Defining the Age of Criminal Responsibility 143in the District of Columbia, raped her, and then took her wallet. The fingerprints
at the apartment matched those of Morris Kent, a 16-year-old. He was soon taken
into custody and interrogated from 3 P.M. to 10 P.M. the same evening. The next day
Kent underwent further interrogation by the police. Kent's mother did not know
that he was in custody until 2 P.M. on the second day.
Kent's mother and her counsel visited Kent, at which time he was charged with
housebreaking, robbery, and rape. This section examines the issues stemming from
this example, especially the question of when juveniles are responsible for then-
actions and how juveniles should be treated for their actions. This section examines
the respective roles criminal justice and psychology assume in creating, sustaining,
and responding to the issue of the age of criminal responsibility. Also examined
is the age of criminal responsibility by looking at and providing examples of the
juvenile and criminal court systems, reviewing literature, analyzing case law, and
discussing current research.
At the turn of the century juvenile offenders were separated from adult offend-
ers because they were seen as treatable. Today, however, there is a general trend
in society to hold juvenile offenders accountable (Umbreit, 1995). According to
Umbreit, society is moving away from rehabilitation and restorative justice; instead,
society is moving toward punishment and retributive justice. In the 1980s many state
legislatures passed laws that enacted waivers which transferred juvenile offenders of
serious and violent crimes from the juvenile justice system into the criminal justice
system. These waivers lowered the age of criminal responsibility and held juveniles
accountable, as adults, for their crimes. The Supreme Court said that with the
lowering of the age of responsibility, due process should be present in the juvenile
justice system (Fritsch & Hemmens, 1995).
The Courts' trend toward punishment creates a need tor psychologists to de-
termine when people are responsible for their actions and when they should be
punished. When trying to determine the psychological age of responsibility, one
cannot base the answer on a decision from a court, like the legal age of responsibility.
This creates some tension between these two fields. Notwithstanding, the fields of
psychology and law are continually merging closer together. To understand cases
like Kent i>. United States (1966) and the age of criminal responsibility, we examine
the relevant legal and psychological literature.
Literature ReviewAccording to Fritsch and Hemmens (1995), English common law held that children
under the age of 7 were incapable of criminal responsibility. Children between the
ages of 7 and 14 were still incapable unless it could be established that they were
able to understand the consequences of their actions. Juveniles over the age of
14 were considered fully responsible for their actions and would receive the same