China ‘should prosecute juveniles from age 12’ after boy, 13, accused of scissor attack on girl is let off
Police claimed they were unable to charge the accused boy because he was below the age of criminal responsibility for alleged attack on 14-year-old
There have been calls for China’s age of criminal responsibility to be lowered from 14 to 12 after police said the case of a 13-year-old boy accused of attacking a 14-year-old girl was thrown out because he was too young to be prosecuted, a newspaper reported on Monday.
The girl’s mother said her daughter was found naked in the building where she lived in Xiaogan, Hubei province, with several wounds to her neck, arms and legs, according to China Youth Daily.
Police detained a boy on the night of the alleged incident in March but said they released him because he was five months short of his 14th birthday, the starting age for criminal responsibility in China, the report said.
The police report stated that the boy had emerged from a staircase when the girl was waiting for a lift and took her to a different floor, armed with scissors.
According to the girl’s account, the boy stabbed her and tried to steal her money before forcing her to remove her clothes, the newspaper reported.
A report compiled last year by a juvenile court in Beijing, using data from the previous eight years, suggested that the average age of juvenile offenders – those aged between 14 and 18 – had been getting lower.