Should 10-year-olds face jail?The mind boggles. The justice system is stunningly incapable of deterring adults, and Toews thinks that 10 and 11-year olds are going to think twice about, what, stealing a candy bar?
Minister floats lowering age of legal responsibility
Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, August 15, 2006
ST. JOHN'S - Children aged 10 and 11 who run afoul of the law should be brought before the courts, Canada's Justice Minister said yesterday in a controversial and surprise proposal to expand the age of criminal responsibility, which is currently 12.
"We need to find ways of ensuring that children are deterred from crime," Vic Toews told the annual gathering of the Canadian Bar Association.
"We need to give courts jurisdiction to intervene in the lives of these young people."
Speaking to reporters later, he did not rule out incarceration of children under 12, but he said the courts' primary focus should be treatment programs outside the jail system.
Exactly how many violent crimes are committed by children under, say, 16 in Canada anyway?
1 comment:
Not many John and like all other crimes, the rate has been dropping every year for over 16 years. So even if we do NOTHING, ti will still get better.
These guys are heartless bastards that miss the 16th century...
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