Mary Bell is the youngest person to go to jail. She committed her first murder in 1968 when she was 10. Both of her murders targeted pre-school boys, who died at Bell's hands by strangulation. Before killing her victims, she told them that they had sore throats and that she would massage them.
Ten (10) is the minimal age for secure detention of a juvenile unless it is a capital offense.
You are criminally responsible at age 10. This means that if you commit an offence from this age, you can be charged and, depending on the seriousness, you can get a sentence of detention. Juvenile detention in Western Australia is served at Banksia Hill Detention Centre in Canning Vale.
Across Australia, children as young as 10 are charged, brought before a court, sentenced, and locked up behind bars. Kids belong in school, not prison. When children this young are forced through a criminal legal process, their health, wellbeing, and future are put at risk.
A child can go to prison if the court refuses bail (and doesn't remand a child to local authority accommodation). A child goes to Youth Detention Accommodation (YDA) if the court imposes a custodial (prison) sentence.
There were 798 young people in youth detention on an average night in the June quarter 2020. The vast majority (91%) were male. Most detainees (80%) were aged 10–17, a rate of 2.6 per 10,000 young people in this age group.
What About Young People? Young people aged 18 are treated as adults by the law. If sentenced to a custodial sentence, a person aged between 18 and 25 would be sent to a specific prison unit for people of that age, not a full adult prison.
In legal terms, it is referred to as a defence of infancy. All states and self-governing territories of Australia have adopted 10 years of age as a uniform age of criminal responsibility, although As of October 2022 some jurisdictions have made moves towards raising the age to 12 or 14.
Some states allow children to be prosecuted as adults at 10, 12, or 13 years old. Children as young as eight have been prosecuted as adults. Each year, judges transfer dozens of children under 14 to adult court. Prosecutors charge other young kids directly in adult court.
What's the age threshold for jail? Unlike 18 other states, California doesn't have one. A child of any age can be incarcerated here, and it's not just theoretical.
The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10 years old. The rules are different in Scotland. This means that children under 10 can't be arrested or charged with a crime.
In Australia, children under the age of 10 years cannot be charged with a criminal offence. If they are between 10 and 14 years old, the prosecution has to show that they knew what they were doing was seriously wrong for a case to continue.
Convicted murderers appear to serve on average between ten and twelve years in prison prior to parole or licence supervision. Other violent offenders, such as those convicted of rape or robbery serve an average of about two years in prison, while the average for other assaults is around three to six months.
In 33 states, there is no minimum age of criminal responsibility, according to the Child Rights International Network. In theory, that means a child of any age could be convicted and sentenced. Of the states that do have a minimum, North Carolina's is the lowest at seven years.
Custodial sentences
If a child or young person between 12 and 17 years old is sentenced in the youth court, they could be given a Detention and Training Order. This can last between four months and two years.
Juveniles who have been sentenced to youth detention are sent to a young offenders' institution. The maximum sentence for juveniles aged 16 or 17 is two years. For juveniles aged 12 to 15 the maximum is one year.
Sentencing laws vary across the world, but in the United States, the reason people get ordered to serve exceptional amounts of prison time is to acknowledge multiple crimes committed by the same person. “Each count represents a victim,” says Rob McCallum, Public Information Officer for the Colorado Judicial Branch.
The 1,700-bed state-of-the-art Clarence Correctional Centre, which began operations in 2020, is the largest and most advanced correctional centre in Australia. Serco will operate and maintain this facility on behalf of the NSW Government for the next 20 years.
Initially established as Berrima Gaol, the facility closed in 1909 and reopened in 1949 as the Berrima Training Centre. The Centre is the oldest Australian correctional facility in operation.
Berrima Gaol and Parramatta Gaol are now both called correctional centres, which is the new word for jail in Australia.
In the last 100 years, the life expectancy of Australians has increased by 20 years. Now Australia has 3700 people aged over 100.
Year 2 (Key Stage 1) = Grade 1 here in Australia
Year 2 children are 6 or 7 years old.
In Canada, young people can be held responsible for a crime as of age 12. So, police can arrest a teenager if they think that the teen committed a crime (for example, theft, assault, drug possession or trafficking).