- Age of criminal responsibility: 9.
- Age of consent: 12.
- Death penalty: yes.
Abundant proof exists that little children do not have the cognitive ability to make responsible life decisions hence have no capacity to commit crime.
(Rizal) Children at Luneta Park in the Philippines, February 19, 2016. Children and some families playing on a hot day in the park overlooking Manila Bay. Photo Credit: Melissa Hemingway, Feminine Perspective Magazine
by Micheal John | Editor, Feminine Perspective Magazine
Toronto, 22 January 2019 – Government in the Philippines is criminalizing kiddies’ bad behaviour at nine. This is contrary to the trend around the world which is to increase the age of criminal responsibility because medical science keeps telling us that kids are not cognitively maturing to a formal operational functionality until 16 years of age or later.
That’s the age at which society has a reasonable expectation that a child can make an informed decision about the responsibilities inherent in sexual intimacy, for example.
Concomitantly that is also the age when perceptions of responsibility and optional alternative behaviours can be possible in order to form a criminal intent. Until attaining formal operational cognitive functionality it is not possible for a person to have the capacity to commit a crime and of equal importance, to have a fair trial.
Why does a child lack the capacity to commit a crime?
It is not theoretically possible for a child to commit a crime at a young age because one of the two things required for an act to be a crime are missing:
- mens rea (criminal intent) is missing; and
- actus rea (criminal act) is done by a young child without criminal intent, malice or legitimate forethought.
- Another factor presents in the cases of children: where formal operational cognitive functionality has not been reached, the accused does not have the required capacity to stand trial because they do not have the ability to direct their own defence or even be fully cognitive of the proceedings.
Dr. Jean Piaget (Britannica)
This is according to Dr. Jean Piaget whose formal clinical exploration has passed thousands of peer reviews since his groundbreaking research and conclusions on cognitive progression in children were published in 1936-1952.
Piaget determined four stages of cognitive development among children:
- sensorimotor stage (18–24 months old)
- preoperational stage (2-7)
- concrete operational stage (7-11) and
- formal operational stage (11-adulthood)
Source: Jean Piaget, 1952
Piaget is supported by Lawrence Kohlberg in more recent times.
Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg
According to Lawrence Kohlberg whose research is more recent than Piaget:
– pre-conventional reasoning (stages 1 and 2) is dominant in elementary school; stage 2 reasoning is evident among many early adolescents. (Stage 2 reasoning can be incipient at age 10.)
– conventional reasoning (stages 3 and 4) emerges in middle adolescence and remains the most common form of moral reasoning in adulthood. (Stage 3 reasoning is reached most commonly at about age 16.)
Supported by Walker et. al in 1987, their research differed slightly and indicated that the majority of children reach stages 1-2 in first grade (age 6), stage 2 in 4th grade (age 9), stage 2-3 in seventh grade (age 12) stage 3 in tenth grade (age 15), and stages 3-4 as adults. In other words there is no possibility that any child has the capacity to commit crime.
Arguably the Capacity to Commit a Crime does not exist at all in most ‘Children’
Aside from Piaget’s remarkable work, the body of knowledge pursuing different theories to 2019 indicates a rebuttable presumption that a child between the ages of 10 and 14 and probably older (16) completely lacks criminal capacity. That may extend to 18. Worthy of note is the fact that where formal operational cognitive functionality does not exist past 18, the young adult is considered to be ‘challenged’ and therefore still not criminally responsible or able to stand trial.
Other studies indicate that autonomous morality does not even begin to develop until 12 or 13 years (Porterfield & Stanton, 199) which could lead to a conclusion that the age of 16 has only the small likelihood of an incipient capacity to actually do crime.
- That is because of limitations in cognitive ability to form a complete criminal intent. Without criminal intent there is no crime.
- The accused person must be capable of perceiving that certain behaviour constitutes a criminal act contrary to law hence punishable. And…
- The accused must have the ability to choose to respond differently in the situation which is one of the problems of child exploitation. The Philippines has seen a many early teens committing crimes under the orders of a willfully criminal adults.
Why do people in Manila’s government make these mistakes?
It may be hard to admit by humans standing before an upright walking and talking child, a child that unbeknownst to the adult has had excellent models to mimic via internet, DVD’s, books, schools and life, but is absolutely, unequivocally cognitively incompetent. While presenting as someone able to quote Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Jean Paul Sartre, that child likely has less cognitive ability than a pig.
“It’s a male thing”, says Sharon Santiago, a RINJ medical practitioner in Southeast Asia.
“They want to rule the roost on conduct around them and slam kids the way they themselves were slammed as children. Child abuse has led to this, ” she noted.
“The abused child grows up, has children of their own, and abuses their own.
“Overpopulation has also helped devalue children to an extreme. It can make you cry. Eight out of ten children in the Philippines say they have been raped, sexually assaulted or that they suffer sexual harassment.”
Say “No” to more prisons and “Yes” to fighting Poverty Plus fix bad parenting with re-education.
“In the Philippines, the women in the millions are out of the country earning relatively fat salaries as maids, nannies, house-cleaners and nurses’ assistants, sending their money home to the men who are trying to take care of the kids. (In a recent speech, Duterte said, “For those working as slaves, rape comes with the territory. It’s part of the culture.”) The men do not have the coping skills and the unsupervised children are getting into mischief or being exploited to do crime, particularly drug running and thievery.
- Filipino men put children to work doing crime to earn money for the men.
- Filipino men spank or yell at the children which tends to encourage deviant and even violent behaviour (Murray Straus, Psychology co-director of University of New Hampshire).
- Filipino men are raping the children. (Incest involving children is also rape.) It is part of the culture in a ruthless society.
Men may favour incarcerating children allowing mothers to work outside the country and men to shed the burden of caring for children.
Philippines slides backwards in time and in brutality.
By lowering the age of criminal responsibility to nine years of age and maintaining the age of consent at twelve all the while imposing the death penalty, the Philippines has exceeded the most machiavellian ruthlessness in all history toward children says a team of RINJ doctors and nurses asked to study the matter.
Here’s the solution to children performing crime for adults.
Do real police work and incarcerate the child-exploiting adults.
Solution for deviant children.
What kids in the Philippines need is safety, love, good parenting, and lots of calm explaining.
Adults teach=children learn.
What children don’t need is spanking and yelling. They certainly do not need prison and the death penalty. They do not need extra judicial killing.
According to Dr. Arthur Straus, “More than 20 nations now prohibit spanking by parents. There is an emerging consensus that this is a fundamental human right for children. The United Nations is asking all nations to prohibit spanking.”
“Never spanking will not only reduce the risk of delinquency and mental health problems, it also will bring to children the right to be free of physical attacks in the name of discipline, just as wives gained that human right a century and a quarter ago,” Straus says.
In the Philippines, children have lost their lives as extra judicial killing victims under the Duterte Regime since 2016
- Ed note: Theoreticals derived from
- Jean Piaget (Britannica); and publications:
- – Bec, Helen (1992). The Developing Child (6th ed.). Harper & Collins;
- – Hetherington, E. Mayis & Parke, Ross D. (1986). Child Psychology: A Contemporary Viewpoint (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill;
- – the copious work of Dr. Murray Straus, Psychology co-director of University of New Hampshire
– Nia Pryde, Hong Kong Committee on Children’s Rights: Criminal Responsibility:
a Psychological Viewpoint
- – Poterfield, T. & Stanton G.H.: The Age of Majority: Article 1, in C.P. Cohen;
- – Independent Commentary : United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, New York: Defence for Children International.