NCJ Number
166257
Date Published
1996
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article describes the need to change the judicial system in Britain as it concerns children who kill.
Abstract
The author argues that it is wrong to treat children as adults and to demand that they comprehend adults' thought processes. It is wrong to sit children in a courtroom for weeks on public exhibition. Police interrogators should not question children about an act, a deed, a crime, without the training or authority for a parallel goal of understanding. It is wrong to use tricks, emotion or a parent to coerce a child to speak. Social services should be aware of crises in crisis families. Children who behave conspicuously in school should be noticed and attention paid. Human and financial assistance should be provided to all single parents. The author attended two trials of children who killed children and, in both cases, all the relationships which normally nourish children's lives were limited, faulty or had broken down. This, she claims, is characteristic of virtually every case of a child who kills or becomes totally asocial.