Responding to Child Offenders

Gabrielle Maxwell, Jeremy Robertson

In 1994 the Ministers of Justice, Police and Social Welfare requested advice from their Departments on the issue of child offending and the desirability of lowering the age of criminal responsibility. The Commissioner for Children and the New Zealand Police jointly offered to carry out research to expand the information available.

This paper summarises the results of a study designed to answer questions about the adequacy of current responses to offending by children aged 10 to 13 years. A major aim was to examine the question of whether or not criminal court proceedings in such cases would be more apropriate than referrals for a Family Group Conference. The specific goal was to describe current practice in dealing with more serious and/or recidivist offenders among 10- to 13-year-olds.

The results show that it can be very difficult to find appropriate responses to these children’s offending. Despite schools and parents being prepared to work for change, provided that supports are available, effective plans for the children were not always developed. Issues for addressing these difficulties lie in improving referral processes, improved inter-agency co-operation and improved service availability. A series of recommendations is presented to deal with these issues.