I was just about to go to bed after finishing all my essays, and thought I'd check the news before I went to sleep. I decided to check out the "Have Your Say" bit on the BBC News website over the Children's Commissioner's comments about raising the legal age of responsibility. It's obviously quite an emotive issue, but reading some of the comments people have left on the Have Your Say blog has left me considering a few things.
First:
It looks like a lot of the people posting are guilty of using synonymy in an argument (and using it badly) and as a result equivocation. There's quite a few people who are using the words "know" and "understand" as if they are actually synonymous. Never mind that you can't use synonymy in an argument (here's why I think so). Let's consider for a moment what "know" and "understand" actually mean.
It doesn't take a lot to know something. When I was 5 I knew 1 + 1 gave the result 2. Before I ever even thought of going to school I knew if I let go of something, say a crayon, it would hit the floor. If you are told that "X is right" and "Y is wrong" often enough you will come to know these things (epistemology questions aside, lets just say its a justified true belief).
I don't know when I actually started to think about numbers as an abstraction, or when I learned why the crayon hit the ground, but I know it wasn't until I had this extra information that I really understood why I will have two tokens of that type of thing when I take one of one thing and another of the same type of thing. It wasn't until I learned about gravity that I really understood why the crayon wouldn't just hit the ground, but the ground would hit my crayon.
A 10 year old might know what they are doing is wrong, but they're also told that not washing their hands after they go to the toilet is wrong, that lying is wrong and that it's bad to drink dad's beer. I think it's a really big shout to say that most, never mind all, 10 year olds actually understand why what they know to be wrong is wrong.
Second:
It's cool to be right-wing these days. I'm probably more right-leaning on things like justice than most of my friends. I think punishment should be punishment, and there's no excuse for the leniency in modern prisons. I'm not saying we go back to turning a crank for 12 hours a day or anything, but lights out is lights out. It's good enough for the army boys it's more than good enough for prisoners.
Back on topic, though. Some of the right-leaning posts (most of the posts) seem to forget what the justice system actually is. It is not a system for revenge. In all honesty, what the victim feels about it is absolutely irrelevant. It is a system for punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation. We're doing okish in one of those three.
If we based the justice system on revenge we'd be no better than organised crime syndicates. Victims of crime have two roles after the crime, to report it and to give honest testimony so the nature of the crime can be objectively judged by peers and (obviously) a judge. Victims have rights so far as they shouldn't be subjected to further trauma - hence giving evidence via video link etc. The only time the emotions of the victim or their family actually matter as regards justice is to ensure they are made to suffer no more than they already have.
A victim's feelings can vary wildly from victim to victim and depend on the crime and offender. You might judge a person unreasonably harshly because of some unsultry, unadmitted racist, sexist or other bigoted disposition. You might decide "he looks like a right manky, jakey bastard, give him 2 years", maybe all he done was steal the £3.50 bus fare you were counting out on the street and knocked you over unintentionally when running away. This is all because he has been homeless since his house burned down and he has no insurance and lost everything and was an otherwise upstanding citizen. There are worse examples.
Our continental cousins (who suffer few of the problems we do with our youth) have ages of between 12 and 14 for criminal responsibility. Could we not take a lesson from them? A point worth noting though, in Scotland it is being moved to twelve from eight.
Third:
Let's be analytical here and look at what those against this change in the law are committed to saying.
If, universally, a child as young as 10 is old enough to reliably and consistently make moral judgements, then due to the often complex nature of these judgements they are also capable of making relatively simpler judgements. They are old enough, then, to assess things like a war and so those opposed to a change in the law are committed to also supporting the use of child soldiers.
If, universally, a child as young as 10 is old enough to reliably and consistently make moral judgements then those opposed to a change in the law are committed to a lowering of the age of consent. Perhaps Argentinian or Mexican consent laws are more to your taste.
If, universally, a child as young as 10 is old enough to reliably and consistently make moral judgements then they are old enough to leave school, get a job and emigrate. But aren't we all in such an apologetic mood recently regarding child migrants.
Lastly:
There was one post I liked, by a user called "sparradic"
"I think the age of criminal responsibility is too variable per individual child to pen down to a specific age.
Some children are aware of their actions at 10 and others, quite simply, are not. When I was a child I would have said 14 was a more realistic age because the world, for children, was a more innocent place back then.
There are also other factors, some children are not aware they are doing wrong because of the environment they have been brought up in whereas others know they are doing wrong and continue to do so anyway".
Maybe we should think about sparradic's last line, a challenge for the naysayers of criminal responsibility law reform:
"It is difficult but surely there is some means of validating the age of criminal responsibility on an individual case by case basis."
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