The Age Of Criminal Responsibility

The relevant legislation that has been implemented, (Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987), has addressed issues that young people face. However, rights for young people still need to be addressed. Doli Incapax, The Children’s Court and Legal are measures taken to protect young offenders in regards to the criminal justice system. Ensuring that the child’s rights are protected there have been legislations passed to guarantee the enforceability of this alternative methods. Young people are treated differently to adults in the criminal justice system for three major reasons. They are; they prevent children and young people from being exploited, protect them from making uniformed decisions and protect others from being disadvantaged by dealing with a person that is a

Youth and juvenile crime is a common and serious issue in current society, and people, especially parents and educators, are pretty worried about the trend of this problem. According to Bala and Roberts, around 17% of criminals were youths, compared to 8% of Canadian population ranging between 12 to 18 years of age between 2003 and 2004 (2006, p37). As a big federal country, Canada has taken a series of actions since 1908. So far, there are three justice acts in the history of Canadian juvenile justice system, the 1908 Juvenile Delinquents Act, the 1982 Young Offenders Act, and the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act. In Canada, the judicial system and the principle of these laws have been debated for a long time. This paper will discuss how

The criminal justice system approaches young offenders through unique policies to address the challenges of dealing with juvenile offending. They take special care when dealing with juveniles in order to stop them from repeat offending and stop any potential bad behaviour which could result in future. Juveniles have the highest tendency to rehabilitate and most adopt law-abiding lifestyles as they mature. There are several factors influencing juvenile crime including psychological and social pressures unique to juveniles, which may lead to an increase in juvenile’s risks of contact with the criminal justice system.

Currently each state and territory in Australia has its own individual legislation concerning juvenile crime. All state and territory laws do not conform to the Conventions on the Right of the Child and it is crucial that these laws are amended to better protect juveniles. The most effective reform that could be made is for each state and territory to amend their individual legislations to increase the minimum age to be criminally responsible from 10 to 12 with the doli incapax doctrine still being applied. Although it has been acknowledged that under the common law doctrine doli incapax, children between 10 and 14 are only criminally responsible if the individual is mature enough to realise the consequences of their actions, this assessment is left to the judge, often without expert knowledge from a phycologist (Amnesty International, 2015). Furthermore, it is crucial for Queensland to raise their maximum age from 17 to 18. This amendment will allow Australia to keep up with international standards while reducing Aboriginal crime in areas where crime rates are

The Youth Criminal Justice Act is the law that helps govern youth offenders in Canada, which has been created to introduce a overall fair and equitable method to deal with youth criminal offenders but could use further improvements. This act applies to youth between the ages of 12 and 17 and who have taken an offensive action against the law. Over the century there have been 3 youth justice statutes; the Juvenile Delinquents Act (1908-1984), the Young Offenders Act (YOA) (1984-2003), and the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) (2003-present). Significant changes were made to the act to make it much more fair and straight to the point. Changes such as the useage of courts in non-serious cases, fairness in sentencing, and lack of effective interrogation.

The reservation of the Convention on the Rights of a Child (CROC) had played invaluable role in charging the way in which young offenders are dealt with within the Australia Criminal Process. Including the introduction of the theory known as Doli Incapax meaning the age of criminal reasonability, the Young Offender Act 1997 NSW as well new law regarding the rights of a child once they have been arrested. It is evident that these while some of charges are still ineffective in dealing with Young Offenders within the Criminal Justice System the majority of them are in place for the greater good and are assisting young offenders when it relates to the Criminal Justice System.

This essay will look to explore and discuss the minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales and see if the minimum age should be brought into line with the rest of Europe or not. The first thing to look at is the current age of criminal responsibility which is set at 10 years of age. (https://www.gov.uk/age-of-criminal-responsibility). Looking at the law, the age of 10 seems to have been chosen on numerical grounds and belief that crime becomes too popular at the age of eleven. This was despite recommendation from the penal reform international which argued that children under 12 should not be punished and the age should be increased, with a potential rise to fourteen. (http://www.penalreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/justice-for-children-briefing-4-v6-web_0.pdf). In recent years the boldness and humour towards young offenders is high, due to an extensive public awareness of growth around youth crime and the death of James Bulger by Robert Thompson and Jon Venable, who were 10 at the time of the killing.

The juvenile justice system exists to separate the youth from the adults that are imprisoned. The separation exists because of the different levels of maturity that are present between the two age groups. These young offenders are not arrested for the reason of punishment; they are arrested to be rehabilitated so they do not become habitual offenders later on in life. It gives them the opportunity to see what life will be like for them if they are to be adult offenders. With that being said, there are some instances where these young adults are to be tried as an adult offender with an adult punishment. Throughout most of history, young offenders were tried by the same courts as those that tried adults and were subject to the same sanction which does include execution and incarceration. (Masters, p 450, 2013) There are some places that truly believe that young criminals shouldn’t be treated like adults, such as in England. There is a law in affect called the “infancy defense” which says that children under the age of 7 are not to be tried as adults because they haven’t yet formed criminal intent. A child that was between the ages of 7 and 14 could be prosecuted but only if the prosecutor could prove that the child knew what they were doing was wrong. (Lectric Law Library, 2003) Lawmakers and social scientists found that those who were found guilty

In this report, the President of Queensland’s Children’s Court, Michael Shanahan, provides an overview of juvenile justice in the period 2013-14. This includes a summary of the latest trends, which suggests a decrease in the number of youth offenders. Shanahan, a stakeholder in this issue, raises the idea that new amendments to the Youth Justice Act 1992 (Qld) creates a more punitive approach to sentencing, which can cause recidivism. While the first part of the report is not entirely objective, the reliability of the resource is restored after Shanahan’s overview with the many tables, statistics and graphs available to peruse. Of the many Children’s Court annual reports available to the public, this report is the most recent and contains

This type of practice could have lasting effects on the child, potentially leading to more harmful acts and a criminal lifestyle (New York Times 601). Based on developmental research, it is suitable to raise genuine concerns about the relocation of juveniles to adult prison, because a child’s arbitrative capacity is quite minimal (Steinberg 605). In other words, most young children do not possess the fortitude they would need to fully tackle the brutal consequences that are tolerated in an adult prison. Therefore, children deserve the right to be regarded as juveniles no matter the nature of their infraction. Nevertheless, young offenders absolutely need to be punished for their violations, but they should be punished in a secure environment created for children, not adults (Steinberg

There are no national standards that declare the exact age at when a defendant knows right from wrong; however, states have adopted a variety of laws declaring the age of criminal responsibility. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia have set eighteen as the age of criminal responsibility; however, most defendants, seventeen or younger may be tried in juvenile courts. Some states such as Wisconsin, North Carolina, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois set their minimum age for criminal acts at sixteen. Despite that fact, that states set individual ages for juveniles to be to tried as an adult for the crime committed, it is accurate to note that juveniles can and have been tried as adults when under the minimum age within the state law.

As more minors are committing violent crimes, the question of whether they should be tried as adults has arisen. Children as young as 13 or 14 are committing violent crimes such as murder, rape, and armed robbery. Some of these children are being tried as adults while others are being tried as juveniles and receiving milder punishments. A juvenile offender may receive a few years in a juvenile detention facility and possibly probation following his release at age eighteen. An adult committing the same violent crime will receive a much harsher penalty, often years in jail, possibly a life sentence, with little or no chance of parole. The only difference between the two offenders is the age at which they committed the crime. Juveniles over

Young people represent the future of society. Consequently, they deserve respect and support while they develop in order to maintain a fair and just society. Therefore, it is the juvenile justice system’s responsibility to establish institutions and legislation to protect the important role that young people play in society. The system should also be driven by welfare and justice concerns as young people have special needs in regards to their age, and their physical, emotional and social development. It is essential that these welfare and justice concerns are addressed effectively by the system in order for young people to flourish. This essay will firstly assess the NSW juvenile justice system in regards to its treatment of young offenders in detention, in conjunction with its obligations under domestic and international law. Additionally, this essay will analyse evidence of welfare and justice concerns for youth offenders in detention in NSW. And furthermore, this essay will analyse the implications of youth detention on young offender’s and society. And ultimately argue that the NSW contemporary juvenile justice system is not driven by welfare and justice concerns. Given the fact that NSW has the highest rate of youth detention in Australia, and that there is overwhelming evidence to support the idea that youth detention carries detrimental physical and psychological consequences. Furthermore, the NSW juvenile justice system is not upholding the fact that young people

Serious crimes such as murder, burglary and rape have raised questions as to whether the young offenders should face severe punitive treatment or the normal punitive measures in juvenile courts. Many would prefer the juveniles given harsh punishment in order to discourage other young people from engaging in similar activities and to serve as a lesson to these particular offenders. However, results from previous studies indicate such punitive measures were neither successful nor morally acceptable. Instead, the solutions achieved have unfairly treated the youths and compromised the society status (Kristin, page 1).

The federal government of Canada fifteen years ago, in 1984, the Liberal party changed the Juvenile Delinquents Acts to the Youth Offenders Act to have a “More human approach to the rights of young people before the law”(Leschild and Jaffe, 8:1991). In the present such as Premier, Mike Harris, of Ontario wants the federal government of Canada to scrap the Young Offenders Act. In 1999, the same party that came up with the act is making majors changes to the act. This report will look at the young offenders act at the present time, look at why kids commit crime, what is being done to improve the act, what has the province done towards teenagers and also a look at the United Sates youth system.