In the case of a 12-year-old girl accused of killing three members of a Medicine Hat family, 24 months make the difference between facing six years behind bars or life.
By CanWest News ServiceApril 27, 2006
CALGARY -- In the case of a 12-year-old girl accused of killing three members of a Medicine Hat family, 24 months make the difference between facing six years behind bars or life.
Two years older, and the youngster could receive an adult sentence for a first-degree murder conviction. She would be given a life term with no chance of parole for 25 years, unless she was given special consideration after 15 years in prison.
"We've vacillated over the years about what the age of responsibility should be in Canada," said University of Calgary professor Chris Levy.
"At what point does a kid become mature enough?"
Fourteen is one of the marks set in Canada when Ottawa unveiled changes to the youth justice system in 2003.
Because the girl is under 14, the maximum penalty is a 10-year youth sentence.
And no more than six of those years can be spent in custody at a young offenders centre.
The rest of the sentence would be served under supervision in the community.
Once that's done, she'd be free. Adult murderers, meanwhile, are monitored for life.
It's also highly unlikely the 12-year-old girl will ever be named, even if she's convicted.
The Youth Criminal Justice Act prohibits identifying children aged 12 to 17 accused or convicted of a crime, unless they receive an adult sentence.
Regardless of her age, adult sentences for murders by children are uncommon in Canada.
Mark Totten, who co-wrote the book When Children Kill: Youth Homicide in Canada, said mixing children with adult criminals is not a good idea.
"If people were aware of the degree of violence in adult prisons, both physically and sexually," they would be shocked, Totten said.
"Kids are not born bad. They are not created to kill."
For their book, Totten and Katharine Kelly, an associate professor of sociology at Carleton University in Ottawa, studied 19 youngsters convicted of murder and manslaughter. Some had grown up in violent families; others were frustrated and angry with the circumstances of their lives.
In Medicine Hat, it's not yet clear what motivated the murders of a couple and their eight-year-old son on Sunday.
A 12-year-old girl and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Allan Steinke, each face three counts of first-degree murder.
It's believed no child this young has ever stood accused of so many murder charges. The fact that one of the accused killers is a girl makes the case more uncommon.
Between 1974 and 2004, 32 children aged 12 were accused of homicide, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics reports. Six were girls.
The last time a 12-year-old faced a homicide charge was six years ago, according to the federal Justice Department.
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