Too young to own a hamster, but old enough to take responsibility for murder

Quote:

It is possible that you are not in the best place to deal with more bad news about Britain and its enduring commitment to moral failure. But*we get not only the leaders, but also the television we deserve. Responsible Child (BBC Two) is a drama built around one extraordinary fact – that, in England and Wales, children as young as 10 can be tried for murder as if they were adults. Think for a moment of any 10-year-olds you know and imagine them in crown court being assumed to have the capacity of a grown man or woman. In fact, 7,057 of their pre-pubescent peers have been through exactly that since 1995. That is the year, incidentally, that the UN pointed out that having such a young age of criminal responsibility was incompatible with the UK’s obligations, as part of said UN, on children’s rights. ... The drama follows the story of 12-year-old Ray (Billy Barratt, an actor the same age as his character, who turns in a credible and heartbreaking performance) and his 23-year-old brother, Nathan (James Tarpey doing likewise), living under the tyranny of their mother’s boyfriend, Scott. It is told in two timeframes. The preparation for Ray’s trial plays out in the present. We flash back repeatedly to the events that led him there, from the “ordinary” fear the boys live with under Scott’s rule, to Scott’s armed attack on Nathan, for which he is charged with attempted murder – only for charges to be dropped and Scott to return to the home more furious than ever.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...ied-for-murder

I should note here that the British people have shown themselves to be prone to extreme levels of vitriolic abuse against children who commit crimes, almost to the point that lynching a 12 year old would be deemed okay. Rather than to restrain these savage tendencies, British tabloids and politicians have often fanned the flames of hatred for their own short term interests. This is the kind of behaviour that is expected of simple and brutal people in developing countries, not a "civilised" and developed country.

It does not have to be that way. Naively one might think that a 12 year old who intentionally kills someone would otherwise get away with it were they not held legally responsible, but that's obviously not the case in the real world. Depending on the specifics of the criminal behaviour, it might be more than justified that said child be institutionalized. In that regard it's more or less equivalent to how insane individuals are treated.

The fact that they are deemed to not have the mental capacity or maturity to take responsibility for their actions is simply a recognition of the fact that normal criminal penalties are wholly inappropriate as a response. Insane people, those with intellectual deficiencies and those who lack mental maturity, wheter due to their young age or otherwise, are thus supposed to be handled differently than "normal people".

Unfortunately it takes quite some effort to repress peoples tendency to demand retribution and revenge. One only has to look at the situation in countries like India, where the people cheer when the police murder alleged rapists in cold blood, to see the attitudes that need to be repressed in order to maintain a relative peaceful society. Consistently recognizing that people under some age are too immature to be held responsible for their actions is one such civilizing tendency. That means it doesn't cease to be the case if they do something horrible like killing someone.

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2PucTDB