Currently, if a young person of that age is charged, the prosecution must produce evidence that the young person had knowledge that what they were charged with was wrong. This is in addition to also proving all the elements of the crime.

I can also say from past experience as a police officer that before any young person of that age and even older is placed before a court (unless it is a very serious matter), they have usually had fairly extensive dealings with the police and other agencies where they have been warned and cautioned in regard to their behaviour.

This has usually been done with their parents or guardians involved. It is not as if a young person of that age commits a minor crime and is immediately put before court and becomes involved in the criminal justice system.

If the law is changed to make it so that no young person under the age of 14 is criminally responsible, it will mean that a 13-year-old will be able to commit very serious offences, with the police and legal system powerless to act. These would include include sexual assaults, vicious assaults against teachers or young children, driving offences including manslaughter (yes, some of them do steal and drive cars) and numerous other anti-social crimes.

I have been involved with victims of crime and know the anguish they feel about what they perceive as inadequate sentences. Just imagine the anguish of parents if their young child has been seriously assaulted by a 13-year-old and the police tell them they are powerless to act.

I suggest rather than changing the law to give more licence for people to act criminally, that we do more to try to protect law-abiding members of the community and not make the job of the police even more difficult and frustrating.

Alan Castle, Weston

Simon Corbell and others want to change the age of responsibility for young offenders from 10 to 14, although how this might help reduce rising youth crime rates is not explained. It is a typical political solution to a problem – change the definition of youth crime and bingo, the numbers fall and the (political) problem goes away!

Roger Dace, Reid

Simon Corbell, in joining the campaign to raise the criminal age of responsibility, said it "would reflect international best practice".

A quick scan of the age of criminality in Europe shows most countries set the age of responsibility at 14. Closer inspection shows many of those which differ exclude serious crimes from a prima facie age of 14. It could be that the better practice is not that practiced by the majority.

One of the least considered but absolutely fundamental objectives of the very expensive criminal justice system is public protection.

Young people "not able to fully comprehend the consequence of their actions" are surprisingly likely to rapidly comprehend that negligible punishment results from their personal indulgence of highly satisfying urges.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

I was surprised to read that Zaki Mehchy of the Syrian Centre for Policy Research "dismisses the portrayal of the Syrian state before the war as 'stable' and 'secular"' (Sunday Canberra Times, June 17).

I was in Syria in 2005, before the war, and it was exactly secular and stable. I remember the various Armenian Christian churches in Aleppo, I visited the town of Maaloula where the language of Jesus, Aramaic, was still spoken, and in the cities women in veils did not seem very evident.

The country seemed stable, albeit with dictator Assad, so one did not stick one's head above the parapet. Whatever the sins of Assad, the country was in peace, in complete contrast to the state of the country today.

Rod Holesgrove, O'Connor

Your editorial "A reminder patriarchy still rules" (June 19, p16) simply lumps together all violence against women, including domestic violence and sexual assaults by strangers.

It says "changing the culture of men perpetrating violence against women will take time". Changing the culture is certainly necessary and it is encouraging to see that society is coming to grips with it.

However, the editorial completely overlooks the fact that there are sexual predators out there who are always on the lookout for vulnerable victims. These people are beyond the reach of culture change and always will be.

The Melbourne police officer's warning about needing to take care when walking home should not be derided as "patriarchy" but acknowledged as sensible advice from one who is in a position to be well-informed.

This is in the same category of advice that parents give their children about not speaking to seemingly friendly strangers in the street or entering strange vehicles. It is simply wise to avoid being unnecessarily vulnerable.

Rolf Hoppe, Campbell

Peter Grabosky (Letters, June 21) rightly observes a "proportion of blame for wartime atrocities must be reserved for politicians who drape themselves in our flag and create those extreme circumstances by sending our young people off to needless and futile conflicts".

We should not be amazed when soldiers we have trained to kill, placed in hideous and disorienting circumstances, do not always behave like school prefects. But we share the guilt when we do not call to account pompous politicians who ordered our "defence" forces overseas to attack specious threats and elusive foes.

Don Burns, Mawson

I believe that Julie Bishop is a hard-working and effective foreign minister, but I think she exhibits a serious inconsistency in pointing out how Chinese financing arrangements could damage the sovereignty of Pacific Island states.

Have not Australian financing arrangements with the Republic of Nauru (where I lived and worked in happier times) seriously damaged that country's sovereignty, as we turned it into a place to warehouse boat arrivals who we did not want to process on Australian territory?

The same case can be made less starkly in the case of Manus Island and the PNG government.

It is just this sort of double standard which is likely to see more Pacific Island states enjoying the prospect of playing Australia and China off against each other, as the PNG government has recently moved to do.

Jeff Hart, Kingston

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