Controversial new proposals set out by a thinktank set up by Iain Duncan Smith say no child should be prosecuted for any crime, whether it be shoplifting or murder, until they are at least 12.
The current age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is ten.
It is likely to spark fierce debate among ministers - not least because under the proposals Robert Thompson and Jon Venables would have escaped justice for murdering toddler James Bulger in 1993 as they had just turned 10.
I thought children were growing up faster these days? Raising the age of criminal responsibility is not the way to go. On the contrary, we should be lowering it to eight.
Fewer children should be sent to jail, the prisons minister said yesterday as he rejected calls to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12.
Crispin Blunt said he did not believe that offending by youngsters should automatically lead to prosecution.
And he called for the introduction of ‘restorative justice’, under which young offenders are made to apologise to their victims rather than receiving a stiff punishment.
Rejecting the change to twelve is right, but restorative justice is just plain bollocks. Now is certainly not the time to be removing responsibility from young hoodlums and going easy on punishment.
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