Youth Justice News

Abstract

In 2012, the Scottish government made a commitment to consider raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR), which had stood at 8 years since 1932, and established an Advisory Group to reflect on the implications of raising the threshold for criminal proceedings to 12 years. The Advisory Group reported in March 2016 and concluded that the statutory change should be made at the earliest opportunity. A public consultation ensued in which more than 95 per cent of respondents indicated support for a MACR of 12 years or older and, in March 2018, the government introduced legislation to that effect. The Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act was passed with the overwhelming support of Members of the Scottish Parliament in May 2019 and the Act received Royal Assent on 11 June of that year. By April 2021, almost half of the provisions contained within the statute had been implemented. These include section 3, which prevents children below the age of 12 years being referred to the Children’s Hearing system (the mechanism whereby children in need of care and protection and those who have offended can be made subject of compulsory intervention) on offence grounds. However, section 1, which states simply that: ‘A child under the age of 12 years cannot commit an offence’, was not one of those provisions that had been brought into force. An information briefing, published in January 2021 by the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice, notes that the government is currently working towards full implementation of the Act by autumn 2021. In consequence, the MACR in Scotland currently remains 8 years and the police can still charge children aged between 8 and 11. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland has called this failure to implement the increase ‘unacceptable’ and pointed out that, while a child under 12 years of age cannot be prosecuted, charges can continue to appear on disclosure certificates, potentially impacting on ‘education options and the jobs they might be able to get, even after they reach adulthood’.