The Age of Criminal Responsibility
Introduction
Researchers in different fields have dissected the concept of liability age and capacity responsibility. Countries have various ages of criminal responsibility, which affect psychologists and sociologists’ attitude towards children’s rights. Thus, the researchers’ application to criminal and tort liability of children is still inconsistent. Rarely has an interdisciplinary approach efficiently dealt with the concept of criminal responsibility and its effects on legal forms. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Children (UNCRC) describes the best child’s interests as a useful criterion for implementing child-related policies. The Criteria is used by various entities across countries, courts of law. Mathews (2016) suggests that courts of law should apply children’s developmental stages in determining the age of criminal responsibility. Children’s psychological and physical development demands specific consideration in a country’s criminal justice system (Kemp et al., 2017). In this regard, this study evaluates arguments around the age of criminal responsibility, across countries, from a psychological perspective, considering the implementation of moral development theories.
Contribution from Psychology
It is important to assess how children’s capacity to commit crime act consciously and change throughout their development. The assessment helps determine how the children’s psychological development relates to the possibility of being accountable for their behavior and damage that they may cause. According to Kemp et al. (2017), it is important to assess stages a which children acquire the capacity to understand and willingly perform a particular act. Furthermore, criminal justice systems should understand the stages at which children become aware of their behavior consequences and acquire the capacity to adjust. For example, in England and Wales, children are considered criminally responsible at ten years old (Bateman, 2017. Furthermore, Children below secondary school age may not be arrested and detained in a police station.
Moral Responsibility and Child Development
Ways of holding children and adults morally responsible are often different. According to dominant moral philosophy, moral responsibility implies freedom. Thus, children’s and adults’ freedom is not the same. Freedom and duties determine each other. Mathews (2016) suggests that while there are different levels of freedom, children and adults have different responsibilities levels. Children’s and adults’ degrees of freedom are closely linked to ability, knowledge, control, and autonomy notions. For example, the minimum age of criminal responsibility in the United States is eighteen years. U.S criminal justice system considers a person under eighteen years to have committed an infraction. Therefore, the person is subjected to socio-educative programs rather than being jailed or imprisoned. As these justice elements’ intensity increases in a person’s personality and behavior, freedom levels also increase (Mathews, 2016). Thus, moral freedom can be defined as the power or ability to justify goodness or badness according to the law. (Kemp et al., 2017). Therefore, moral development reflects normative issues concerning morality. However, researchers disagree on the meaning of fairness and the right criteria to assess moral development. Some questions psychological processers involved in people’s moral functioning and best ways to promote it.
Children are compared to intuitive moral philosophers. In essence, they develop moral concepts through active searching and construction, rather than relying on ordinary moral language. Mathews (2016) suggests that ordinary moral language does not exist. Several psychologists have used various theories to explore moral responsibility and justice concepts in children and adults. For instance, Piaget explored the progressive capacity of creating subjective judgments based on responsibility. Kohlberg developed moral theory development, whereas Gilligan explored the distinction between care’s ethics and justice’s ethics and its consequences for Kohlberg’s theory.
Piaget and Cognitive Children Development
Piaget is the most influential child and learning development theory. Despite some aspects of the theory considered influential, it does not examine particular features, which remain relevant. Thus, although Piaget’s cognitive development theory is criticized, it is useful because subsequent approaches do not provide more specific accounts for Piagetian-like changes (Kemp et al., 2017). Piaget’s theory focuses on the idea that during children’s development, they build cognitive structures. The structures consist of concepts’ networks, which allow children to understand and respond to external stimuli in their environment. Furthermore, the structures become sophisticated through children’s development. In this case, Paget highlights the three stages of cognitive development:
- Sensorimotor Stage – children begin to process the information they receive and create concepts about reality and its function. Children do this through physical interaction with their environment. Mathews (2016) suggests that children play with physical objects, but they do not know that they exist even when out of sight. At the end of this stage, children gain the capacity to maintain mental images of the objects or people even if they are not present.
- Preoperational stage – children do not yet conceptualize abstractly and need concrete physical situations. They develop language rapidly and use images and words to interact with the environment. Mathews (2016) suggests that children believe that everyone perceives the world the same way they do. Furthermore, they still cannot understand that quantity does not change according to the shape.
- Concrete Operations – children gain physical experience that allows them to conceptualize. They create logical structures that describe their physical experiences. Children also gain the ability to solve abstract problems, such as arithmetic equations. In this stage, children have less centricity thought and increasingly focus on aspects of a stimulus. Abd et al. (2015) argue that children’s cognitive structure functions similar to that of adults. Children develop a more abstract view of the real-world and can apply reversibility and conservation to real and imagined situations.
The Social Learning Critique
Piaget’s understanding of the three stages of moral judgment is considered the object of modification and has been criticized by social learning theories. While Piaget views the evolution of moral judgment pre-defined path to support moral development, social learning theories do not believe in conceptualized ideas. According to Kemp et al. (2017), social learning theories accept development trends. However, they believe that stages overlap, leading to objective and subjective judgment. Children acquire moral judgment through modeling, which can have a limited effect on moral evolution. For example, Queensland’s justice system considers children below ten years as innocent because their cognitive ability is low (Urbas, 2018). Therefore, children’s cognitive skills and performance have a more significant role in moral judgment acquisition than developmental stages Abd et al. (2015). Abd et al. (2015) reveal that particular social and environmental factors have more significant impacts than a child’s development.
Another crucial criticism of Piaget is that his moral judgment research is middle-class and culturally biased. In this regard, social learning theories are more practical because they show they employ language regardless of the context, as required in verbal moral judgments. Mathews (2016) suggests that verbal moral judgments are not favored by the common forms of socialization employed in disfavored social environments. In this sense, children from social environments are limited to local and personal perspectives and can analyze situations from other people’s perspectives. However, according to Piaget’s theory, the objective and subjective responsibility stages have resisted the multicultural consistency test. Even when Piaget’s theory is integrated with contextual elements such as cultural and socioeconomic considerations, it is still valid.
Kohlberg’s Moral Development Steps
Kohlberg developed his moral development theory, which was inspired by Plato’s Republic and Rawls’s theory of justice. Kohlberg believes that morality has its essence in the justice sense. In this case, justice sense is more important than social or moral norms’ respect. Therefore, equality, equity, reciprocity, and social contract considerations in human relationships are more important than obeying or disrespecting particular social or moral norms (Kemp et al., 2017). Justice should rule not only the action but also evaluate it. The ideas between moral principles and rules enhance the understanding of Kohlberg’s theory. According to Abd et al. (2015), may psychologists and sociologists express significant doubts about the understanding of this theory. They believe in conditioned reflexes or social context rather than reason. However, Kohlberg argues that moral development involves six stages with three main levels:
- Pre-conventional – Justice and morality are considered a group of external norms that require respect to avoid punishment or testify individualistic and concrete interests or desires. This level includes Heteronomous morality stages and individualism.
- Conventional – Social norms and expectations are internalized, as people fulfill their roles and claim their rights as required by the social order. Abd et al. (2015) suggest that this level involves the stages of Mutual Interpersonal, Relationships, and Conformity.
- Post-conventional – Individuals value unique ethical principles and understand their actions based on the principles. In essence, the low is more irrelevant than moral imperatives. Abd et al. (2015) argue that this level includes the stages of Social Contract and individual rights.
The discussed theories and cultural considerations reflect the relationship between morality and legal responsibility. According to Kemp et al. (2017), the most fundamental moral philosophy trend is that children’s moral responsibility is based on age. Many theories suggest that moral responsibility should be prioritized in determining legal responsibility. Cultural perceptions do not mean that moral and legal responsibility should be the same for children and adults. Other elements and considerations require them to adopt various stances under particular circumstances. Thus, the degree of interactivity between morality and law is rarely understood and accepted.
Conclusion
The criminal law aspects of justice affecting children’s rights are often more intertwined; therefore, they should complement and enhance each other. The age limits for children’s criminal and tort liability should be considered injustice because they are crucial to every child. Juvenile justice systems accorded significant importance to children’s age and immaturity of young defendants due to their limited life experience, inadequate capabilities, and undeveloped cognitive skills. Thus, children should not be held responsible for their behavior and act like adults because they cannot understand self-discipline or control. Many psychological and development theories suggest that public policies should recognize children’s incapability to promote justice.