Claire McDiarmid
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781845860127
- eISBN:
- 9781474406147
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781845860127.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Family Law
This book is a treatise on youth justice which examines the treatment, by the criminal law and the criminal justice system, of children who commit serious crimes. It draws on legal, philosophical and ...
More
This book is a treatise on youth justice which examines the treatment, by the criminal law and the criminal justice system, of children who commit serious crimes. It draws on legal, philosophical and Childhood Studies literature to look at the interaction between law and childhood and considers a number of cases, including the murder of James Bulger in 1993 through these lenses, noting the difficulties for legal systems, of accommodating individuals who are, simultaneously, both “child” and “criminal”. The law’s impulse is to protect children and to call to account and punish offenders – aims which sometimes conflict. Other areas of law encounter similar difficulties in the tension between the child’s need for protection and for the nurture of his/her growing autonomy. Drawing on its discussion of this child-criminal paradox, the book examines two examples of the law’s response to children who offend: the age of criminal responsibility and the doli incapax presumption. It proceeds to argue that, in every case, a thorough investigation of the child’s criminal capacity, drawing on developmental psychology, is necessary to provide a fair and rational basis for decisions on responsibility and disposal in respect of such children. It presents a model for achieving this. It also examines the existing response of the Scottish legal system to such children, both in the courts, and through the children’s hearings system. Overall, the argument is for a fair and compassionate approach which takes account of the public interest and the need for public confidence in the criminal justice system.Less
This book is a treatise on youth justice which examines the treatment, by the criminal law and the criminal justice system, of children who commit serious crimes. It draws on legal, philosophical and Childhood Studies literature to look at the interaction between law and childhood and considers a number of cases, including the murder of James Bulger in 1993 through these lenses, noting the difficulties for legal systems, of accommodating individuals who are, simultaneously, both “child” and “criminal”. The law’s impulse is to protect children and to call to account and punish offenders – aims which sometimes conflict. Other areas of law encounter similar difficulties in the tension between the child’s need for protection and for the nurture of his/her growing autonomy. Drawing on its discussion of this child-criminal paradox, the book examines two examples of the law’s response to children who offend: the age of criminal responsibility and the doli incapax presumption. It proceeds to argue that, in every case, a thorough investigation of the child’s criminal capacity, drawing on developmental psychology, is necessary to provide a fair and rational basis for decisions on responsibility and disposal in respect of such children. It presents a model for achieving this. It also examines the existing response of the Scottish legal system to such children, both in the courts, and through the children’s hearings system. Overall, the argument is for a fair and compassionate approach which takes account of the public interest and the need for public confidence in the criminal justice system.
Claire McDiarmid
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781845860127
- eISBN:
- 9781474406147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781845860127.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Family Law
This chapter examines, in depth, the way in which the Bulger case has become emblematic of debates surrounding youth crime, and of “evil children” and has been a touchstone for societal responses to ...
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This chapter examines, in depth, the way in which the Bulger case has become emblematic of debates surrounding youth crime, and of “evil children” and has been a touchstone for societal responses to such issues. It seeks to place the case in the context of other crimes committed by children looking particularly at the way in which the tension between “child” and criminal” has been mediated by the law. Key themes surrounding the Bulger case, but with more general resonance, are identified and discussed – specifically the notion of the “adult crime” committed by a child; the crime’s visibility through CCTV footage of the abduction of the victim; children’s innocence versus children’s evil; and the fluidity generally of the category of childhood. It then examines sociological constructions of childhood particularly the traditional and the Childhood Studies approaches. Cases covered include those of Mary Cairns (1973); Nicola G (1993) and Peter Henry Barratt and James Bradley (1861).Less
This chapter examines, in depth, the way in which the Bulger case has become emblematic of debates surrounding youth crime, and of “evil children” and has been a touchstone for societal responses to such issues. It seeks to place the case in the context of other crimes committed by children looking particularly at the way in which the tension between “child” and criminal” has been mediated by the law. Key themes surrounding the Bulger case, but with more general resonance, are identified and discussed – specifically the notion of the “adult crime” committed by a child; the crime’s visibility through CCTV footage of the abduction of the victim; children’s innocence versus children’s evil; and the fluidity generally of the category of childhood. It then examines sociological constructions of childhood particularly the traditional and the Childhood Studies approaches. Cases covered include those of Mary Cairns (1973); Nicola G (1993) and Peter Henry Barratt and James Bradley (1861).
Rebekah Sheldon
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780816689873
- eISBN:
- 9781452955186
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816689873.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The introduction of the book lays out the historical and theoretical stakes of its project. It works to chart the movement from the child-in-need-of rescue (characterized by Henry James’s 1898 ...
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The introduction of the book lays out the historical and theoretical stakes of its project. It works to chart the movement from the child-in-need-of rescue (characterized by Henry James’s 1898 novella Turn of the Screw) to the child-as-resource by the way of Kazou Ishiguro’s 2005 Never Let Me Go. As Carolyn Steedman argues in Strange Dislocations, scientific accounts of physiological growth and development were central to the construction of the child as well as to evolutionary thought, a congruence expressed in recapitulation theory. In essence, the link forged between the child and the species helped to shape eugenic historiography, focalized reproduction as a matter of concern for racial nationalism, and made the child a mode of time keeping.Less
The introduction of the book lays out the historical and theoretical stakes of its project. It works to chart the movement from the child-in-need-of rescue (characterized by Henry James’s 1898 novella Turn of the Screw) to the child-as-resource by the way of Kazou Ishiguro’s 2005 Never Let Me Go. As Carolyn Steedman argues in Strange Dislocations, scientific accounts of physiological growth and development were central to the construction of the child as well as to evolutionary thought, a congruence expressed in recapitulation theory. In essence, the link forged between the child and the species helped to shape eugenic historiography, focalized reproduction as a matter of concern for racial nationalism, and made the child a mode of time keeping.
