What works in correctional treatment and rehabilitation for young adults

Criminal law and the criminal justice system need clear terms and categories to ensure fair procedures and decisions. Accordingly, there are fixed age thresholds of criminal responsibility and specific regulations for child, juvenile and adult offenders. However, these thresholds have often been questioned. In England and Wales, for example, the debate over the low threshold of age 10 for criminal responsibility has been revitalized by the Bulger Case and other recent spectacular child offences (e.g. Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children 2005). In Europe this threshold varies from age 10 in England and Wales and Switzerland, to age 12 in the Netherlands, age 13 in France and Poland, age 14 in Austria, Germany, Italy and Russia, age 15 in the Czech Republic and the Scandinavian countries, age 16 in Portugal and Spain and up to age 18 years for specific crimes in countries such as Belgium and Romania. These international differences are based more on different legal traditions than on scientific evidence. Although there is some research favouring an age of criminal responsibility between 12-15 (see Losel and Bliesener 1997), the key question is whether the respective age regulations are accompanied by effective interventions from the criminal justice or social welfare system.