The ACT has become the first jurisdiction in Australia to push to raise the age of criminal responsibility.
The minimum age of criminal responsibility in Australia is 10. In 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Childs determined 14 years as the minimum age of criminal responsibility.
On Thursday, August 20th, The Legislative Assembly motion passed, detailing that consideration should be given to medical evidence on cognitive capacity of children over 14, and there should be an option to provide exemptions for more serious criminal offences.
The responsibility will lie on the whichever parties form the government following the ACT election in October.
As The Guardian reports, the executive director of the Gugan Gulwan youth Aboriginal corporation, Kim Davison, said raising the age of criminal responsibility was “the first step to keeping our kids safe, healthy and out of the dangerous quicksand of the criminal legal system”.
“Children deserve care, support and help when they are in trouble – not prison cells and paddy wagons.”
The push to raise the age of criminal responsibility reached a groundswell last month following a congregation of peak bodies representing youth advocates, doctors and lawyers urged Australia’s top legal officers to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility before a meeting of the Council of Attorneys-General (CAG).
As it stands around 600 kids aged between 10 and 13 years old end up in Australian youth detention each year. First Nations children account for around 6o per cent of these kids behind bars, and are 25 times more likely to be in detention.
“Almost all the 10 and 11 year olds are Indigenous,” Dr Kelly Richards told triple j’s Hack. “If we were to raise the age we would have a really profound impact in addressing that dramatic overrepresentation of Indigenous kids in detention.”
Anoushka Jeronimus from Victoria Legal Aid echoed this sentiment.
“Raising the age of criminal responsibility is a concrete step in closing the justice gap and would have a real impact on young kids, on their families and their communities.”
