Derived from centuries-old English laws, Australian laws ascribe criminal responsibility to children according to their age and their assumed level of understanding of the rightness and wrongness of certain acts. This project first charts the creation and development of the English and Australian positions. Then, using insights from postmodernity and the idea of deconstruction, the law is critically assessed to reveal practical, theoretical and moral limits in the law's attempt to do justice. The justifiability of the current Australian legal positions is questioned by demonstrating the law's internal inconsistencies, by revealing the law's historical and philosophical preferences, and by contrasting the law's restricted ambit of inquiry with contemporary knowledge from other disciplines including developmental psychology and sociology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/264798 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Mathews, Ben |
| Publisher | Queensland University of Technology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Ben Mathews |
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