Criminal Liability Of Children

In the introductory paragraphs of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child the statement is made that – ‘the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding’. Children who come to commit gross human rights violations are often victims of socio-economic conditions that negatively contribute to the level of parental care they receive as infants. These children are ultimately victims of a broader system of abuse and neglect; and while they need to take responsibility for the atrocities that they commit, accountability does not always have to involve criminal responsibility. There needs to be a shift in focus …show more content…
The United Nations Human Rights Commission sees a child as a ‘person below the age of eighteen, unless the laws of a particular country set the legal age for adulthood younger’. This age threshold suggests two general assumptions – first, that children lack the capacity to take responsibility for their actions and choices, and thus, must be protected; and second, that an age limit is the best way to ensure this protection. The first assumption links up with the findings produced in The Moral Judgement of the Child – according to a study conducted by clinical psychologist Jean Piaget; up until a certain age, children are ultimately unable to fully comprehend the seriousness of the actions that they commit. Children struggle to make the link between cause and effect – they appear to commit an act, without truly understanding the consequences that are automatically attached to that …show more content…
Restorative justice can work to ensure that while these perpetrators are held accountable for the crimes that they have come to commit, rehabilitation is promoted with an end goal of reintegration into and the assumption of a constructive role in society. Distributive justice will initially aim to ensure that the needs of the victims are attended to; and then in the long-term, that the structural conditions that allowed a child under the age of eighteen to commit gross human rights violations no longer exist. While it is obviously rather naïve to assume that rehabilitation will have no negative effects on both the criminal and society at large, it quite obviously provides a more long-term and complete solution than prosecution. Prosecution could further endanger the public by allowing these criminals to foster feelings of anger, resentment and revenge that they could ultimately come to act upon if they are to be released back into society at some point. These children have obviously experienced something in their formative years that have made them into the merciless killers that they appear to be; and thus, criminal liability will in no way ensure that they are able to overcome this trauma in a positive manner in order to work towards ridding themselves of their pariah status when they are eventually reintegrated into society. Society