For a long time in Australia, 10 has been the age that someone can be held responsible
for a crime. Which basically means primary school-aged children who break the law can
be locked up. When I say it's been this way for a long time, I mean a long time.
This law was created way back in 1914 under the Crimes Act,
which says a child younger than 10 cannot be held responsible for breaking the law.
But if a child is older than 10, they can be charged for a crime.
Specific laws for children haven't always been around. Until the 19th century,
kids in Australia were just considered "little adults", so they generally followed the same rules
as everyone else. Although, as society changed and we found out more about how children develop,
governments brought in laws to protect kids and these have been revised over
time to keep up with our changing views. In 1989 the UN developed the Convention
on the Rights of the Child, which is now the international standard of rights and protection
for children. Their recommendation for the age of criminal responsibility a minimum of 14.
But, here in Australia, this law hasn't really evolved,
and It's led to an ongoing debate about whether a 10-year-old is too young to be
held criminally responsible. At 10 years of age,
you are only just deemed sufficiently responsible to get your pen license.
We are already seeing too many young people getting off lightly without any consequences.
Australia is one of the only developed countries in the world to still jail children as young as
10. The global average is 14 and, internationally, Australia has been criticised for it, a lot.
Canada recommends that Australia, one, increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility...
Raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility...
Raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to an internationally accepted level.
In 100 years’ time, they are going to look back at us and say ‘They locked kids up who were 10,
11 and 12? What were they thinking to do this?’ We'll be considered barbarians.
According to a team of justice and health organisations,
almost 500 children under the age of 14 were locked up in 2020 alone.
I've experienced senior ministers, you know government, saying,
‘Look how better we are than the last mob because we are locking more
people up!’ They wear it as a badge of honour. Even though Indigenous children only make up 6% of
children in Australia, they are disproportionately represented in detention centres.
I think it's around about 65% of children from 10 to 13 years of age in the justice
system are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Children, and that's really appalling.
A 2021 report by the Commission for Children and Young People suggests this over-representation
isn't because Indigenous children are more criminal, but because they are treated
differently from non-Indigenous children by police. And they often face more disadvantages,
such as poverty, homelessness, family violence and mental illness.
You have to have good health. You have to have a good home. Parents have to be able
to have a safe home you know. If you don’t have a safe home, you don’t have a good home,
you don’t have a good life, a healthy life, how are you supposed to give that to your kids?
Racism and intergenerational trauma, which is trauma passed down to younger generations in
families, also add to these disadvantages and can increase the likelihood of a child
breaking the law. A government report from 2020 recommended that state and territory leaders raise
the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14. The report argues that children younger than this
are unlikely to understand how serious their actions and the consequences for them are.
Yes, we understand these kids have done something wrong, but at the end of the day
they are still kids, they need to be treated as kids and they need to be supported as kids.
But detention has been found to interfere with brain development and add to trauma.
A lot of our kids come from dysfunctional families. They’ve had so much trauma in
their lives and most times they’re doing things so they can have a feed or so they can feel safe,
or they can have shelter and that’s not taken into consideration. When you put someone into a
youth detention centre, you're not providing wrap around services to change their lives.
And the younger a child is when they're first locked up,
the more likely they are to be locked up again. There's a 70% recidivism rate amongst those
children, so locking them up is not working. Criminalising children under 14 does not work,
it does not make the community safer. We've got a recipe for making kids
worse when they come out. Not everyone is on board with
raising the age, though. Some politicians believe it may encourage young people to
break the law and make communities with high levels of crime more unsafe.
How is that sending a message to young people that if you do the wrong thing,
you will be held responsible. At the end of the day, if the
safest thing for the community is that young person being held in detention,
then that's where they should be held. Others believe it won't make much difference,
and instead the government should be looking at other ways to prevent youth crime.
What we need is programs that keep young people out of detention not simply raising the criminal
age of responsibility and putting this problem off until someone reaches the age of 14.
At the moment, the age of criminal responsibility is not Federal Law,
which means each state and territory gets to decide if they want to change it.
The ACT has been the only government to commit to raising the age to 14,
but this will take a few years to come into play. The NT recently raised the age to 12
and Tasmania says that children under 14 won't be locked up but they'll still be prosecuted.
Australia is still a long way behind international standards and expectations, and unless our laws
catch up, international pressure, and criticism right here in Australia, won't be going away.