Crime: Age of Responsibility

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Earl’s continuing interest in these matters. I do not think that there is a conflict between the age of criminal responsibility and the kinds of concerns that he expresses. The whole thrust of our policy is to intervene as early and as positively as possible with young offenders. The factors that lead young people to offend are complex and can often include the circumstances that the noble Earl mentioned. That is why children who offend are referred to local multi-agency youth offending teams, which take a holistic approach to tackling the causes of offending, including housing, education, health and parenting issues.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, the Minister and his department have taken some good initiatives in recent days on criminal justice matters, but does he not accept that the age of criminality is far too low for children and its impact on their rehabilitation is far too severe? Will he look at international practices in relation to children and consider what good practices could be adopted in this country, bearing in mind that we have probably one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I concede that we are at the lower end of the age of criminal responsibility. The department and all the authorities concerned look at international comparisons and practices. For the moment, we hold firm that, although the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years, the thrust of the policy when children come into the care of the authorities is not to feed them into the criminal justice system but to apply as vigorously and, as I mentioned in my previous answer, holistically as possible responses to their needs to try to avoid them reoffending.