Member

It has been suggested during the debate that international examples provide a strong basis on which to model our own threshold for the age of criminal liability, but having a higher minimum age of criminal responsibility does not necessarily result in better treatment of children who commit criminal offences. In fact, there have been alarming reports from organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch which have found that in countries such as Russia, Egypt and El Salvador, with their ages of criminal responsibility set at 16, 12 and 12 respectively, there are examples of children suspected of crime being subject to undocumented arrests, interrogations without parents or lawyers present, and coerced guilty pleas.