Claire McDiarmid

An Age of Complexity: Children and Criminal Responsibility in Law

This article examines the age of criminal responsibility in law. It argues that the fair imputation of criminal responsibility requires understanding of a number of interlinked concepts, including knowledge of wrongfulness, understanding of criminality and its consequences and an internalized moral appreciation of the quality of the conduct. Taken together, alongside the child’s psychological development and lived experience, the matter is complex. Development from baby to adulthood also involves a shift from dependence to autonomy. The age of criminal responsibility must be set so as properly to take into account both the underlying complexity and the acquisition of autonomy.

Welfare, Offending and the Scottish Children's Hearings System

In the light of the Scottish Executives ongoing review of the childrens hearings system, and recently published statistics demonstrating an increase in the number of children referred to the childrens Reporter on the offence ground, this article considers and defends the role of welfare in decision‐making in relation to children referred to a childrens hearing in Scotland on the ground that they have committed an offence. It examines the hearings systems welfare roots, as set down in the 1964 Kilbrandon Report, and considers two recent empirical studies indicating that the conditions constituting Kilbrandons justification for ‘mixing the deprived and the depraved’ continue to be prevalent today. It also examines the future for welfare as the primary response to children who offend in Scotland against the background of an increasingly punitive political climate. It concludes that the case against welfare has not been made out.

Childhood and Crime

Children who commit serious crimes present a paradox. As children they belong to a group which is generally regarded as vulnerable and in need of protection. As criminals, on the other hand, they are to be condemned, punished and deterred. This unique text argues that it is possible to reconcile the competing and often polarized demands of justice and welfare so that the childs criminality and vulnerability are simultaneously accommodated.

Meeting needs, addressing deeds - working with young people who offend

Review of Meeting needs, addressing deeds - working with young people who offend edited by Janice McGhee, Maggie Mellon and Bill Whyte

A feminist perspective on children who kill

Whether law embodies masculine adult bias within ostensibly neutral framework, feminist perspective on application of male social constructs to children and case studies showing impact of phenomenon on convictions and sentencing policy.

Sentencing murder : Boyle v HM Advocate SLT 29

It is common knowledge that the sentence for murder is life.1 But while the symbolism – of a life confined for a life destroyed – is strong, convicted murderers do not necessarily remain in prison for the whole of their natural lives.2 The advent of the “punishment part” or (in England) “tariff”, constituting the minimum period of detention necessary to represent retribution and deterrence, while intended to express punitive principles, also affirms that release prior to death is always considered, even if the period actually spent in prison appears to be increasing.3 The punitive nature of the punishment part is particularly well illustrated by the tariff’s history in England and Wales.4 The power to set the tariff initially constituted an encroachment on the judicial function by the Home Secretary,5 raising justified fears that tariffs were being set for political purposes.6 Tariffs have not become any less punitive but they must now be determined by the judiciary.7

Withholding culpable homicide Ferguson v HM Advocate

An analysis of Global Resources Group Ltd v Mackay which explores the possibility of building links between the offside goals rule and nominate delict of inducing breach of contract.Ferguson v HM Advocate1 raises the question of withholding the culpable homicide verdict from the jury in a murder trial. It also touches upon the inference to be drawn from the use of a lethal weapon in an attack which is eventually fatal. This comment considers both of these points.

Book Review: Meeting Needs, Addressing Deeds - Working with Young People who Offend

research on restorative justice I have read. Writing on restorative justice has undoubtedly become more empirically grounded and less rhetorical in recent years, but this book still stands out as a model of intellectual care and rigour. It deserves readers who are prepared to devote time and effort to its arguments, and its agenda for further research is probably the best yet produced. A caveat, however: this is not an easy read. With the authors’ commitment to care and clarity of exposition go occasional repetition and what some readers may feel is over-elaboration. Bazemore and Schiff’s determination not to produce another manual for practice may produce some frustration among those looking for snappy answers to the question ‘What works?’, and some readers may wish for more of the transcripts of conferences that illuminate what can go wrong with restorative conferencing as well as what can go right. Another limitation is that the original empirical material is all from the USA, though Bazemore and Schiff are generally well informed about research from elsewhere (while tending to over-estimate the degree to which restorative justice has become embedded in the criminal justice system in Britain). The contexts in which the programmes they discuss operate are of course different from those in other countries, and Bazemore and Schiff rightly stress the importance of contexts and the consequent difficulty of making sense of the idea of replicating successful programmes. But the contexts are not so different as to be unrecognisable; on the contrary, many of the problems of achieving restorativeness identified in this book will be familiar to practitioners in other countries, including Britain. Careful attention to the messages of Bazemore and Schiff’s research – and to their intellectual arguments – would help to improve the chances that restorative justice will become more authentically a part of the criminal justice systems of Britain than it is now.