NT Raises the Age of Criminal Responsibility to 12

Bruce · 29 November 2022 23:14

The Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in Australia to raise the age of Criminal Responsibility from 10 years old to 12 years.

The legislation also specifies that children aged 12 or 13 years old can only be considered criminally responsible for an offence “if the child knows that [their] conduct is wrong”.

Lawyers, human rights advocates and First Nations people have long been outspoken critics of the current age of criminal responsibility in Australia, with calls to raise the age across all jurisdictions.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s national children’s commissioner, Anne Hollonds, said on a recent visit to the territory she was told about a 10-year-old being jailed for stealing food.

What is the minimum age a child can be charged with a crime in your country?

Maree · 30 November 2022 06:20

It’s 10, that’s why Jamie Bulger’s murderers could be put on trial and found guilty

I think 10 is better, they know the difference between right and wrong by then

Plus the gangs use children to do their dirty work because they can’t be charged and by 12 they can be really useful to them

d00d · 30 November 2022 07:15

there’s a map … interesting.

butterscotch · 30 November 2022 08:12

Just on a cursory search, that seems to have more to do with the conditions of the juvenile facilities than it has to do with the principle of not holding children responsible for their actions or helping families with children who are having problems.

In NT, a juvenile facility was found to be tear-gassing, spit-hooding and having problems with sexual abuse. The facility also sent children to adult correction facilities.

Increasing the age of criminal responsibility lessens the load on these juvenile facilities, but what happens to children with problems?

Across the country, the juvenile justice system is in crisis, according to families of incarcerated young people, lawyers and human rights advocates. There have been calls for urgent reforms in WA, the Northern Territory and Tasmania, while federal, state and territory governments have committed to reducing juvenile detention rates by 30% by 2031.

This week WA’s corrective services minister, Bill Johnston, announced a review into the state’s juvenile justice legislation. He acknowledged the state is facing a “changing youth justice landscape”.

The review will also examine the over-representation of young Aboriginal people in detention, the impact of cognitive impairment disabilities and the separation and isolation of detainees.

In a report released in April, the state’s custodial inspector, Eamon Ryan, found there had been 24 attempted suicides at Banksia Hill between January and November of 2021.

Neil Morgan, who inspected WA’s adult prisons and its sole juvenile detention centre for more than a decade, says conditions at the facility are contributing to declines in the behaviour of young detainees’ mental health, causing them to act out.

“If you weren’t ill before you went there, you would be ill within a very short time of being in that facility,” he says. “This is completely counter-therapeutic and yet that’s where we put young people who are most in need and most at risk.”

Morgan says the transfer of young offenders to the adult prison is a sign the system is buckling under the strain.

Don Dale was internationally condemned in 2016 after media revealed children at the facility were teargassed and spit-hooded. Public outcry led to the 2017 royal commission into the detention and protection of children in the Northern Territory.

Last year the NT government settled a class action, paying $35m to former Don Dale detainees mistreated between 2006 and 2017. Meanwhile, lawyers in WA are preparing to bring a class action against the state government over the alleged ill-treatment of Banksia Hill detainees.

Amnesty International’s Rodney Dillion says the centre should be “burned to the ground”, after damning allegations surfaced during the state’s inquiry into institutional child sexual abuse.

The NT government has committed to closing its detention centres within the same timeframe. It also says it’s committed to overhauling the youth justice system and delivering a “progressive” system, focusing on early diversion and intervention programs.

The most recent statistics show there are signs of progress in reducing incarceration in all jurisdictions except for the Northern Territory, where youth detention rates are climbing.