Commenting on the Government’s new Youth Justice White Paper, which proposes a range of measures to stop young people falling into crime, Kirsty Brimelow KC, Chair of the Bar Council, said: “We welcome the government’s proactive approach to the treatment of children in the criminal justice system, with the caveat that funding must be sufficient and must not lag behind.
“There needs to be a shift from criminalisation – which long has been shown to set a child onto a path of crime – to rehabilitation. Protecting society and protecting childhood should not be competing aims and children should not be defined as criminals at a very young age.
“Knowledge about child development has moved on substantially and yet the minimum age of criminal responsibility remains at 10 years’ old in England and Wales. It is the youngest in Europe and we are an outlier in prosecuting young children. The Bar Council is producing a report examining the minimum age of criminal responsibility over the next weeks and we look forward to working with the government on youth justice.”