Our youngest criminals
acceptable. It says 12 years of age is considered the absolute minimum, and that countries should be encouraged to continue to increase it to a higher age level.
There’s a lot of movement in this space globally. This year, Scotland’s parliament unanimously voted to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 8 to 12.
In Australia, two backbench MPs are pushing for the minimum age to be increased from 10 to 14, arguing that the law isn’t consistent with medical and social science evidence about children’s mental capacity to understand what they are doing is a crime, reported.
What the parties say
When asked whether the Labour Party supported raising the age here, Little said the party ‘‘does not have a position on this’’.
‘‘However the Government has already agreed to consider whether the current minimum age of criminal responsibility should be increased to align with international standards in light of the UNPR recommendation.’’
That recommendation gives Iceland and Montenegro as examples of other countries to look to. In Iceland, no-one under 15 can be punished for an offence committed, and in Montenegro, no-one can be subject to criminal sanctions while under 14.
Like Labour, the Act party also had no position on the topic.
But National’s justice spokesman, Mark Mitchell, told Stuff the party ‘‘isn’t in favour of increasing the age of criminal responsibility for murder and manslaughter to 14’’.
‘‘We believe the settings are right and that people who commit heinous crimes like murder should be held to account irrespective of their age.’’
NZ First MP Darroch Ball said any context of discussions with this issue would need to be discussed through caucus. However, NZ First has had a long-standing position that the age of criminal responsibility should be at 10 years of age, Ball said. ‘‘At this stage, we would not see a need to change that position.’’
He said the No 1 issue with youth offending was that the age of offenders was trending down,