Rebuttal 1. Children are pasaway. They have to be disciplined Modern Students are more conservative than previous generations.

Some 33% want to increase the legal age for driving a car from 17, while 53% favour a ''zero tolerance'' approach to consuming any alcoholic drink before getting behind the wheel. In a poll of 1,142 students, nine out of 10 said they would not scrap the smoking ban and almost a quarter backed an increase in the age of consent for homosexual sex from 16. The findings mark a radical shift from the traditional perception of students as free-thinking liberals. Undergraduates in the 1960s were renowned for sharing a relaxed attitude towards drugs and sex, while students in the 1970s asserted their freedom by listening to illegal pirate radio. Now, however, it seems many students have moved in line with the establishment, taking a more cautious attitude towards hedonistic behavior and adopting a moral standpoint against illegal music downloads. Aside from that the children who are most likely involved in illegal acts are out-of-school youth. And most of the time, they are just forced to do the act because of some bigger someone or the hardcore criminals. 2. Most of the countries in the world are following the 9 years old criminal liability The minimum age of criminal responsibility differs widely owing to history and culture. We cannot say that we should follow other countrys system because we have different history and culture from them. The modern approach would be to consider whether a child can live up to the moral and psychological components of criminal responsibility; that is, whether a child, by virtue of her or his individual discernment and understanding, can be held responsible for essentially antisocial behavior. . In Philippine context, Slavery that can be dated right back to the establishment of colonization affects the
attitude of Filipino children, unconsciously. In fact, this practice had become so common that the people of that time had accepted it as a truth of life. This history of slavery includes deprivation of education making our youth even in ages 18 above before ignorant and therefore making them vulnerable can be easily drawn to things they may not be aware. And this truth, whether we accept it or not, affects the generation of today. If the age of criminal responsibility is fixed too low, the notion of responsibility

would become meaningless 3.

1. Children who come into conflict with the law are especially vulnerable and are likely to be from Marginalized sectors of society. They will find themselves enmeshed in a system that sends a variety of confusing messages about their status and which is sometimes itself a prisoner of colonial laws rooted in a world that no longer exist. They are still not able to defend their own rights. Their family are usually the family who cannot afford lawyers that could help their children that most likely to result to being imprisoned without proper process. In Bangladesh, one Police Commissioner admitted that children as young as 15 or 16 are arrested and charged by the police. In India, some children suspected of illegal acts are incarcerated. Nepali police officers are known to arrest and detain and most of the time tortured. They cannot help their self out because they are still young and worse their own parents cannot help them out because they are not financially stable. 2. The UNICEF, under their researches worldwide says MACRs or Minimum age of Criminal responsibility Must Be 13 Years of Age or Higher In essence, the Committee has disapproved of MACRs of 12 years and lower. The Committee, from its inception through its SeptemberOctober 2004 session, has recommended on roughly 65 occasions that minimum age for criminal liability should not be lower than 12 years. In South Asia, MACRs currently range from birth to 10 years of age; the Committee has made such recommendations on every possible occasion. It is worth noting that even for the very highest South Asian MACR of 10 years, one Committee member noted, The age of criminal responsibility, which was fixed at 10 years, was too low: it was inconceivable that a 10-year-old child could be deprived of his or her liberty. Even when Bangladesh noted a past proposal to increase its MACR from 7 to 12, one Committee member remarked, The age of criminal responsibility was to be raised in Bangladesh from 7 to 12 years, but that age was still unacceptably low in terms of the requirements of the Convention. For other countries with MACRs from 13 years of age and higher, the Committee has expressed approval. 3. Treating a youth like an adult is contrary to scientific evidence. The part of the brain that deals
with decision-making and risks and consequences is not fully developed in a youth. Once a child matures, he will likely age out of crime. As the children typically receive very inadequate representation, the study showed that they are more likely to make false confessions, waive legal rights, and accept bad plea bargains. They also cannot assist in their own defense. As a result, adult court judges who are not specially trained in child development or familiar with services available in the juvenile justice system, frequently make life-altering decisions in a young person's case based on unreliable and inadequate information. 4. Ages ranging 10 ton 18 are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of irretrievably depraved character than are the actions of adults... It would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformed. This is not to say that a child who has committed an extremely heinous crime should immediately be released upon reaching adulthood. There are definitely cases of extreme violence where it is society's interest to transfer a convicted juvenile to an adult prison upon reaching 18 to continue a longer sentence. However, these cases are a very small minority of crimes committed by youth. A study explains that sending a youth to adult prison is counterproductive as he will become hardened by the experience and tutored in criminal behavior by his older, more experienced

inmates. He is also more likely to be raped and beaten there than in a juvenile facility. (Sadly, he is also more likely to commit suicide.)

5. The jail facility cannot handle the needs of 10 to 17 years old