Prosecuting children is a breach of their human rights - argues Teesside University academic

A Teesside University academic is calling for an urgent review in the age of criminal responsibility, arguing that children as young as 10 cannot be held criminally culpable for their behaviour.

Dr Ray Arthur says it is inconceivable a child cannot consent to have sex until the age of 16, is prohibited from driving a car until 17, cannot get a part-time job until they are 13, but can acquire a criminal record from the age of 10 that will remain with them for life.

A report at the end of 2012 revealed that six primary school children are being arrested every day and more than 209,000 young people under the age of 11 were detained by police in England and Wales last year.

Now Dr Arthur, a Reader in the School of Social Sciences & Law at Teesside University, is lobbying the Government, stressing the need to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 12 years of age and ideally 14.

He has, along with other prominent members from the National Association for Youth Justice, written an open letter to Jeremy Wright, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice. In it they claim that holding 10-year-olds criminally liable is a breach of international children’s human rights standards and urge the Government to review its position.

In England and Wales the age of criminal responsibility is set at 10-years-old – the lowest in the European Union and well below the international average outside of Europe.

'The current law assumes all children are sufficiently mature at this age to accept criminal responsibility for their behaviour, but the law needs to recognise that children may not be developed enough to understand the wrongfulness of what they do,” said Dr Arthur.

'The pre-frontal cortex of the brain, for instance, which is important for impulse control and decision-making, continues to develop into the early twenties, more than 10 years after the point at which children are considered by criminal law to be as responsible for their actions as a mature adult.

'Neuroscience data has found that there are developmental differences in the brain’s biochemistry and anatomy that may limit adolescents’ ability to perceive risks, control impulses, understand consequences and control emotions. If young people lack the capacity to make a meaningful choice and to control their impulses, should they be held criminally culpable for their behaviour?

'The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended states parties to increase their age of criminal responsibility to the age of 12 years as the absolute minimum age.'

Arguably the most high profile case ever involving juvenile defendants was the murder of toddler James Bulger by two 10-year-old boys. In February 1993, James was abducted, tortured and murdered by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables who became the youngest convicted murderers in modern English history.

They were sentenced to custody until they reached adulthood, initially until the age of 18, and were released on a lifelong licence in June 2001. The case prompted widespread debate on the issue of how to handle young offenders.

More recently in 2010, two 10-year-old boys became Britain’s youngest sex offenders when they were found guilty of attempting to rape an 8-year-old girl. The case provoked debate over whether juveniles should appear in Crown Court.

Dr Arthur said: 'Young defendants often do not understand legal proceedings or the language used by lawyers, they report feeling intimidated and isolated in court and may not receive a proper explanation of what has happened until after a hearing is over. They also feel frustration that the courts seem rarely to understand the context in which their offences were committed, including the pressures facing them.

'If young people are not sufficiently mature and competent to understand the process of a trial in a criminal court, can they be held criminally culpable for their behaviour? To apply the same standards of criminal responsibility to a 10-year-old as an adult is to ignore large amounts of evidence about the immaturity of children at that age.

'Raising the age of criminal responsibility, comprises an effective strategy for removing children and young people from the reach of the criminal justice system altogether. The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales should be reviewed with a view to raising it at least to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended minimum of 12 years and preferably to the European norm of 14 years. Such a recommendation would meet both the requirements of effective criminal justice and our duty under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to uphold children’s human rights.'

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