That said, prison time for anyone, adults or children, for computer-related crimes is barbaric. But I doubt that's on the table here.
In my opinion one reason why they cannot be made fully responsible for their actions is, that they do not have the same rights as adults. They are not allowed to drive cars, to drink alcohol, to have sex, to vote, to marry, to become president and so on. Another reason might be, that they did not have the same chance to develop an ethic framework as adults had, because they had less years to learn.
> age is often used as a (bad) proxy for maturity.
I agree, but on the other hand there is a need for a fair (same for all) measure. I have no idea what would be a better objective measure.
> That said, prison time for anyone, adults or children, for computer-related crimes is barbaric.
I would agree if this is limited to "crimes" that are only or at least mostly computer related.
Many people die without ever having found an ethical framework. In fact, it's possible to make ill-designed ethical frameworks of your own that can have disastrous effects on society. Believing that time is the equivalent of wisdom is unwise.
I absolutely agree with this statement, but that is not what I wanted to express. I would more say that time plays an important role. Learning anything takes time. Not everyone uses the time for learning the right things. Some people are fast, while some people are slow. I would say it is not fair to judge people who had little time to learn (children) by the same measures as people who had more time to learn (adults).
The Prefrontal cortex is key to what we'd consider a person's personality. The seminal case of this would be [Phineas Gage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage), who had his prefrontal cortex (along with most of his frontal lobe) destroyed. Despite a hole in his head, he miraculously survived. Without his prefrontal cortex, he was no longer inhibited by judgement, shame, or morals. He didn't ignore it, he just simply didn't feel it. A man went from being honest and upstanding to constantly thieving and telling lies.
Since the pre frontal cortex does not fully mature until around the age of 25, I would argue the 13 years this child does, in fact, not know the full extent of what he did.
Anyway, what makes you think having a "fully developed" prefrontal cortex means one DOES "know the full extent" of one's actions? And what makes you think full development means one knows this better than 50% or 75% development? Heck, for all we know, moral responsibility might even peak at 15 and decline from there with further development!
Is there some sort of test that shows how much people have, as you claim, "a distorted view of reality" as they age?
EDIT: People seem to be misreading me. I said that the justice system drawing an arbitrary line at 18 years of age seems odd, considering some children are mature and some aren't. Some children know what they're doing. Some don't. Why is 18 optimal? Is it just the least bad solution to a problem that has no good solutions?
You must get that this boy is not even a teenager yet. Destroying his life by throwing him into a prison will only result in him learning and befriending other troubled children. This will not do anyone any good.
The solution I would suggest is a minor punishment, say a week or so in prison - just to scare the living hell out of him. Meanwhile having a professional evaluate his situation and suggest a reasonable recovery plan (therapy, forced change of school in order to find new friends, computer banishment, or whatever).
Don't twist the statements here. I guess a discussion about arbitrary cutoffs for 'Yeah, a month ago he didn't know what he was doing, but now he's mature' would be fine.
To me, this is what it is. Determining maturity and adulthood in an institutionalized fashion with a subjective measurement would be extremely difficult. Drawing a line in the sand at 18 wildly simplifies the problem of maturity, around the time when most children's brains have mostly finished developing. As far as objective measures for when you should be considered an adult, "your brain is done developing, you now have an adult brain" seems fairly reasonable.
Sure. Do you mind if I'm a social nihilist?
Once upon a time, there was a place in mild prosperity, where there was a reasonable amount of wealth and almost any person who worked hard enough and didn't run into any terrible luck could eke out a living. Near this land there lived a fully sentient and conscious, territorial dragon who hid in a lair guarding innumerable treasures. The people largely respected the dragon's right to its property, and when foolhardy wealth-seekers intruded on its lair, people largely allowed the dragon to go about its business, grievously injuring those intruders. But when a child, or an insane person, or a wanderer who didn't know any better strayed into the dragon's lair, people pooled their efforts and sent envoys to rescue them before it was too late. Of course, nobody was terribly concerned that this process made the dragon any less threatening, or that people would try to intrude on the dragon expecting to be saved.
You may by now have realized that the dragon is a stand-in for our criminal justice system, and the criteria are the age of majority, the insanity defense, and mens rea. You see, it is a common lament of libertarians that the criminal justice system exists to control people, which, to me, is only slightly inaccurate. The criminal justice system exists because we can't control people, not even to the extent of "don't kill each other".
We created a giant, bloodthirsty monster that likes to kill people who step out of line, and we called it "The System". While we're not sure precisely how The System prevents crime, we do know that societies with a System experience less crime than those who don't. We haven't, for the most part, done enough research to determine what particular characteristics are good for preventing crime, and to a large extent, of the research we have done, we ignore the findings. We have the System because it's been around for a very long time and we're all -- quite rightly -- terrified of what our society would look like without it.
Among the people who work with The System, there is little illusion that the whole thing was designed with the efficiency and elegance of closed-source software commissioned by business majors. But it's not terrifically important if we steal off some of the most sympathetic of its prey, because, on balance, the System continues to exist as a viable threat to any would-be offenders.
So we don't give 12-year-olds a free pass because we think they aren't aware of their actions. We do it because we know that a 12-year-old is at an extraordinarily vulnerable time in their life and oftentimes a pretrial diversion program can mean the difference between a postgraduate degree and a life on the streets. We do it because we understand that we don't sufficiently undermine the System by allowing 12-year-olds to get off, because for the most part kids that age aren't going to try to exploit our kindness. And of course we do it because there was never anything ethical about the System in the first place, merely necessary, and most of us can all too easily imagine how artificial and distant some of the greater structure of society seemed to us as children. Most people can't stomach the idea of sending a kid to jail.
Law isn't based on reason, evidence, or morality. It's based on fear. Specifically, fear that society wouldn't work without it. But we aren't scared of 12-year-olds.
Patently false. Juveniles can be tried as adults.