The age of criminal responsibility : its implications on school life

Abstract

The age of criminal responsibility is the age when a person is deemed to be mature enough to understand the outcome of his/her deeds, including offences of a criminal nature, and be held responsible for them. In most European countries, the age of criminal responsibility is fourteen years. Various bodies, especially those related to children’s human rights, promote the adoption of a high age of criminal responsibility. Malta raised its age of criminal responsibility to fourteen in 2014. This means that youths under fourteen years of age may commit criminal acts but cannot be held criminally responsible for them. The average age of children in secondary schools is normally between eleven and sixteen years and the aim of this dissertation was to investigate the effects that the changing of the age of criminal responsibility had on State Colleges hosting students in this age bracket. The research was conducted by means of semi-structured interviews with members of the psycho-social teams in three State Colleges. It was noted that, apart from the usual school misbehaviours normally encountered in schools such as disruption of lessons by rowdy students, rude attitudes and failure of students to do the work assigned to them by their teachers, students engage in more serious offences. These include substance abuse, rape, bullying, cyberbullying and racism issues. When these offences are perpetrated by youths younger than fourteen years, no criminal action can be taken against them. This places on schools an added responsibility of implementing effective disciplinary procedures for troubled children and young people who are under the age of fourteen.