| NEWSCASTER: |
Good evening, and welcome to the News. Today, in an unusually controversial speech the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams - the most senior clergyman in the country - called for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from 10 years of age. He said that offenders as old as 16 should be regarded as children. The Archbishop voiced his concern about the law on the age of criminal responsibility, which he said was harming children. Children should be given 'care and attention', rather than be treated like criminals.
We sent our team of expert reporters out onto the streets to find out what the public think.
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| ROVING REPORTER: |
Excuse me - could you tell me how old a person should be for them to be responsible for their actions?
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| PERSON 1: |
I am 14 years old. I'll be able to marry at 16. I'll be able to drive a car at 17. I'll be able to vote at 18. I'll be an adult. Whoopee for the first two!
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| PERSON 2: |
I am an adult. Kids are too young to be married at 16. They are too young to drive at 17 and drive too fast anyway. And they're far too young to have enough experience of the world at 18 to vote. They are children, but they want the rights of adults without the responsibilities - or the taxes, for that matter!
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| PERSON 3: |
I am 14 years old. I know my own mind. I know what my responsibilities are - look after yourself, protect you family. Respect me. I know the difference between right and wrong but I don't want you telling me all the time.
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| PERSON 4: |
I am an adult. I grew up in an age when you got a clip round the ear if you so much as cheeked a police officer. I know right from wrong and it didn't do me any harm to get whacked occasionally to put me on the right path.
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| PERSON 5: |
I am 14 years old but I'm unhappy. I'm unhappy that we are expected to behave like adults but we're still treated like children. It's only the minority of kids who spoil it for the rest of us.
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| NEWSCASTER: |
Yes, they do spoil it, don't they? Our reporter found this out...
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| ROVING REPORTER: |
(with seriousness)
- In 1993 two boys aged only 10 killed two-year-old James Bulger.
- In 1995 Philip Lawrence, a head teacher, was stabbed to death by a 15 year-old boy outside his school.
- In 2000 10 year-old Damiola Taylor bled to death in a stair well after being stabbed by two boys aged 12 and 13. They were members of a gang.
- In 2007 five boys aged between 10 and 12 hurled stones at an old age pensioner, Ernest Norton, as he played cricket with his son, causing him to collapse and die.
- At a time when overall crime is falling in Britain, gun crime is on the rise. Police figures show that people involved in gang violence are getting younger, and the offences more serious. Between January 2005 and January 2006, gun-related offences went up by 5% and recent research by Communities that Care suggests that 1 in 10 schoolchildren in the UK has carried a knife.
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| NEWSCASTER: |
Thank you (name). Yes - but are we not in danger of missing the point here? We all agree, do we not, that some young people commit crimes of a very serious sort, as well as the fact that most young people are very well behaved. What we need to know is whether young people who do serious crimes should be imprisoned, and the key thrown away, or whether they should be helped in some other way.
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| REPORTER: |
Well yes, Jeremy. We asked one of our leading experts in child welfare, Professor Brenda Williams, what she thought.
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| PROFESSOR BRENDA WILLIAMS: |
This is a most interesting issue. In Victorian times, punishment was used as a deterrent - which means it was used to stop people committing crime. And the punishments were pretty severe - beating, whipping and imprisonment, even for children, were commonplace. In fact in 1856 there were 14,000 children under the age of 16 in English prisons. Two Portsmouth boys aged 13 and 15 were whipped and then jailed for 12 months for stealing just a bottle of ginger beer and a small amount of tobacco. The lesson we learn from this is that harsh punishments don't cure the problem - most of these youngsters re-offended within a year.
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| NEWSCASTER: |
Thank you, Professor Williams. We are also lucky to have a spokesperson from the government's Ministry of Justice with us today. Minister, what are your thoughts?
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| MINISTER: |
Thank you, Jeremy, and may I say how nice it is to be here this evening listening to all these views put forward by and about young people. It is the Government's view that we are opposed to any move to raise the age of criminal responsibility. We strongly believe that children aged 10 and over can tell the difference between bad behaviour and serious wrong-doing, and we act according to the seriousness of the crime. Last year 237 custodial sentences and 3,323 community sentences were given to children under 14. We shall continue to follow this policy.
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| NEWSCASTER: |
But I think there might be other ways of looking at this. A Member of the European Parliament is with us too...
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| MEP: |
In most other European countries, serious young offenders would have been dealt with by social services and would not have faced a criminal court. For example, in Italy, Germany and Spain children are not presumed to know the difference between right and wrong - when they are held responsible for their crimes - until they are 14; and in Belgium and Luxembourg, it is as high as 18. So if a serious crime is committed, they do not receive a custodial or prison sentence.
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| TEACHER: |
You've heard the arguments for and against. What do you think? Should punishments be harder for young people who commit serious crimes? Should they be imprisoned in custodial places? Or should we perhaps take notice of the words of our senior clergyman and show more understanding of the issues of young people - that for all their physical growth, they are still too immature to be held responsible and need counselling - that is, a recognition that the problems of young people are the problems of vulnerable people and that most children involved in criminal activity need somehow to be treated as children?
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* * * * * * * [Optional section for younger children]
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| READER 1: |
Here's a simple but very true story that might help us to see what we can do to help. One wet day during the summer holiday, Poppy, aged 8, was messing around in her house with her cat. She had nothing to do. Her friends were away. There was nothing on the television that she wanted to watch. Her mum was in the kitchen doing the washing. So to pass the time, she played with her cat, chasing him around the room, and under the table, and over the sofa, and then... she knocked into the clock above the fireplace. It fell to the floor with an almighty crash. The clock wasn't that valuable, but her Mum liked it Poppy picked up the pieces of the clock and put them back on the mantelpiece.
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| READER 2: |
When Poppy's Mum came into the room, she instantly saw the broken clock - as only mums can. 'What happened to the clock, Poppy?', said Mum. 'I don't know. It probably fell down' replied Poppy. 'Oh well, perhaps Tiddles knocked it off,' said Mum. Mum wasn't that cross but Poppy knew straight away that she was unhappy about it.
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| READER 3: |
That night Poppy couldn't sleep. She thought about the clock and she thought about how she had not told her mother the truth and had allowed her to think that Tiddles had been responsible. She started to cry.
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| READER 4: |
Poppy's mother came into her bedroom to see what the matter was. Perhaps Poppy was unwell? 'What's the matter, love?' she asked. It was all too much for Poppy. She told her mum the truth about the clock and how sorry she was, not only for breaking it but for pretending that Tiddles had knocked it down.
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| READER 5: |
Mum was not cross. How could she be? Mum explained that it was not a good thing to tell lies, but sometimes things happen in life that we can't help. However, the important thing is to be honest about them, to tell the truth and to be prepared to take any punishment that might follow. Often when we are honest and know we have done wrong, it is punishment enough. Poppy's mum could have grounded Poppy, or worse, but she didn't. She showed understanding, and hopefully Poppy learned her lesson.
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| TEACHER: |
So the moral of this story is: perhaps when people tell lies and try to avoid punishment they're only cheating on themselves. Perhaps too many young people today are cheating on themselves and not understanding that being mature, taking adult decisions, is just simply having the maturity to be honest. Perhaps that little thing called conscience might help people to see the error of their ways, and by developing their conscience allow it to speak loudly in their ear. Possibly some family breakdowns, access to violent films, and families not spending time together in activities as simple as eating meals together, has led many young people to find relationships that lead to crime. But we would be short-sighted, perhaps, if we did not give young people who have committed crimes some understanding and sympathy rather than the outright condemnation which can so easily be our first and only response.
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