Children and the Expanding Role of the Criminal Law

Abstract

Looking back, the 1980s was a decade of enlightenment and success in juvenile justice practice in this country; diverting youngsters away from the criminal courts and reducing the severity of response towards those who were prosecuted did not result in crime waves or public demand to stop this lenient treatment of the young. In the 1990s, the whole criminal justice system took a significant turn towards retribution and punishment. The movement may have been aimed initially at certain groups of criminals, particularly the persistent and serious, but swept all in its wake, including children aged 10–14 who were neither. There is little apparent appreciation of the damaging consequences of this trend, not only for individual children but also for the whole concept of childhood. There is now a wide discrepancy between the approach taken by the criminal and civil law towards children which current criminal justice policies indicate is to continue into the foreseeable future.