Age of Criminal Responsibility

In 2016, children under 12 were not prosecutable in court in Scotland, but those aged 8 and over could be referred to the children’s hearing system on offence grounds, and convictions could stay on the child’s record into adulthood.

Nowadays, teenagers and young people get categorised. Because some young people have a bad reputation in certain areas, people think that all teenagers are bad, troublesome people.
Member of Children’s Parliament, aged 14

At 8 years old, the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland remained below the rest of Europe and contradicted UN and other international standards. In the UNCRC Committee’s Concluding Observations in 2016, it was recommended that Scotland raise the age of criminal responsibility to be in line with acceptable international standards.

In 2016, Scottish Government facilitated a public consultation about the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland. The consultation process aimed to; gather the views of children, young people, professionals and agencies about raising the age of criminal responsibility, and develop the proposed safeguards that would be put in place to support this change in legislation. As part of this wider consultation, Children’s Parliament was commissioned to consult with children about this issue, sharing the children’s views with the Scottish Government in a report.

Following the full public consultation, the Minister for Early Years and Childcare made a statement in Scottish Parliament committing to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old in Scotland. Following this, Scottish Government drafted a bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility, which went before Scottish Parliament in March 2018.

As part of the process of drafting their bill, Scottish Government commissioned Children’s Parliament to facilitate creative workshops that addressed the following questions:

What is human dignity? How is your dignity respected or disrespected?
What worries or questions might children have if they become involved in the youth justice system?
What kind of relationship should the police have with children? How should they speak to and behave towards children?
What information should be recorded on a ‘child’s record’?

The consultation workshops involved a total of 47 Members of Children’s Parliament (MCPs) between the ages of 9 and 15 years old from Edinburgh, South Lanarkshire and Inverness.

Full reports from our 2016 and 2018 involvement with this process are available below: