Prepare yourself for shocks. In Britain:

Ten-year-olds have been charged with robbery.

Ten-year-olds have been charged with assault on a police officer.

Ten-year-olds have been charged with rape.

The November 12 Timescited 270 cases of 10-year-old perpetrators of major crimes from April 2005 to March of 2006. The Youth Justice Board also reported that, nationwide, between 2004 and 2005, violent offences by 10-year-olds rose 33 percent. Worse yet, “Experts say the real number of sexual crimes committed by primary school children may be much higher ….”

“I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and a large proportion start offending from as young as 8 or 9,” said Julia Davidson, an expert on child crime and lecturer at Westminster University. As young as 8 or 9. That’s second-, third- and fourth-graders committing felonies.

In one case, an 11-year-old boy raped an 8-year-old girl. Who would even consider such a thing possible? Perhaps the public has grown accustomed to teenage crime, but prepubescent violent crime is mind-numbing. It jars our notions of modern childhood. Eleven-year-olds and shoplifting shouldn’t be in the same sentence together, let alone 11-year-olds and rape.

Our inclination, perhaps, is to dismiss 10-year-old criminals as freaks, anomalies, accidents on the extreme fringes of society. But it should force us to ask some serious questions about our society.

Such things were simply inconceivable a generation ago. What in our society has changed that we are producing such monsters? Ten-year-olds committing violent crimes casts a stark light on the violently ill state of today’s British society.

In the recent past, people were shocked by teenage pregnancy and divorce—both now commonplace. How common will 10-year-olds committing atrocities become? Once barriers are broken down, it is virtually impossible to set them back up.

How does one deal with a 10-year-old with rape on his record, anyway? Is rehabilitation possible? A March United Nations report said, “Statistical studies on large samples of young offenders in the U.S., England and many other countries have evaluated whether a sentence of prison, service in the community or probation stops the juvenile from re-offending. In sum, they do not.” The report said that the more they are arrested, the likelier they are to commit more crimes in the future.

Ten-year-olds who assault and rape do not grow up to be pillars of society. What will a 10-year-old who has assaulted a police officer do when he’s behind the wheel of a car? Or when he’s old enough to buy alcohol or guns? Can we keep him locked up forever, even if we know it is not helping anything?

The UN report continued with suggestions for paths of action that would, unlike incarceration, etc., actually help reduce juvenile crime. First on the list, “tackling particular social causes (inconsistent parenting, school abandonment, and so on) reduces offending.” Poor parenting, actual fear of kids, is the cause for out-of-control 10-year-olds. The report also admitted that the worse a child’s family situation was, the more likely he was to become a repeat offender.

Yes, it is clear that some families, from which children like these are emerging, are in an unprecedentedly atrocious state. Those problems are exacerbated by the sickness in society at large, amplified by mass media that are increasingly infatuated with perversity.

Because the justice system has no way to deal with 10-year-old criminals effectively, and the family structure of Britain shows no sign of improving, these juveniles will continue to roam the streets into their teens and 20s; other younger people will follow in their footsteps. Our youth are on a course due to become increasing wild and lawless. Until drastic action is taken, the problem of children ruling over us will grow worse.

The situation uniquely fulfills an end-time prophecy penned by Isaiah: “And the people shall be oppressed … the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient …. As for my people, children are their oppressors.”