Children are not Criminals

It is the responsibility of everyone to be a role model to children for their

minds can be easily corrupted and their environment plays an important role
in the development of child’s mentality. Hence, lowering the age of criminal
responsibility from 15 to 9 can affect the role of children in the society and can
bring much more menace to them. More so, children are entitled to special care
and support as matter of their right, and that no child deserves such repulsive
and abominable treatment from anyone and that includes being a subject to
criminal liabilities.
Three points can be drawn as a point of argument as to why I am against
the lowering of criminal responsibility. First, children are not little adults. They
do not think same way as adult does. They may or may not have discernment
of committing a crime but their psychological capacity is still underdeveloped,
and the act might be just an influence of his/her environment or he/she might
be just an instrument of the crime. Also, it is absurd to say that children are
too young to vote, to get married, to be part of a contract, and to get a driver
license but are not too young to be charged for a crime.
Second point, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act or the RA 9344 needs
not to be amended, it needs to be implemented. It is for a fact that this law
provides a distinct justice system for children where it provides intervention
programs like counseling, or confining children engaged with serious crimes in
the youth care facilities like the Bahay Pag-asa. However, this law is often not
implemented and is not functional because of lack of youth care facilities to
cater the needs of the growing population of children in conflict with the law.
And so, if children under 9 years old can now be criminally responsible then
there is a possibility that the government will accommodate more children, and
the ratio of children that will undergo rehabilitation may not be proportionate
to the number of youth care facilities that we have. And because of that,
children will most likely end up in jails where they may be imperilled to some
sort ferocity and exploitation.

Again, children are not criminals.

Roland Mark Manaois Gatchalian

AB Political Science IV