Criminal Liability & Political Culture (Term Paper Sample)

School: Ateneo de Davao University Course and Department: Political Science under Arts and Social Sciences Subject: Political Sociology Lowering the Age of Criminality and Political Culture in the Philippines The Unpatchable Cracks in Juvenile Justice Child criminals and the proposed justifications for lowering the age have already entered the Senate readings. The lowering of the age of criminal liability to the age of twelve is now said to be the strategic and practical response to the changing times. The bill which seeks to address such rampant social issue regarding children committing crime lies behind the rationale that even at a young age, these individuals should already be held liable and accountable similarly in the case of adult criminals. Political actors navigate themselves in looking at a different angle where at the adaptation of social changes, criminal liability somehow starts to not know strict boundaries or age limit. Thus, although the first proposal of lowering the age at nine, still the consensus of lowering it at the age of twelve still went on. The issue leads us to understand behind and beyond juvenile justice which is the question as to why these children, despite at a very young age, commit crimes. Moreover, oppositions of the passed bill in lowering the age have contended that children at this age are yet to fully achieve the right discernment about right and wrong actions. This is why for these opposing actors, lowering criminal liability is never justified by mere using face value. There are considerable circumstances and conditions that have gravely shaped these individuals and made them do what they have done. The framework of Political Culture explains this case. Before I proceed to Keith Faulk’s argument on the concept of Political Culture, I explain first the typical and conventional usage of such a framework which relies on the idea of supportive and stable shared value systems. Moreover, this concept is often taken into a behavioralist perspective. Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba were the two main proponents on the concept of Political culture which claims the notion that political behavior is best explained by the shared core values and social trust between individuals and political institutions that underpin a successful civil society (Faulks, 2000). In the case of juvenile delinquency, the mentioned presumption applies here by saying that these children’s actions towards the law are well understood by the shared values of the society they belong to. The particular patterns of orientations to political actions will help explain the relationship of these children and the law or the relationship between civil society and the state. The problem comes in when political culture is only understood in terms of shared stable moral values within a system or society. Because Political Culture, in a behavioralist perspective, is seen to be as an important link in understanding the relationship between civil society and the state, a problem in these so-called child criminals would mean a problem or decline of moral and supportive value systems in their society as well. The debate on “Children vs. Law” fundamentally contends that most children who commit crimes come from poor and dysfunctional families. Most of these children not only come from poor families but this leads to another connecting idea that an impoverished environment also creates an environment conducive to crime. And to think that a proposed law or bill has already been gearing its progress, it greatly reflects that such negative environment has become bigger and systemic which is why the legislative body resorted to the strategic plan or legislation to lower the criminal liability. In the context of the Philippines, the political culture of young criminals as violators of the law shaped the individuals, and the ripple effect continues within the society or system. This kind of political culture in the country is very crucial because culture shapes behavior, it is needed to understand the difference between people, and it is a framework that facilitates us in understanding people and the society. And with that, a state of declining shared values affects governance and disrupts societal life. The arguments mentioned above, which obviously is the most accepted justification, is problematic because such an approach in the analysis of lowering criminal liability is uncritically. Keith Faulk’s (2000) argument on Political Culture claims that although values do form an important context of governance is the effectiveness of its political mechanisms and the level to which individuals can utilize their citizenship and participate democratically. He may have agreed on Almond and Verba, but Faulks concludes its criticism on Almond and Verba’s concept on political culture as having an elitist view of the state. In the case of this social issue, it expects the civil society to be more educated and informed without really critically examining the power relations involved in every political culture. This now becomes a challenge to the civil society because political culture greatly affects their behavior and response to the state. Using Keith Faulk’s argument, most of the proponents of political culture have only dwelled on the idea that attitudes and political behaviors are essentially needed to a successful political system. However, there is no critical approach in understanding that even political culture is partly a product of the dispersed state power which allows political and economic elites to shape and influence the agenda. Lowering the minimum age of criminal liability would never guarantee lower crime rates. Official data from the Juvenile Justice Welfare Council that children below 15 years of age commit only 1.7% of all crimes in the Philippines (Elemia 2016). These poor children may have suffered from syndicates that use them as means, but we have failed to understand another form of syndicates which refers to the well-organized syndicate in the political arena that uses the “protection of these children” by criminalizing these children as a mask of the...