Top judge: Give under-25 thugs less jail time, they lack self-control
YOUNG criminals should be given more lenient jail terms as they have no self-control until at least the age of 25, a High Court judge has said.
Lady Dorrian said the ‘areas of the brain governing emotion develop before those which assist with self-control’ which she said explains the ‘emotionally driven behaviour’ of under-25s.
She spoke out after the introduction of a controversial guideline devised by the Scottish Sentencing Council (SSC), which has been blamed for a series of soft-touch cases where critics say young offenders have been treated too leniently.
Last year thug Brian McKillop, 19, who kicked and stamped a defenceless man to death, was locked up for just 11 years due to the guidance.
Lady Dorrian spoke about young offenders at a recent event at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, which was hosted by the Scottish Association for the Study of Offending.
She said a jail term ‘should be shorter than that which would have been imposed on an older person for the same offence’.
Lady Dorrian added: ‘However, the courts are not prevented from imposing a custodial sentence where appropriate, for example for reasons of public safety.’
Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Jamie Greene said the ‘wider public will simply not accept how 24-year-old adults are now being wrapped up in cotton wool’. He said: ‘That is allowing violent criminals like Brian McKillop to avoid facing the full force of the law and is yet another example of the SNP letting down victims of crime.’
A spokesman for the SSC said last night: ‘The council’s guidelines only take effect if approved by the High Court.
‘In preparing the Sentencing Young People guideline, the council took into account all of its engagement work as well as all of the relevant research.’