Following unanimous support at Holyrood for the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act, the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland has now been raised to 12, below which a child is deemed to lack the capacity to commit a crime. Previously children as young as eight could be held responsible for criminal acts – the lowest in Europe and one of the lowest in the world. While no child under 12 has been prosecuted in a Scottish court since 2011, primary school children aged eight to 11 could be referred to the Children’s Panel on offence grounds and could be given a criminal record.
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