The Age of Culpability: Children and the Nature of Criminal Responsibility - Couverture souple

Yaffe, Gideon

 
9780198860020: The Age of Culpability: Children and the Nature of Criminal Responsibility

Synopsis

Why be lenient towards children who commit crimes? Reflection on the grounds for such leniency is the entry point into the development, in this book, of a theory of the nature of criminal responsibility and desert of punishment for crime. Gideon Yaffe argues that child criminals are owed lesser punishments than adults thanks not to their psychological, behavioural, or neural immaturity but, instead, because they are denied the vote. This conclusion is reached through accounts of the nature of criminal culpability, desert for wrongdoing, strength of legal reasons, and what it is to have a say over the law. The centrepiece of this discussion is the theory of criminal culpability. To be criminally culpable is for one's criminal act to manifest a failure to grant sufficient weight to the legal reasons to refrain. The stronger the legal reasons, then, the greater the criminal culpability. Those who lack a say over the law, it is argued, have weaker legal reasons to refrain from crime than those who have a say. They are therefore reduced in criminal culpability and deserve lesser punishment for their crimes. Children are owed leniency, then, because of the political meaning of age rather than because of its psychological meaning. This position has implications for criminal justice policy, with respect to, among other things, the interrogation of children suspected of crimes and the enfranchisement of adult felons.

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À propos de l?auteur

Gideon Yaffe is Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Yale. He is the author of Attempts: In the Philosophy of Action and the Criminal Law (OUP 2010), as well as books about John Locke and Thomas Reid. He also collaborates with neuroscientists on experiments intended to be of relevance to criminal responsibility assessments.


Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780198803324: The Age of Culpability: Children and the Nature of Criminal Responsibility

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  019880332X ISBN 13 :  9780198803324
Editeur : Oxford University Press, 2018
Couverture rigide