In the middle of March this year
UNICEF urged Iran to increase their age of criminal responsibility for
children, which, in Iran, is currently 9 for girls and 15 for boys. There are
two things about this that are shocking; firstly there is not a blanket age for
both boys and girls and also that the youngest age here is 9. After reading
about this naturally I was curious as to what this meant and also whether there
was anywhere where the age of criminal responsibility was any younger. Broadly,
the age of criminal responsibility is the age at which a person can be charged
and tried with a crime and surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) the US has
the youngest age for criminal responsibility at 7 years old across the majority
of states. The UK has the age set at ten but there is currently a Private
Members Bill looming in Parliament (at its second reading stage, so unlikely to
be brought to the commons) to increase the criminal age of responsibility in
Britain.
Obviously, there is a real issue
as to whether children know the difference between right and wrong and whether
they have the emotional maturity to be fully aware of the consequences of their
actions at such a young age. In England a “child” cannot vote until 18 because
they are viewed to not be mature enough yet they can be charged as an adult.
There seems to be a degree of hypocrisy here; claiming that a child cannot make
such a big decision about the government of their country, yet suddenly are
deemed to have enough life experience, be emotional and mentally prepared and
aware of the consequences of their actions when it comes to being tried of a
crime. There is an argument that whilst a child may realise the difference
between right and wrong they cannot truly understand the varying degrees of wrong
doing. However, clearly a vast number of children do know the difference
between right and wrong at the age of ten, and exposed to a culture of media
and press coverage that makes it blatantly clear day in day out what is right
and wrong there is little to suggest that many children do not know this
difference. Whilst understanding may be slightly different it is impossible to
do an individual assessment of each child before convicting and sentencing. It
would not be fair to say that one child, because of their circumstances, is far
more aware of right and wrong than another who has committed the same crime. A
probabilistic approach has to be taken towards this. But is 10 year old too
young? There is evidence to suggest that at around 12/13 a child is far more
aware of what is right and wrong and is emotionally capable of recognising
this. This is probably true – at this stage a child has attended secondary
school for nearly two years and will be increasingly aware of what is right and
wrong.
There also seems to be an element
of the fact that if you charge a child for a crime too young they do not fully
understand the legal process and therefore it is argued cannot receive a fair
trial. Obviously, it is important that a fair trial is held to discover if a person
is innocent or guilty and an inability to understand the process and give clear
instructions with inconsistent responses will hinder the trial being fair. Of
course, a court room is a challenging experience and the atmosphere is not
ideal for a child but there are plenty of children, far younger, who stand as
witnesses against tough questioning and are fully capable of maintaining a
level head. For example, in May 2010 when two boys, aged 10 and 11 were charged
with the rape of an 8 year old girl it was the 8 year old girl who offered the
most consistent and effective testimony. She was not phased by the pressure of
the court room despite being the person to whom the crime had been committed
against. It is difficult to argue that a child does not understand the legal
proceedings and that this can prove a valid reason to not prosecute.
Yet, if the age were to be raised
then horrific crimes that are fully capable of adult punishment should not be
ignored. Clearly, in the murder of James Bulger in 1993 Venables and Thompson
were both fully aware that what they were doing was wrong and have been found
by forensic psychiatrists to understand that what they did was wrong. Both were
aged 10 but understood. If the age of criminal responsibility were to be raised
then blatant criminals like that could avoid punishment because they are deemed
to be too young. In this case the defence did bring up a good point; Venables
and Thompson were both a victim of circumstance. Studies have shown that
vulnerable children who have grown up in poverty, have been uncared for, have
been abused, have been victims of crime themselves or are members of gangs are
considerably more likely to commit crimes. There is a suggestion that these
circumstances should be addressed rather than punishing the child for their
actions. Yet circumstance shouldn't be an excuse for Venables and Thompson;
their crime was horrific and no amount of difficult circumstances should
justify this.
Psychologically, I don’t think
that at the age of 10 a child is fully capable of being tried as an adult; they
are still in infant school! For the majority of small crimes it probably isn’t
worth putting a child through the process of prosecution, there are far more
effective methods of dealing with a crime. For these case raising the age of
criminal responsibility to 12 is arguably much better for society. However, for
crimes such as murder and rape there must be severe punishments and court
proceedings are clearly necessary. A 10 year old committing a murder – which is
so intrinsically wrong and something a child knows is unacceptable from a very young age – offers little doubt that they are fully responsible for their actions and must be tried accordingly.
Alice
No comments:
Post a Comment