A cut-off value of third molar maturity index for indicating a minimum age of criminal responsibility: older or younger than 16 years?

Publication date: Available online 22 May 2019Source: Journal of Forensic and Legal MedicineAuthor(s): Sudheer B. Balla, Subramanyeswara S. Chinni, Ivan Galic, Aditya Mohan Alwala, Pramod Machani, Roberto CameriereAbstractProviding appropriate legal mechanisms, that evaluate the progression of development from the age of childhood innocence to maturity and full responsibility, considered one of the difficult areas of criminal justice policy. The minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) in children varies among countries and differs widely owing to history and culture. Due to rising and brutality of criminal offenses, particularly by juveniles, few countries have lowered the minimum age of criminal responsibility, and many have considered/ considering to do the same. India is one such country in which is under the proposal of lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 16 years. As there is lack of useful age assessment methods, that can indicate whether if the individual in question is younger (<16 years) or older than MACR (≥16 years), the present study was undertaken to derive a specific cut-off value of the third molar maturity index (I3M) for this purpose. The sample consisted of 1078 orthopantomograms (OPTs) from Andhra Pradesh, India, aged between 11 and 20 years (45.4% males and 54.6% females). The reproducibility of I3M was calculated by intra-class correlation coefficients, which showed an intra-rater and inter-rater agreement of 0.912 and 0.891, respec...
Source: Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine - Category: Forensic Medicine Source Type: research