Giving Kids a Break

Completing the book’s central argument, the chapter argues that to have a say over the law is to be entitled to exert influence over it, entitled to be free of obstacles to exercising that entitlement, and to be actually free of those obstacles. Since kids have less say over law than adults, in this sense, they have weaker legal reasons to refrain from crimes. They are therefore reduced in culpability for crimes in comparison to adults and deserving of lesser sanction. The chapter also argues that children ought to have less say over the law than adults. An age threshold for the vote serves two interests: an interest in equality, which mandates denial of the vote to children to maintain equality with childless adults, and an interest in persisting self-government, which mandates a mechanism through which today’s adults can have a say over the law after they are dead.