Age of criminal responsibility

 Recently, a number of children aged 12 and 13 were in the UK courts being prosecuted for violent disorder during the the riots. No doubt they will be punished in some way, if the are found guilty, but they will not be sent to prison. Of course violent disorder is a serious matter and no-one should be allowed to get away with it no matter what age they are. However, I am of the opinion that children of 12 should not be held criminally responsible for their actions. Most European nations do not treat children under the age of 14 as being criminally responsible for what they do. The parents of children who commit crimes should be held responsible. What were parents doing allowing children out onto the streets during a riot, these children should have been at home with their parents. No-one should be a rioter who endangers the lives of the police and emergency service personnel or members of the public. No-one has the right to pick upon unfortunate asylum seekers some of whom are escaping from violence and prejudice in their home countries. Children should not be encouraged to riot or act violently. It is the adults who  encourage their children to be violent who should feel the full power of the law. We have seen enough of anti-semitism and islamophobia, and it is time for it to stop, and for children who indulge in this to be restrained and re-educated. 

Violent connexions

 The violence seen lately on the streets of the UK has at least one glaring connection with the violence seen lately in the Middle East: irrational hatred. One group of group of people hates others so much that they want to kill them. It doesn't matter whether it is an unprotected policeman being targeted or a child at a dance party, some revellers at a kibbutz festival or children in a Gazan hospital, let's see this violence for what it is: irrational hatred. The violence is caused by people who are sick in the head falling victim to their own internal irrational hatred. The human race should be careful not to allow this sickness to infect us all, as we could destroy ourselves.