A new campaign aims to raise the age of criminal responsibility in the UK, where it is currently the lowest in Europe. Children as young as 10 can currently be arrested and charged with crimes, a measure that has remained unchanged since the 1970s.
The representative body for barristers says the current threshold should change from age 10 to 14, and plans to lobby the government to include this change in their plans for a youth justice overhaul. The chair of the Bar Council, Kirsty Brimelow, said today that the body is ‘rightly concerned about crime, victims and public safety’, but that the question to ask is not ‘how do we punish’ but ‘how do we prevent a lifetime in the criminal justice system?’
In a report released today, the Bar Council highlights the ‘corrosive effect’ of imprisoning children and young people. They say in most cases children who commit crimes can be ‘managed, supported and rehabilitated’ without recourse to detention. They have identified that these processes can take place within the remit of the Mental Health Act and the family courts.
Their research has found that children who enter the justice system have ‘disproportionate levels of reduced intellectual functioning’ which makes it difficult for them to exercise their rights as defendants, but can also make them more suggestible in police interviews, leading to false confessions. They have found that the children most likely to be criminalised are ‘those with the greatest needs’.
Although the youth court is meant to allow for more protections for children, they say the processes in place for identifying children who ‘cannot be fairly tried’ are ‘fundamentally inadequate’.
Although children who have been in care account for less than 1% of the child population, they make up 65% of children in prison. The more significant their involvement with the social care system, ‘the higher likelihood of conviction’ if they are charged with a crime.
In a statement released today, Brimelow said: ‘The minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales has remained unchanged for 60 years despite the profound shifts in knowledge about children that is based on developmental neuroscience and psychology. We have analysed the available research and evidence to identify methods by which child offending, as it is currently categorised, may be identified and managed in ways that tend to minimise, not aggravate, the risk of future harm.’
The government’s Youth Justice White Paper which sets out their plans to overhaul the system for children in the criminal justice system says ‘the government will carefully consider the Bar Council’s review about whether the age of criminal responsibility remains appropriate.’
This campaign comes amid wider scrutiny of children in the criminal justice system spearheaded by campaign group JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association), who this month launched their effort to stop children being handed life sentences in England and Wales. The UK is the only place in Europe where children under 18 are routinely given life sentences, with many ending up serving longer in prison that they had even been alive prior to their conviction. The campaign complements their wider efforts to reform controversial joint enterprise legislation which disproportionately criminalises young black and brown boys.
