Archbishop calls for age of criminal responsibility to be raised

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Dr Rowan Williams has called for the Government to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

|PIC1|Dr Williams said the move could be a way to recognise that most children involved in crime also needed "somehow to be treated as children".

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph he criticised a system that would easily send new mothers to prison. He said that women with young children should only be imprisoned as a very "last resort".

The Ministry of Justice has said that "only 3 per cent of young people convicted by a court receive a custodial sentence".

Dr Williams told the Sunday Telegraph: "The tragedy of where we are at present is that, at one and the same time, children are treated like adults and at other levels they are left to flounder in real immaturity and neediness."

Under current legislation in England and Wales, children can be charged with criminal offences from as young as the age of 10. Campaigners, however, are arguing this should be raised to avoid branding children as "delinquents" from a young age.

The Archbishop was quick to add that he was not ignoring the seriousness of some of the crimes these young children commit, but said that it was important to recognise a young teenager "may still in very many important respects still genuinely be a child".

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman told the BBC: "Custody for under-18s is always a last resort...Where possible, the Government is keen to ensure that children and young people are not prosecuted through court.

"However, we believe that children aged 10 and over can differentiate between bad behaviour and serious wrongdoing. It is not in the interests of justice, of victims or the young people themselves to prevent serious offending being challenged."