Call for overhaul of age related responsibilities

Dear Editor,

The Scottish Sentencing Council last year published guidance on sentencing young people whom they considered to be a person who is under the age of 25 at the date of their plea.

This guidance was born partly out of A Literature Review titled “The development of cognitive and emotional maturity in adolescents and its relevance in judicial contexts”.

The research showed that a young person will generally have a lower level of maturity and that the best interests of the young person should be considered in every case, and must be a primary consideration when a young person is under the age of 18.

The sentencing guidelines state that regard should be taken as to the intellectual and emotional maturity of the young person as young peoples brains are not fully developed.

As such they are generally less able to exercise good judgement when making decisions, more vulnerable to negative influences, may be less able to think about the results of their actions and may take more risks

This nonsense resulted in a recent case where a man of 21 who carried out a rape on a 13-year-old girl when he was 17 years old was given a sentence of 270 hours unpaid work.

Had he been over 25 he may have been looking at a sentence of five years.

It also highlights in my view the crazy way we have with attributing certain ages with responsibilities a young person can take on - like go and fight for your country, hold a driving licence or drink alcohol.

If the Scottish Sentencing Council say that young peoples brains are not fully developed until age 25 to 30 then how can we allow 16 year olds to vote for our Members of the Scottish

Parliament and in the Local Government council elections.

It also makes me wonder about the SNP’S push for the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill which would have lowered the age people can change their legal gender from 18 to 16 and removed the requirement of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

It would also have reduced the waiting time from two years to six months.

Perhaps what is required is a complete overhaul of all age related privileges/responsibilities.

James Matthews, via email