Should children who commit crimes be seen as responsible for their actions?

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Should children who commit crimes be seen as responsible for their actions?

To discuss whether or not it is possible, for a child who has committed a crime, to be held responsible for that crime. It must first be decided at what age a child is able to distinguish between right and wrong. To come to this conclusion, one can make use of three different approaches. The scientific approach, a process of constructing theories with predicted outcomes, these theories are then tested and observed to find out the actual outcomes. These outcomes are then used to access whether or not an ‘individual’ child has reached a particular level of cognitive competence and moral understanding. Secondly the social constructionist approach believes that the change from childhood to adulthood is when a child has knowledge of right from wrong, and that childhood is influenced or ‘constructed’ through social processes. Because of this we have to consider the place and time in history a child is from. Deconstruction playing an important role also, helping people see things, they take for granted in everyday life, from a different perspective. Showing them how their everyday lives are constructed. Implying that ‘children are a product of human-meaning-making’ (Chapter 1, p26). The final approach to be discussed will be that of the applied approach. Elements from both scientific and social constructionism can be drawn from for this approach, but concentrating mainly on the practical issues and questions of how children should and have been cared for, how they have been brought up. Ways to support their development and ultimately in deciding what should be done when they have committed a crime. There are two main models of law dealing with such issues, namely the justice model and the welfare model.  

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According to the scientific approach, children’s ability to reason and make moral choices depends on their cognitive developmental stage. Piaget theorised that children undergo a series of transformations in how they think, passing through a sequence of stages of development. Piaget’s theory states that children aged between the ages of zero to two years of age begin with a sensory-motor stage; they then undergo a pre-operational stage between approximately two to six years old. From about six to twelve years they will then go through a concrete operational stage, and finally after the age of twelve they are formally operational ...

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