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.
Professor Kathryn Hollingsworth, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at the University of Sheffield and a member of the working group, says 'The Bar Council's recommendations to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 years would bring England and Wales in line with international children's rights standards and the most recent research evidence about what helps to prevent children from future offending. Increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility is therefore not only better for children who might otherwise be brought into the criminal justice system, but is also better the public and wider society.'