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“Child first, offender second” has recently become a widely used saying in youth justice, cited by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice in official documents. Haines and Case (Centre for Crime and Justice Studies 2015) coined the CFOS initialism and advocated for a positive, child centred system.
To be more than a glib phrase however, ‘Child first’ needs to translate into policy and practice. One of the most obvious areas where it could do so is the age of criminal responsibility.
When this topic arises, the first reference made by most people tends to be the tragic murder of toddler Jamie Bulger in 1993. The faces of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables are branded on the national psyche, as exemplars of the horror that is the murder of a trusting child. The recent furore as to whether a film depicting the case should be eligible for Oscar consideration, or even have been made at all, exemplifies this - the figures of the two boys stand like bogeymen against the argument for treating children as just that.
For professionals working with children in the justice system there is a different image - the two young boys standing in the dock of an adult courtroom, a box brought for them to stand on so they could see over the rail. Barristers in wigs questioning them, points of law raised, a process neither can have had a hope of understanding.
At 10, the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is one of the lowest internationally. This places us as less progressive in our treatment of children than countries such as Uganda, Algeria or Uzbekistan (13); Cuba, Chile or the Democratic Republic of Congo (16); Uruguay, Ecuador or Columbia (18). This rating should be seen as shameful, and in urgent need of change.
Most professionals, most politicians, probably most people agree that 10 is too young to understand what it is to be fully responsible to a criminal standard. We recall stupid, dangerous, nasty things we and our peers did at that age and even older - did we fully appreciate the possible consequences? Research such as that by Johnson, Blum and Giedd (Journal of Adolescent Health, 2009) have demonstrated that the brain is still developing into the early 20s. There is a wealth of research by academics such as Cook, Spinazzola et al (Psychiatric Annals, 2005) demonstrating that childhood experiences such as witnessing or experiencing violence, abuse or bereavement affect the development of the growing brain, impeding the capacity to empathise or experience remorse.
All of this suggests an argument for, if anything, an increase in the age of criminal responsibility, rather than remaining at nearly the lowest internationally. But politics is a weasel business, and one Justice Minister after another has put this issue in the ‘too hard’ pile - who wants to be seen as soft on young criminals? The current Minister, Edward Argar is, to his credit, rumoured to be examining the research on this subject with interest. It remains to be seen whether ‘child first’ rhetoric will translate into any concrete action any time soon.