Scotland’s criminal age of responsibility should be raised as high as 16 to help safeguard a generation of children from falling into a vicious spiral of offending, prison and ruined lives. 

Academics behind a major study into young people’s criminal behaviour have also concluded that the nation’s approach to tackling youth crime needs a significant overhaul, after it emerged that children as young as five can be labelled as potential offenders. 

Once tarred as possible future troublemakers, the research found the stigma could follow them throughout their lives. 

The Edinburgh study, which has spanned 24 years and tracked a cohort of around 4,300 people from first year in secondary school to adulthood, found that once young people fall into persistent patterns of offending, punishments devised to curb their conduct are largely ineffective. 

While in certain cases, they could even exacerbate negative behaviours. 

Edinburgh University academics Lesley McAra, Professor of Penology, and Susan McVie, Professor of Quantitative Criminology, co-directors of The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, also found that simply being known to social agencies in Scotland can be a risk factor for children. 

Their study suggests that young people who encountered social services possibly as a result of poverty, behavioural difficulties or childhood trauma – some as a result of family issues and through no fault of their own - were more likely to end up being dealt with by the youth justice and adult criminal justice system than those who had not.  

Even young people who had done nothing wrong could find themselves branded as troublesome, with the label sticking throughout their lives. 

“It can be very hard to unpeel those labels,” Professor McVie said.

Participants in the research told the academics that a key factor prompting an end to their offending was the achievement of social and economic aspirations, such as having a job, a stable relationship and caring for children. 

The criminal justice system, however, had little impact on changing patterns of behaviour for the better.

The Edinburgh study tracked and examined a cohort of participants from age 12 to 35 years, making it the UK’s largest criminological life-course study and one of the few worldwide to include both boys and girls. 

It spanned children in mainstream secondary schools and private schools, as well as schools for children with special educational needs, and looked at a wide range of experiences including family life, leisure interests and friendships.

Speaking in a presentation given as part of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s summer events programme, Curious 2022, Prof McAra said: “Our findings do make very difficult reading for policy makers because they suggest that the criminal justice system is more out to damage people and inhibit their capacity to achieve the modest social norms that support pathways out of offending. 

“Critically, they suggest that the answer is not to punish more or to punish more effectively, but that a safer society is best created through investment in the early years, and brings together health, education, economic policy and much more.”

She added that the common political mantra of being tough on crime being introducing harsh punishments was, instead, a soft approach that simply heightened the issue. 

Instead, investing in people tasked with supporting young people was crucial: “It’s about nurturing and paying well key workers: teachers nurses, social workers and prison and police officers. Only then do we think that we can truly say that as society we have been tough on crime.”

The academic’s work has already influenced key youth justice and policy changes in Scotland. It formed the evidence base for the Scottish Prison Service’s 2014 Vision for Young People in Custody which aims to improve offenders’ outcomes by providing education and personal development opportunities, and the Scottish Government’s Youth Justice Strategy 2015-2020. 

The strategy led to the increase in the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland from eight- which was the lowest in the UK - to 12, which is now the highest and ended the practice of primary school age children being referred to the Children’s Hearings System on the grounds of having committed an offence. 

Both academics say they have concluded that the age of criminal responsibility should be further raised to 15 “and ideally, 16”. 

Scotland is already ahead of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, where the age of responsibility is ten. However, other European countries go further: in Germany it is set at 14, in Portugal it is 16 and in Luxembourg it is 18. 

While the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) states that the age of criminal responsibility should be 14 at the very least, and has said anything below 12 is unacceptable. 

It has encouraged states to increase the minimum age to at least 14.

The Scottish Government has committed to reviewing the age of criminal responsibility in the future, raising the possibility of it being further increased.

The academics pointed to the approach of Scandinavian countries: Norway, Denmark and Sweden have set the age for criminal accountability at 15.

They also highlighted the Scandinavian model of a more relaxed style of detention, that sees offenders released from prison during the week to work, returning at weekends, and “humane” conjugal visits. 

They are said to be “working very actively to influence policy” – both sit on committees which feed evidence into the Scottish Government on issues such as criminal responsibility. 

According to Prof. McAra, Chair of Penology at Edinburgh University’s Law School, a key benefit in raising the age of criminal responsibility is that young people can avoid having their futures hindered by a criminal record.

Almost  96% of the cohort admitted offending at some point in their lives ranging from minor offences such as theft and speeding offences to more severe offences such as assaults.

A quarter had at least one criminal conviction by the age of 35, however, the most serious and violent offenders were also found to be among the most vulnerable. 

Prof. McAra add: “For many, first contact with criminal justice system was described as being unsettling and anxiety inducing mostly because they didn’t know what to expect. After that, the system was seen as simply a minor hazard to be navigated.

“One said, ‘I didn’t learn anything from it I was just surrounded by other people who had committed crime’.

“Another sent to prison said ‘I was less anxious when I discovered half of my mates were there’.”

The study has helped mould a series of policy changes in  Scotland’s approach to youth justice which have helped contribute to a 34% fall in youth convictions, and a 45% reduction in imprisonment since 2015.

Prof. McAra added: “Governments want to sound as if they are being tough on crime. 

“Being tough on crime means being doing much more upstream, much more preventative work. 

“Being tough on crime is welfare interventions and supporting people in school. 

“It’s trying to tackle that knee jerk punitive response of eing  seen to be tough when actually that is the weakest thing you could possibly do.”