Poor Bob Hope. Everyone's been waiting for him to die for years. His obituary in London's Evening Standard newspaper was written by Alexander Walker who died two weeks before him.
And the one in the New York Times was written by a journalist, Vincent Canby, who died in 2000.
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cassielsanderA god walks down a road, leaving the eastern horizon at dawn and arriving at the western one at dusk. He wears a mask which is blue on the right side and red on the left. The people who live nearby decide that the road is sacred. They come together to consecrate it. But those who live to the north want to consecrate it to the Blue Faced God, while those to the south want to consecrate it to the Red Faced God. They place competing shrines on their respective sides of the road, but that night can no longer stand the idea that a shrine to a false god could exist on their holy road. They therefore take up torches and gather at the road to burn down the false shrines. But, just as they face each other across the road, in the torchlight they see the god making his return journey, from West to East.
Now, you might think that his return would bring peace, because those to the North would now behold the Red Faced God and those on the South the Blue; except that before setting out he turned his mask upside down, so that the people all saw what they expected to see. Their fate is not recorded.
Five children's charities, including the Children's Society, together with the crime reduction charity Nacro have launched a project called Shape to reshape the public debate about young offenders. In particular, we want to encourage alternatives to custody.
Out intention is not to be soft on crime. But a rational debate about young offenders must take account of the hard reality of children and young people's lives.
Children and young people are increasingly victims of crime yet as a society we focus on the small minority who are perpetrators. The fear of youth crime has never been greater yet only 2 % of young people are cautioned or convicted each year.
The UK has one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in Europe. At 10 a child is held to be as accountable in court as an adult. As a result, the number of young people in custody has risen dramatically in the past decade.
About 7,000 under-18s were in custody last year, according to the Home Office. Yet more than 88% of children who receive a custodial sentence re-offend within two years, indicating that locking children up does not work.
The members of Shape believe that children should never be locked up. If it is necessary to detain them, they should always be in small units close to their homes, where they can maintain links with their families.
However, we welcome initiatives by the youth justice board, which advises the government on tackling young offending, to provide community-based alternatives to custody.
But we need to go beyond that and question whether the criminal justice system is the best way of handling children and young people who are deeply troubled, at risk of abuse and neglect, and living in poverty.
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