Dave Chappelle, comedian, does a very funny yet thought-provoking skit on age and responsibility. The question arose about musician R. Kelly’s 2002 arrest for urinating on a girl who at the time of the alleged incident was 14 years old. The girl in question at one point is said to have consented to being peed on, but still everyone criticized Mr. Kelly because in either case the “girl” was underage and shouldn’t have been sexually involved with an adult. Poor girl, right? Didn’t realise the consequences of her consent, etc. etc.
Then another incident Dave Chappelle discusses is about Lionel Tate, who when he was 12 years old was play-wrestling with a 6 year old girl using moves similar to what he had seen TV wrestlers do. The 6 year old girl died from injuries sustained from this “game”. The boy was arrested and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Apparently he should have known by the time he was 12 years old that his actions have consequences, etc. etc.
Finally he talks about Elizabeth Smart, a girl who when she was 14 years old was abducted from her home and taken captive by a couple who lived not very far from her own family home. According to the way Dave Chappelle tells it, she wasn’t physically restrained or locked up, but was advised by her captors not to flee. She obeyed. She remained at this site from June to August 2002 before being relocated elsewhere for a further six or seven months. But for at least two months she was situated very close to her own home, possibly within walking distance, often unsupervised at this place, not locked up or restrained – and yet she remained docile to her captors without allegedly even attempting to flee. Of course, it was unfortunate and not her fault at all that she was abducted, but shouldn’t she have known by the age of 14 years that her actions have consequences, that she could and should act, etc. etc.? Poor girl, right? Didn’t know what to do.... But wait, Lionel Tate knew exactly what to do and how to do it apparently by age 12!
The reason that these stories have come to my mind recently is because of the “poor boy” who was arrested in Indonesia and is being tried for drug-related charges. He is an Australian citizen and he is 14 years old. Those two facts are the main reasons we are enticed to have sympathy for this “boy”. He is alleged to have bought drugs while on holidays in Indonesia. Apparently he didn’t realise the gravity or consequences of his actions either because of his young age or because of his alleged addiction to the drug he sought, etc. etc.
So how old is old enough? How old is 14, really? Old enough to know better, or too young to know what you’re doing? If it’s not old enough, then let the “poor boy” in Indonesia out of prison to live his life and learn what is good and what is right and what isn’t. And let 14 year old girls decide if they want to have sex with adult men or whether they want to get peed on or not without prosecuting the adult involved. But if 14 is really too young to know better, then Lionel Tate deserves a big apology for the malice attributed to him when he was 12 and killed his 6 year old playmate. Luckily for him, this did in fact happen and he was eventually released from prison and went on to learn what is good and what is bad... (Almost a “and he lived happily ever after” story, except for the fact that when he was released from prison he went and committed other crimes that bought him a fresh 30 years incarceration that he can no longer blame on his young age.)
The ability to make “adult” human decisions relies on the prefrontal cortex of the brain. This part of the human body does not reach its full developmental peak until you hit your early 20s. To me this has some interesting implications not only related to criminal law (as demonstrated in the examples above), but also to medical ethics, and to psychosocial development. In medicine we accept that children (by Australian law, under the age of 18 years) may competently consent to some things like taking a contraceptive tablet, having a blood test, allowing a physical examination by a health professional, etc. By the same token, the same person at the same age may be considered not competent enough to consent to, for example, reproductive sterilization or an organ transplantation / donation. It’s a matter of being competent enough, recognising that a person’s cognitive development is a dynamic thing evolving across multiple tracks until, hopefully, they all eventually reach a maximum and you reach your “adult” competence stage.
The other interesting thing about this gradual stepwise development in our ‘human nature’ relates back to the previous discussion on criminality. Maybe instead of focusing on “is 14 years old enough to be considered responsible for a crime?”, we should consider “is this person who is still in the dynamic stage of their cognitive development able to be taught or rehabilitated to make choices that will decrease their chances of becoming further involved in criminal activity in the future?” Remember Lionel Tate? He was 12 in 1999 when he killed the six-year-old girl. In 2001 he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was later released on appeal in 2004. In total he was in criminal detention from the ages of 12 until he was 17. What did Lionel Tate learn from the ages of 12 to 17? Who knows. But this would have been an amazingly opportune time to teach him exactly what the consequences to a person’s actions are, what taking responsibility means, how to get ahead in life without victimizing others for your own advancement. Would he have been a different person if this had happened? Who knows. But really, what have we got to lose?
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