We have a very long way to go before we can say, as a society, that we are treating children properly, argues Emily Logan
As Ombudsman for Children, I was interested to read Wednesday's editorial ("Criminal responsibility") about the age of criminal responsibility. While many of the comments were valid, the area of juvenile justice is much more complicated than simply changing the age at which a young person can be found criminally accountable.
My job is to promote the rights and welfare of all children living in Ireland. In Ireland, the grim reality is that we do not care about all of our children. For some reason children in conflict with the law do not appear to warrant our attention.
In the past year I have visited four of the five detention centres and have met children and young people who are in conflict with the law. I have heard directly from them about their experiences, not just as young offenders but as vulnerable children who have been let down by the educational and social service system for some or all of their lives.
I also had the opportunity, when visiting the centres, to witness first hand the conditions in which these children and young people are living. I have grave concerns about some of the facilities. Oberstown Boys Centre in Lusk is particularly worrying. The corridors are dark and the rooms small and oppressive, without any natural ventilation. The Dáil Public Accounts Committee recently reported that the annual cost of keeping a child in detention can be as much as €500,000 per child. Surely at the cost we should expect better standards.
Wednesday's editorial stated that an important measure of the wellbeing of any society is how it cares for its children. What does it say about our wellbeing, if these are the kind of conditions we think will help rehabilitate children and young people.
Article 40 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Ireland in 1992, requires the State to treat children in conflict with the law in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child's sense of dignity and worth, which reinforces the child's respect for human rights and takes into account the child's age and desirability of promoting reintegration. This principle requires the adoption of child-orientated justice systems which recognise these children as subjects of fundamental rights.
On the face of it, increasing the age of criminal responsibility to 12 does appear positive. Of course it does. But look a little further behind this change and you will find that it has been introduced with an exception. Children as young as 10 can be charged with murder, rape and aggravated sexual assault.
In essence what this appears to imply is that the more serious the crime the more likely you are at the age of 10 to have capacity to cognitively understand what you have done. To me this seems quite extraordinary.
At Ireland's hearing in Geneva last month, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child asked why the State did not adhere to its own plan for legislative reform in introducing the Children Act 2001 to raise the age to 12 for all children.
The Irish delegation referred to observations in a neighbouring jurisdiction. This reference was to the horrific murder in 1993 of Jamie Bulger. The two boys who murdered him, Robert Thompson and JoVenables, were sentenced to eight years, in an adult court. There was such public outrage that the then home secretary, Michael Howard, intervened and almost doubled the sentence to 15 years. The European Court of Human Rights subsequently ruled that the boys had not been tried fairly.
Article 3 of the UNCRC provides that, in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration. I cannot see that it is in the best interest of a 10- year-old child to treat him as criminally responsible. In doing so, we follow the poor example of the UK.
At a conference on children's rights last weekend, Justice John Gillen, head of family law in Northern Ireland, stated that the public is not ready to consider anything other than the hammer when dealing with the criminal behaviour of children who commit such crimes.
Unfortunately, my own experiences bear out Justice Gillen's comments. I have met angry responses at the suggestion that children in conflict with the law deserve to be treated with dignity. The sad truth is that some people think that they do not deserve to be treated well. They have committed a crime and so we can treat them badly.
In my work, I have come across several young people in conflict with the law. Some of their circumstances are beyond belief. At an early age these children have experience of hardship and trauma that many of us cannot even begin to imagine. They have been repeatedly let down.
I have met many dedicated professionals who work hard to help the individual young people. But the system as it currently stands is fragmented. It delivers many different, disjointed services. It is not holistic and, crucially, the child is not at its centre. We need a system that treats children in a more holistic and comprehensive way, a system that is less fragmented and considers the health, education, social welfare and justice needs of children and young people.
No child sets his or her sights on a life of crime and incarceration. Some of the recent changes to the Children Act 2001 brought in by Criminal Justice Act 2006 offer us an opportunity to publicly discuss some of these issues and to take a measure of Irish society's "wellbeing".