Disturbing email

I received an email this morning which really disturbed me. It was about the boys who murdered James Bulger, the little boy who was taken from his mother in a shopping centre. Nothing justifies what they did, but this email asked me to sign my name to a petition preventing the culprits from being moved to Australia and being give life time anonymity. It came from someone I know, someone I have done quite a lot for over the years and I think what disturbed me is that without any thought to how I might feel about such a contentious issue, or how much I even knew about the facts (other than the 'facts' presented in the email), she assumed that I would sign the thing and pass it on.
Child abuse by anyone, adult or child is something I feel strongly about. If it were my child that died, who know what I would feel? Perpetrators should be punished, but something about this email smacked of the braying mob, of vigilantes who want someone to harass and who see themselves as right and possibly even righteous. All it did was repel me. They have not helped their cause, with me anyway.
There is a place for debate about what happens to those who have served their time and need to be moved back into society. It is not in large lettered, self important emails sent to 'friends'.
On a daily basis atrocities occur. I do not want to bury my head in the sand about them, but cannot see that this type of movement does anything to change or improve society.

Have a great day!