Act will ‘criminalise more children’

PROPOSALS to row back on legislation raising the age of criminal responsibility were strongly criticised yesterday by children’s groups and criminologists.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell said he did not intend to implement sections of the Children Act 2001 raising the age of criminal responsibility from seven to 12.

Instead, Mr McDowell said he intended to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 10, except in cases of murder, where the age limit would remain at seven.

Mr McDowell said there would still be a presumption that children would not be sufficiently mature to know what they were doing, but that the prosecution could rebut this in court.

“I’m very disappointed that he is thinking of rowing back on the Children Act. It was 30 years in discussion, and involved an awful lot of work and did well in avoiding criminalising children,” Barnardos director of advocacy Nora Gibbons said.

She said the problem was that significant pieces of the legislation were never brought in, such as the age of criminal responsibility.

“Children tend not to commit particularly violent or serious offences, although there are exceptions, but all children involved in criminal offences need assistance.

“Even if they commit serious offences, you can’t get away from the fact that they are still a child. You have to look at the child’s needs, as well as their deeds,” Ms Gibbons said.

Sarah Benson of Children’s Rights Alliance said: “He is widening the net. By dropping the age to 10, the impact will be the criminalisation of more children.”

Claire Hamilton, a lecturer in criminology at Dublin Institute of Technology, said that in most European countries, the age of criminal responsibility was between 13 and 16.

“Why this sudden volte face? There is no justification for this change.

“Legislation needs to be backed up by empirical evidence. Are there significant numbers of nine-year-old murderers and rapists?”

Gardaí working in the area of juvenile crime gave the proposal a mixed reaction.

“The move from seven to 10 is a good thing and takes a number of children out of the criminal justice system, but the move from 12 to 10 is a bit of a disappointment,” one garda said.

Some garda sources said the reason for the drop was that health boards did not want to deal with offending children in the 10-12 age group.

Statistics from the Garda Juvenile Diversion Programme - which deals with children outside the criminal justice system - show there were 855 referrals involving children under the age of 12 in 2004 (4% of the total).

This included 594 children aged between 10 and 12 and 261 children aged between seven and 10.

It is understood the vast majority of offences were for relatively minor incidents and that only a very small percentage ended up in court.