Bar Council recommends increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility

At the start of 2026, the new Chair of the Bar Council, Kirsty Brimelow KC, set out a series of priorities for the year ahead. Kirsty said that children in the justice system would be a high priority this year and in her inaugural speech to the Bar she said: “The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10 years old. It is the lowest in Europe. I have set up a working group to analyse the increasing of that age. We are rightly concerned about crime, victims and public safety. But the question is not 'how do we punish' but 'how do we prevent a lifetime in the criminal justice system?'” 

Today the Bar Council has launched its new report: Reviewing the minimum age of criminal responsibility. The report recommends the current threshold should change from age 10 to 14.

Chair of the Bar Kirsty Brimelow KC said: “The minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales has remained unchanged for 60 years despite the profound shifts in knowledge about children that is based on developmental neuroscience and psychology. We have analysed the available research and evidence to identify methods by which child offending, as it is currently categorised, may be identified and managed in ways that tend to minimise, not aggravate, the risk of future harm.  

“Children in contact with the criminal justice process are amongst the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society - the measure of a justice system is how it treats them. Our report does not diminish the need for intervention or protection of the public, and the conclusion is that criminalisation at such an early age is not an effective, proportionate or just response.

"A 'tough on crime' approach to the treatment of children which focuses only on punishment as a method of shaping children’s behaviour is very rarely an effective strategy. Mechanisms that reduce the number of children brought into the criminal justice system, through diversion as well as raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility, are less likely to result in an increase in crime amongst this cohort.

“Bringing children into the criminal justice system is more likely to result in further offending. Diversionary programmes are more beneficial to the individual child and to the public in terms of reducing future crime and attendant resources. It is also cost effective financially as well as societally. Increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility is essential as it can tackle reoffending and prevent future victims of harm.”

Key themes in the report include:

• The removal of the youngest children from the criminal justice system would not mean there is no control over their behaviour which places them and others at risk. Risk can be managed and reduced through different measures and interventions.
• There is a corrosive effect associated with the custody of children, but we have not ruled out the need for detention. This should be carried out in an appropriate setting that can support a child's diversion from or cessation of criminality.
• The criminal justice system is not the only means available to deal with children who are suspected of offending behaviour. Where there is a need for the detention of a child, there are two main non-criminal frameworks through which detention may be authorised and managed, each involving judicial oversight: the Mental Health Act 1983 and family court processes.
• Children should be safeguarded, diverted from criminalisation, and supported to reduce their risk to themselves and others. In most cases children can be managed, supported and rehabilitated without recourse to detention.
• While the current police-operated scheme of out-of-court resolutions is improvable, we believe it is a sensible starting point from which an enhanced diversionary model should be helped to grow.
• In the year to March 2025, there were just 233 first time entrants to the criminal justice system aged between 10 and 12, only 1 received a sentence of immediate custody. Of the 1,590 children aged 10 to 14 found guilty of offences in the year to March 2025, only 22 received sentences of immediate custody. That is similar to the figures from the past 5 years, with the exception of the year to March 2024, when there were 36 sentences of immediate custody for those aged 10 to 14.
• There is a growing recognition of the different needs and capacities of children as suspects and defendants, the importance of adjusting processes to accommodate their age and lack of maturity, and to facilitate their effective participation. The pre-charge phase lags behind the progress made in the youth and Crown Court. This is regrettable given that this phase is the gateway to the system and the only experience of the criminal process for the majority of children.
• The clinical and empirical evidence increasingly reveals that children, particularly aged 10 to 14, lack adjudicative competence and are unable to meaningfully exercise the rights which are essential to the fairness of the criminal process. Whatever adjustments are made to the procedures, children routinely struggle to participate in justice processes, rendering their conviction and punishment fundamentally unfair.
• Children in the justice system have disproportionate levels of reduced intellectual functioning and this will not only challenge a child’s ability to engage with the significant cognitive demands of the criminal justice process, but has been linked to increased suggestibility, acquiescence and compliance in interview, and thus to false confessions.
• The formality of the 'adult' Crown court, the architecture (including secure docks) and legal attire, the number of people present in court, and the publicity that often surrounds cases involving children who appear there, make it extremely difficult for children (and especially younger children) to participate in ways that are meaningful.
• The protections and adaptations at the youth court, and which are intended to facilitate children’s effective participation and protect their welfare, are not automatically extended to the Crown court. The processes currently in place for identifying children who cannot fairly be tried are fundamentally inadequate.
• Like with every other part of the criminal justice system, the youth court can only function effectively and meet its objectives if sufficient resources are made available to courts, prosecutions agencies, defence representatives, police, and agencies who support children. This has not been the position for many years.
• There are clear links between offending behaviour and childhood adversity. Children in the justice system have a significantly increased likelihood of having suffered childhood trauma including sexual and physical abuse, traumatic brain injury, parental absence, and bereavement. The experience of family violence, for example, has been consistently associated with offending.
• The children most likely to be criminalised are those with the greatest needs. Children experiencing poverty and prior victimisation are more likely to be brought into the criminal justice system.
• Clinical research conducted with children, predominantly in secure settings, suggests that child suspects and defendants have a substantially raised prevalence of neuro-disabilities, cognitive disabilities and developmental disorders. Children who are neurodivergent, have communication difficulties and/or learning disabilities are over-represented in the criminal justice system.
• Black and minoritised children fare worse at every stage of the process as the justice system too readily treats them as inherently prone to criminality. The youth justice statistics for 2024-2025 highlight this disparity in outcomes, whether it is at the stop and search phase, or the sentence and rehabilitation phase.
• Whilst accounting for less than 1% of the child population, 65% of children in the secure estate report having been in local authority care at some time in their lives. Children with any level of social care contact are more likely to have a criminal conviction or caution, and the more significant the involvement with the social care system the higher the likelihood of conviction.
• Increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility removes, reduces, or delays a child’s exposure to criminal justice processes and associated harms. A change to the age threshold will lead to better outcomes for children and society.
• Research from different jurisdictions over the past 25 years demonstrates that early criminal justice involvement changes a child’s developmental trajectory and increases the likelihood of offending.

Read our report: Reviewing the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

Read the coverage in The Observer by Rachel Sylvester: Age of criminal responsibility should be raised from 10 to 14, says Bar Council.

Event on Tuesday 30 June: More harm than good: children in the criminal legal system.

The Government’s Youth Justice White Paper published last month, page 9 states: “The government will carefully consider the Bar Council’s review about whether the age of criminal responsibility remains appropriate.”