Juvenile Offenders Ordinance

Nowadays, our society is becoming complex. When we read newspaper, listen to the radiocommunication or ticker television, there is no uncertainty that some news are related to crimes, for example, drug trafficking, indecent assault, wounding, pack violence, criminal intimidation, robbery, burglary, criminal damage, three activities and so on. An alarming image appears, some of the law-breakings mentioned above are involving youngsters; some lawsuits (e.g. merchandising pirated VCDs) affect some children as immature as 11 or twelve old age old.

If a immature individual have broken the law, they will be prosecuted under the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance. As a societal worker, we will meet similar states of affairs or questions in our day-to-day practices, so it is very of import for us to fit some cognition and apprehensions of the regulation related to juvenile offenders.

The Spirit and Principles underlining the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance

Every society should acknowledge that some sort of people are vulnerable, they are easily under threats, attacks, unwellnesses and so on. No individual will presume children are strong adequate and able to move or to believe as a healthy adult. They must be protected and supply as much chances as to develop their morality, organic structure and skills.

Law is no exclusion from the above concepts. If we take a expression at the regulations concerning law-breakings related to juvenile offenders, we may be easily impressed by the relatively indulgent treatments or penalties for these offenders.

So who can be called as a kid or immature person? And whom the Juvenile Offenders Regulation will affect? According to Juvenile Offenders Regulation (Cap. 226 Sec. 2), a "child" intends a individual who is, in the sentiment of the tribunal having awareness of any lawsuit in relation to such as person, under the age of 14 years. A "young person" intends a individual who is 14 old age of age or upwards and under the age of 16 old age and it is clearly stated that no kid under the age of 7 old age can be guilty of an offence.

If a immature individual have violated the law, they will generally be trial in the Juvenile Court; no individual shall be present at any sitting of the Juvenile Court except military officers or any people directly related to the lawsuit concerned. We can see clearly the juvenile are better protected from other or outside perturbations and any things make are trying to minimise the psychological impacts on them.

There is particular separation of children and immature people in police force stations, tribunals and process in the Juvenile Courts too. Some limitations are imposed on the penalties of the children and immature persons; for example, no kid shall be sentenced to imprisonment or committed to prison house in default of payment of a fine, damages, or costs. No immature individual shall be sentenced to imprisonment if he can be suitably dealt within any other manner and even if he should be sentenced to imprisonment, he shall not be allowed to associate with grownup prisoners.

As we can see clearly from the above legal conceptions concerning juvenile offenders, it is not difficult to detect some rules and liquor are underlining the ordinance. As our society acknowledge kid and immature individual are still developing their mental capacity and their cognitive ability are not well adequate to separate what is right or wrong, what is moral or immoral and what is offenses or not. Personally speaking, it is suitable to protect them from the psychological impacts as much as possible when they are under the criminal legal proceeding or prosecution.

Rather than sending the immature wrongdoers into the jail, there are many other options generally available to tribunals for the intents of rehabilitating the immature wrongdoers between seven and 14 old age of age, for example, the community support service scheme, the police force superintendent's discretional strategy and so on. We should observe that the options available to a tribunal in dealing with the immature wrongdoers focusing mainly on rehabilitation rather than punishment, it reflects the society generally hold that immature people should be given chances and opportunity to rectify their incorrect doing. As these immature people becoming mature, they will detect there are still opportunity for them to rectify what they have got done incorrect before and relatively indulgent penalties will minimise the opportunity of ruining their life.

Adequacy of the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance

In Hong Kong, the lower limit age of criminal duty is legislative act based. It shall be conclusively presumed that no kid under the age of 7 can be guilty of an offence. It makes in Hong Kong a conclusive or irrebuttable given that a kid is doli incapax (incapable of committing a crime), but over the age of seven, in regard of a kid aged between seven and 14 years, Hong Kong SAR follows the common regulation established in medieval England that a rebuttable given will apply, the given can be rebutted by the prosecution on cogent evidence beyond sensible uncertainty that, at the clip of the offence, the kid was well aware that his or her enactment was seriously wrong, and not merely blue or mischievous. When this given is rebutted or removed, full criminal duty will be imposed on the kid who may then be charged, prosecuted and convicted for any offense allegedly committed.

As the conceptions mentioned above, it look the kid aged between seven and 14 old age are still being protected from the doli incapax, except some rare circumstances, but I just desire to point out that the criminal processes are long and complicate, it will make numerous psychological pressure levels for the immature people being prosecuted or investigated. During the twelvemonth of gratifying childhood, they suffered from these pressure level level and the legal proceeding may impact their surveys too.

In many other developed countries, the lower limit age of criminal duty is higher than Hong Kong's, it can do certain more than children will not be under the complicated legal prosecution, it is not only cut down the pressure they will suffer, but also assist to cut down the legal costs.

Most children in Hong Kong get their kindergarten instruction at the age of three or four. School attending is mandatory for those at the age of six or 15. School are required not only to supply academic preparation for their students, but are also tasked to develop their brooding and critical thinking, moral mental attitudes and societal values. They are provided with chances to drill moral values and do moral determination under teachers' guidance. When the children are seven old age old, they have got already received some four old age of formal instruction (two old age in kindergarten and another two old age in primary schooling). Personally speaking, it is hazardous to presume that when a kid attained seven old age old, they must by then have got had inculcated in them the impression of "right" and "wrong" and the necessary "moral attitudes" and "social values" indispensable for their acknowledgment that a certain enactment is a "serious wrong" in the ordinary sense of the term.

It can also be argued that the enhanced educational chances available to today's children intend that they attain societal adulthood more than quickly than their opposite numbers in earlier times, and are capable of distinguishing right from incorrect at a immature age, children nowadays might be seen as more sophisticated than their predecessors, but I believe better instruction makes not necessarily vouch a greater preparedness to separate right from incorrect because the children nowadays might also subject to greater degrees of misinformation, which may hinder their ability to separate right from wrong. Also the present instruction system topographic points too much accent on intellectual development at the disbursal of moral development. I believe Hong Kong can see rising its age of criminal responsibility.

In order to cut down the opportunity that grownup using this legal loopholes, terrible penalties should be implemented to safeguard the law rather than severely penalize the juvenile beingness used and in the disbursal of their gratifying childhood.

Changes over the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance

In recent years, there have got been phone calls there for the lower limit age of criminal duty to be raised. Those favoring a alteration reason that it is undesirable to subject immature children who are still socially and mentally immature to the full panoply of criminal proceedings, with their attender countenances and stigma.

On the other hands, names for a reappraisal of the law government the age of criminal duty in Hong Kong are undoubtfully in response to the juvenile offenses in recent years. It reflects our society is no longer tolerant the law-breakings committed by the youngsters. Those who prefer to take down of the present lower limit age of criminal duty reason that convey those immature juvenile delinquents into the criminal justness system in their formative old age supplies an chance for systematic rehabilitation. Sanctions imposed on a kid cut down the likeliness that he will develop a life long form of criminal behavior.

I trust we will not take the jobs as a simple question, don't simply believe when they perpetrate crimes, criminal justness will work out all these problems. Many of the children are the victims under controlled by the three societies or syndicates. They don't cognize how to defy the menaces or fiscal enticement from them. If we understand more than than about the Southern Cross of the problems, make something to discourage it from happening; it is more effectual and beneficial. We can go through heavy sentences to those grownups using adolescents to perpetrate crimes. Also, a kid cannot be presumed to cognize the nature of the enactment simply because other children of his age and background would normally be held to possess such as knowledge.

Social Impacts made by the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance

Nowadays, the present lower limit age of criminal duty that children in their formative old age should not be made subject to criminal legal proceeding as the injury caused may be damaging. It not only supplies a model of rules, which find or acknowledge what are acceptable forms of behaviour within the society, but also avoid undesirable to enforce the stigma of strong belief on a child. Apart from being partial and inappropriate to subject a seven twelvemonth old to the traumatic and confusing experience of appearing in court, it is also avoiding another undesirable consequence of persecuting and convicting a immature kid that he will bear the stigma for the remainder of his life of wrongfulnesses committed at a immature age. On strong belief the kid or immature individual will be left with a criminal record, which may adversely impact him in later life, it may eventually take him towards a criminal calling and disaffection from the society.

The impact is obvious, it connotes that we have got assurance in the instruction or rehabilitation services. We maintain the religion that people can change or able to larn from the errors. When our society accepts mistakes and throw an unfastened head towards human, the society can come on towards a harmoniousness environment.