How many legal responsibilities can you be held accountable for at age thirteen? We do not allow you to drive a car, marry, enter the armed forces, purchase cigarettes or decide whether or not you can skip going to school. In legal parlance until you reach your age of majority you are "an infant." Most of the time your parents exercise both control and responsibility for your behavior. When you go to school, the state has designated the school authorities to act for your parents (in loco parentis) for the six to seven hours that you are present. If you fail to obey your parents, the courts can declare that you are a "Person in Need of Supervision."(PINS-Petition) Yet, despite all of these limitations there are certain jurisdictions that will hold you criminally liable as an adult if you commit felonious homicide.[No Minor Matter- http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/maryland... ]
We designate young people as "legal infants" for two distinct reasons: 1. Historically, social reformers wanted children to be taken out of the harsh conditions of wage slavery and put into schools. 2. We did have some reservations about the maturity of the decision making of a person just beginning puberty. If we look back at our English heritage, we can find a time when young people could be executed for over one hundred offenses against persons or property. However, at the same time they could marry, have children and work a fourteen-hour day. With accountability there was a certain degree of sovereignty. Today, it seems that we are more than willing to put a thirteen year old in an adult prison for the rest of his/her life, but not allow him/her to vote or legally consume a beer.
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