For years, Sierra Leone’s minimum age of criminal responsibility has been obscured by outdated assumptions, conflicting legislation and inconsistent practice. The Child Rights Act 2025 now draws a decisive line at fourteen—but does the country’s criminal justice system fully appreciate what this significant reform demands?
The article interrogates the difficult boundary between childhood, culpability and punishment. Drawing on Sierra Leonean legislation and comparative jurisprudence, it examines criminal capacity, age determination and the dangers of subjecting children to adult-oriented criminal processes.
It argues that children below fourteen must never be prosecuted, while those between fourteen and eighteen should be dealt with through a genuinely child-centred system founded on diversion, rehabilitation and reintegration. It is ultimately a call for a justice system that protects society without abandoning the children it is expected to reform.