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Most likely, a 10-year-old would not be incarcerated.
The only reasons I can think of that this might not be the case is if the parents requested she be locked up, or an evil, corrupt judge, or a good judge needed some reason to quickly separate the child from the parents and used the hearing as an opportunity to do that.
Sounds like an episode of Law & order
Law and Order meets Harry Potter...
Well, the thing she definitely (but not proveably) stole is basically something like a mix between the Millenium Puzzle, the Lament Configuration, and the Behelit. Very very bad news to have stolen, and under normal circumstances the only person to have a motive to steal it would be the next dark lord.
Yeah, I read that. It's the 10-year-old part of it that I'm having trouble with.
If she was 15, yeah, no problem, 6 months in juvie.
13 with priors, maybe 30-90 days.
10 years old? There's going to have to be some sort of special circumstances to justify incarceration. The severity of the crime isn't going to do it.
You're going to have to show that she should be treated as a much older teenager, or that the judge is excessively, abusively harsh.
No idea, but it might be important to add in which country the story takes place.
@leave_it_blank
Fantasy setting, gonna be inspired by America because that's what I know. Main change is that lawyers are, by nature of the magic system, always wizards. The actual story takes place in magic school, and this isn't the main character so the trial isn't going to be given much attention.
@Shkshkshk @leave_it_blank
An important bit of context for "based on America" these days: is this America-alike being run by orange Voldemort already?
@pteryx @leave_it_blank
I don't think so. We're going to see *normal* malice from government employees. For example, the macguffin she stole was being displayed in a museum as bait for Baby Voldemort, who happens to be her best friend. Normally the dark lordling isn't a team player and would just charge in and grab it, so there was a security team to nab anyone who tried to steal it and then Get Rid Of Them. Obviously detaining people for pre-crime is not legal, so this was a secret operation.
Location matters, most western democracies have a minimum age for criminal liability and 10 years old would be considered too young to face criminal justice
@Ziggurat
Huh. I never considered that. I think i need to rework her backstory a bit, since I wrote that she'd already been to juvie once in 2nd grade when she turned the school bully into a speedbump. If there's a minimum age for criminal liability, what would happen to that murder charge?
I don't even think they could be legally prosecuted in Canada at that age, let alone placed in a detention facility.
Even if they murdered someone they may just get handed to a mental healthcare situation rather than juvenile detention.
I don't know anything on this topic, so with a grain of salt, might I suggest Child Welfare Services could get involved to figure out why the 10-year-old is tending towards such delinquent behavior at such an early age?
It would depend on where the book is based as trespass will likely range from pay a fine to a couple months in jail.
If the book lawyers can get the charge dropped from theft to trespass, they can likely get the sentence lowered to something meaningless.
For context, the macguffin in question is something like a cross between the Millenium Puzzle and the Lament Configuration. It takes a powerful mind and will to solve it, and the sort of people who are drawn to it will do great things—terrible, yes, but great. It's reasonable to assume this 10-year-old middle-class white girl stole it because she's going to grow up to be the next Voldemort, so I think its reasonable for the judge to throw the book at her.
