Age And Crime Essay

Does the fact that someone is a certain age affect his or her responsibility for criminal conduct or liability to punishment? Over time, an ethic of accountability and responsibility has emerged. The 1800s time period identified the relationship between age and crime as –crime curve, but enough has not been said. The relationship between free will and the law is not easy to justify but age has affected its criminal responsibility.
Throughout this research I expect to find that juvenile offenders will processed the same as adult offenders because of the crime is the same. On the contrary, what makes them different? Age! It is argued that under the requirements of the due process age should not play such a significant role as it does regarding the criminal justice process. If age wasn't significant then there would be no way to defend infancy and citizens the age of five would be facing life sentences, whereas that is not ethical? Doli incapax, was a doctrine that mentioned a child aged 10-14 were presumed to be incapable of committing an offense, unless it could be proved that they knew what they did was wrong ( Richards, 2011). Jean Piaget, a psychiatrist, explains this development …show more content…
As it is related to child development, a child is aware of right and wrong and has the ability to control his or her behavior at this time. Hirschi and Gottfredson suggested that age has a direct effect on crime and on other social factors proposed to explain crime. They then argued that conceptualizing the age–crime relationship in terms of a criminal career is unnecessary and potentially misleading, especially because the causes of crime are the same at all ages throughout life but the understanding shifts (Schmalleger, 2009). The criminal system surmise that children does not have the mental capability to make decisions for themselves so the court act as a child-caring