Opinions on this, please.

[Miss Chicken]

A man I knew as a child is being accused of committing sexual assault against a girl back in 1991. He was 12 and she 7. Another boy is also being accused, he was either 9 or 10 at the time.

Both boys were under the age of criminal responsibility at the time of the alleged offence. They would still be today. The accuser is very angry at this because she feels 12 year old boys are old enough to be held accountable.

So I am asking people - at what age to you think a child should become criminally responsible for their actions?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Would a 12 year old in the early 90's really know what he was doing? And I ask that because it's before the internet and all the massive coverage of every little aspect of this type of thing. The internet coverage of everything nowadays is as much like a how-to guide as it is news coverage.

 

[Miss Chicken]

That is why the 12 year old could not be charged. Under Australian law a prosecutor would has to prove that a child 10 to 14 knew what they did was seriously wrong, almost impossible to prove 27 years later. The younger child was totally under the age of criminal responsibility

I changed my first post because I thought this is best discussed in TNZ. I see no reason why we can’t discussed the concept of criminal responsibility when it comes to children here however.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Sorry, meant this for TNZ.

I deleted my first post because I thought this is best discussed in TNZ. I see no reason why we can’t discussed the concept of criminal responsibility when it comes to children here however.

OK. I was preparing to move this thread to TNZ just before you posted that last part. If you want to continue this limited part of the discussion here, that's fine, but you may want to put something back into your OP.

For future reference, if you post in the wrong forum, you can request that your thread be moved, rather than just reopening a copy of it elsewhere. I didn't want to close this outright because it had already garnered a response, but I don't think I have the ability to merge it with a TNZ thread directly. AFAIK, I would have had to move it, then request a TNZ mod to merge it. Just FYI.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Thanks for that, I have changed my opening post and I am happy for this to be a general discussion on the age of criminal responsibility.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

This goes pretty much to the core of the philosophy behind a criminal justice system, whether the main idea is to punish the offender (vengeance), or to get the offender to a point where they pose no more threat and can re-join society (rehabilitation). A victim, like the woman in your case, is certainly prone to favoring vengeance, I personally feel rehabilitation is the more productive and humane philosophy.

I do not believe a 12 year old kid is really aware of what they are doing, they are still in the phase of discovery on what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. That's why so many of us were shoplifting at that age.
So, rehabilitation of a kid, I think, is best accomplished through therapy and more social punishment (like social work, grounding, etc.). As far as I've heard of studies in that regard, putting a teenager or younger in prison, even juvenile detention centers, is mostly counter-productive and should only be considered with repeat offenders.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I agree that, if it had been reported at the time, it would have been treated as something a social worker and maybe a psychologist would have dealt with.

I have no idea how the 12 year old turned out. I could not even remember his surname though one of my sons told me what he thought the boy’s surname was.

I can understand the woman’s anger about him not being punished but we cannot punish adults for what they did when they were this young.

 

[StarCruiser]

^ If any investigation happens - all of that should be considered. If the "suspect" has been a good person since, you have to chalk it up to simply being too young to understand right and wrong clearly.

If, on the other hand, they have shown repeated behavioral issues - criminal activities etc... The system would probably treat them ... less leniently (can't think of a better way to put it).

 

[Non Sync]

I think there is an overall problem with lumping all sexual assaults into a single category.
A 16 year old having consensual sex with his 16 year old girlfriend is regarded as a sex offender the same as a 35 year old man raping a 15 year old girl. They would both have to register as sex offenders and from a notification standpoint would be treated the same way yet there is no virtually no risk of the former and high probably of the latter repeating their crime.

 

[Kor]

I think there is an overall problem with lumping all sexual assaults into a single category.
A 16 year old having consensual sex with his 16 year old girlfriend is regarded as a sex offender the same as a 35 year old man raping a 15 year old girl. They would both have to register as sex offenders and from a notification standpoint would be treated the same way yet there is no virtually no risk of the former and high probably of the latter repeating their crime.

Your first example would not be considered a criminal act in the jurisdiction where I live.

As for the original post, something similar happened with an acquaintance of mine in middle school who was about twelve or thirteen, and it was definitely treated as a criminal matter (though the whole situation was kind of hush-hush and we never knew any of the details), and he has to register as an offender to this day, some two decades later.

I think culpability for criminal behavior may vary from person to person, as some experience faster mental development and greater understanding of right and wrong.

Kor

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Over here the age for criminal responsibility is 14.
I think with very few exceptions (who rather demand psychological than legal treatment) 12 year olds are children and can't see the consequences of their actions.

Also, sexual offense is defined very differently in different countries. I recall that some 20 years ago in the US there was a case of a 8 or 10 year old boy (or maybe 12 years, at any rate a child) assisting his not quite 3 year old sister who had to pee. He was accused of sexual assault and iirc found guilty by a court. Hair-raising b-s, if you ask me. The pervert in this case was not the boy but those who made that imputation. What dirty minds these persons must have!
In a German court such a case would not even have been accepted. In fact, the police would not even have taken a record but sent the accuser home with a reprimand.