Examining the expert reports on children driven to crime evaluated within the scope of article 31 of The Turkish Penal Code

In Criminal Law, minority is one of the reasons that eliminates or significantly reduces criminal responsibility. For this reason, it is not possible to decide on the punishment for the juvenile who is dragged into crime, whose ability to direct his behaviors is not sufficiently developed. However, the security measures regulated in the Child Protection Law can be applied to them. In the related study, it is aimed to present the judicial reports and judicial decisions prepared by examining the expert reports prepared about the children who have completed the age of twelve but not completed the age of fifteen. In the study, 110 randomly selected reports of delinquent childrens, evaluated by Çukurova University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, were examined retrospectively. Descriptive statistics of the data obtained from the study are given with mean, standard deviation for numerical variables, and frequency and percentage analysis for categorical variables. Relationships between categorical variables were tested with Chi-square analysis. 89.09% of the children dragged into crime were boys, 10.91% were girls, their average age at the time of the crime was 13.82±0.72, 61.82% were still in education, 38.18% were it has been determined that 43.64% of them have developed the ability to perceive and direct their behavior as a result of the report, while 56.36% of them have an undeveloped report result. The judicial authorities decided not to prosecute 16.36% of the children, 15.46% of them continued their judgment, 0.91% of them were only given a precautionary decision, 17.27% of them were sentenced, 10%, it was determined that 10% of them were acquitted as a result of the judgment, and 40.00% of them were decided that there was no room for a penalty. Our country's institutions need to strengthen their capacity to work together. In addition, it is thought that the legislator should re-evaluate the starting age of criminal responsibility. Keywords: Child Protection Law, Age, Security Measures, Criminal Liability, Turkish Penal Code, Minority