Vox pop: Should the age of criminal responsibility rise to 12?

YES - Frances Crook, director, The Howard League for Penal Reform

The age of criminal responsibility should be raised to at least 12. In Italy and Germany the age at which a child is criminally liable is 14, and in Spain and Portugal it is 16.

We criminalise young children in England - elsewhere welfare agencies are called in to examine what is causing the child's behaviour and to address those causes. A child who commits a crime needs support, not prison. We should fight for every child's future, not write off our young people to a life behind bars.

If 10-year-olds do not have the understanding to sit in a jury, why do people think they are mature enough to stand in the dock?

NO - Mary Duff, chair of the youth courts committee, Magistrates' Association

Please can we separate the debate about the treatment of the killers of James Bulger from the age of criminal responsibility? Jon Venables and Robert Thompson should not have been tried in an adult court but the outcome would probably have been the same if they had been dealt with in a youth court.

Serious offending must always be challenged and children of 10 years old and even younger know the difference between right and wrong but do they realise the consequences of their actions? No.

Custody is not always the answer and certainly in magistrates' courts custody is always the last resort.

YES - Rod Morgan, former chair, Youth Justice Board

We know from child psychological evidence that many children under the age of 12 don't understand the consequences of their actions. Twelve is the least it should be and I take heart from the fact that Scotland is raising it to 12.

We're dealing inappropriately with children who may have done terrible things and we're asking them to take full responsibility for something we can't expect them to take responsibility for.

If there is evidence of parental neglect or abuse, there may need to be care proceedings, but it should end up in the family court, not the criminal court.

NO - Lyn Costello, co-founder, Mothers Against Aggression

Perpetrators of serious crimes are getting younger. We now have gangs of children, as young as eight and nine, tormenting people on estates and there's no comeback for these families. I don't think we should have an age of criminal responsibility, we should deal with each case individually.

Nobody trusts social workers. Take the case in Edlington: mistakes were made by social services and we are lucky we didn't have a murder on our hands.

We need to get young offenders into the criminal justice system. We have this fallacy that young offenders institutions are full of 10-year-olds, well they're not.