Juvenile Convictions to be erased at 18

As someone who at the tender age of 12 thought it was hilarious to cut all the moorings on the river Thames in Windsor one evening. And then sit back on river bank chomping on one of me dad's players no6 watching 20 odd cruisers floating down the river. I'm all for the erasing of juvenile convictions. I still find that evening funny....

After recovering from firstly chocking to spewing a mouthful of coffee across my desk, just wanted to say thanks 

What a brilliant story  

Maybe we should turn this on to a joint thread what we did as kids .... well that we will admit to and should the record be wiped at 18?

I had a fascination with fire - no i wasn't a great arsonist but i did but blow up my fair share of canisters in the woods - was lucky enough both never to burn myself or be cautioned for it!

Well to be honest, I blame the education system of the time, not sure what it is like now but then early 70s they tried to teach us to write with fountain pens and ink. I wrote with my left hand, writing with ink and being left handed dosen't really go together. Anyway the English teacher use to walk round the class and get to me, then either flick my ear with a wooden ruler or just clip my funny bone, everytime the ink went everywhere. Well eventually after around a year I'd had enough of this, felt him creeping up behind me, I got up and battered him with the chair fracturing his arm. This led to me being expelled and was basically left to my own devices, And from that point went down hill till I was 14 hot wiring cars, pinching books out of WH Smith, strangely I had a fascination with Egyptology? Don't ask! and still do. Anyway for me to join the Army I had to keep my nose clean for 2 whole years, somehow I managed it and once I was in I then received proper education lessons. Oh and I still write left handed to this day.

I think that many of today's youth are probably going through the same as I did and feel let down by our education system. We are not all and cannot all be academic, for many of us we are just practical which funny enough many who are academic are not, I know because I meet them all the time. Put me in a classroom with most teachers and I'm nodding off within 30 minutes... I'm also of the opinion that the age of criminal responsibility should be raised from 10 years, although I think most will know the difference from right and wrong at that age, I'm not entirely sure that at that age a 10 year old understands the consequences of their actions.

Brilliant post Barney (especially the story of the boats) and resonated a bit. To this day people look at me oddly when they see me writing, telling me I'm writing upside down. Reason was like you I was forced to use a fountain pen as a left hander and got a constant rollicking for smudging everything, which as a left hander you can't help. So ended up with a unique style of writing that I'm stuck with 

I wasn't designed or receptive to academic style teaching, partly lazy, and partly it was very obvious that my destiny wasn't going to be University.

Back to the OP, I think a lot of us were far from angels (though not as bad as Barney!) and I think it's hard to saddle someone with a stupid mistake they made as a spirited youth. So I'm all for a clean slate and give someone a break. In my case it prob took about another 10 years before I grew up 

It's interesting though, with our military a fraction of the size of what it was in the 1970's and 80's, a natural avenue for spirited youngsters has now gone, with nothing really to replace it. 

Yes I have to turn the paper I'm writing on to around 45 degrees, it then looks to everyone that I am writing up the paper. However when I turn the page straight, the writing ends up being level...

E, when I were a lad...

i hated school, my older brother was the academic one and I had to follow his path through the education system. He was articulate, polite, cooperative, clean and tidy. I was often told "you cannot be related to Colin Priestley" because I was completely the opposite. Fighting and buring things in the woods was a regular feature of my weekend life, getting in with the wrong crowd aged 12 almost set my life on the wrong road. An appearance in juvenile court, a serious talking to by my dad (with his belt) did the trick. 

My brother followed a career in architecture, I took up rugby league, playing proffessionaly for approx 10 years. Sport taught me the value of team-work and dicipline. I matured over time and aged 39 I finally did a degree in community justice and law. The morale of my story? We are all a product of our past, we do become a social construct and we respond to the stimulus of life. Some are more fortunate than others but many retain a strong moral code even when the chips are down.

However, Others (usually criminals) often look for a short cut to being wealthy or comfortable, they do become predatory and they don't care about society. Lack of opportunity often stimulates criminality, but I agree we should not criminalise our children....

Well we know some things about this now. We know that the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, the bit responsible for self-control; call it adult behaviour, is still developing until the age of 24ish. we also know that people - mostly boys - that get involved with the law whilst young, peak their criminal behaviour at around the same time and all but about 10% eventually give it up. In fact age is the best crime prevention method.

Also, when boys get long term relationships and jobs their offending declines rapidly.

So, in summary, anything we can do to get young offenders older-headed quicker - like getting a job - we should do, and writing off convictions from a child's record seems very sensible - for once.