high and persistent rates of abuse of children in Britain to those, all of us, who allow such high rates of poverty, and the inequality which causes poverty, to continue, and this is especially true when children kill other children.

Children killing other children is extremely rare in Britain. It is much more common in the United States which is, in general, a far more violent society. However, and perhaps partly because of the danger of extreme violence in the United States, bullying between children is recorded as being slightly rarer in the US than in the UK (see Section 4.2). It is the United Kingdom which has been found to have the highest rates of bullying among children in the rich world.

Thankfully, great efforts are now being made to try to control bullying in this country.