The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for the Government to consider raising the age at which children can be charged with criminal offences.

Dr Rowan Williams also said jailing women with young children should be a "very last resort".

He argued that young people were joining gangs because they lacked "a sense of belonging and direction" caused by family breakdown.

Campaigners believe the age of criminal responsibility - currently 10 in England and Wales - should be increased to avoid labelling children as delinquents from an early age. They say young offenders with troubled backgrounds may not be mature enough to know the difference between right and wrong.

Dr Williams said raising the age of criminal responsibility could be a way of recognising that most children involved in crime needed "somehow to be treated as children".

He told the Sunday Telegraph: "The tragedy of where we are at present is that, at one and the same time, children are treated like adults and at other levels they are left to flounder in real immaturity and neediness.

"I think an attitude to criminal law which recognised something of that neediness wouldn't do them any harm.

"It's not to weaken the seriousness of what they do, but to say that to deal with it fairly and justly you actually need to remember that quite often a 15-year-old or 16-year-old may still in very many important respects still genuinely be a child."

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "Where possible, the Government is keen to ensure that children and young people are not prosecuted through court.

"However, we believe that children aged 10 and over can differentiate between bad behaviour and serious wrongdoing."