The Age of Responsibility.
Maggie Atkinson, the new Children’s Commissioner, says that the age of criminal responsibility should be raised from ten to twelve. The drug gangs will be delighted to hear that because it gives them an even greater number of children to act as mules and look-outs.
Camila Batmanghelijh, the founder of Kids Company, says that neuroscience and robust love will help to straighten out deeply disturbed children who commit terrible crimes.
The evidence of functional MRI scans of the brain is that children with anti-social behaviour and a propensity towards violence often have structural vulnerabilities in their brains. She says in an article in The Times that “there is diminished activity in areas of the brain responsible for empathy and over-activity in some of the emotional centres of the brain”.
I am well aware of neuroplasticity, the capacity of the brain physically to re-mould itself as a result of behaviour but I also believe in genetic predisposition of some behavioural as well as physical characteristics. I am not convinced that a mother’s love is as potentially preventive or curative as Kids Company make out. I know literally thousands of addicts who were much loved by their families both before and after their overt addictive behaviour.
The crucial issue is what we should do in practical terms. I would keep the age of criminal responsibility where it is and I would want primary school children to be assessed (on the addiction questionnaires on my website) for a potential towards addictive behaviour (which it appears Jon Venables is now exhibiting). Once identified, these children and their families need to be guided towards working a Twelve Step programme on a continuing basis for life. This course of action is totally free and has no downside, while being highly constructive individually and socially.