Raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12 a missed opportunity to protect children

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and the Human Rights Law Centre are calling a proposal made at yesterday’s Meeting of Attorneys General (MAG) to develop a plan to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old, an absolute missed opportunity to look after children. 

Both medical evidence and international standards put 14 years as the minimum age a child should be held criminally responsible. The proposal by the Attorneys-General is completely out of step. 

If state and territory governments raise the age to 12 years old, 456 out of the 499 children under 14 in prison last year will remain locked away behind bars. In prison, children are strip searched, left alone in their cells for around 12 hours a day, and regularly subject to lockdowns amounting to solitary confinement. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately impacted, accounting for 65% of the younger children sent to prison as a result of differential treatment and the criminalisation of disadvantage. 

Lee-Anne Carter, Statewide Community Justice Programs Leader (VALS), a proud Wiradjuri and Noongar woman:

“After years of legal and medical experts making it very clear that the age of criminal responsibility must be at least 14 years old, it is nothing short of devastating to hear that the Attorneys-General around this country have made a decision not to raise the age to 14. That this country’s leading legal officers choose to ignore human rights norms, indisputable medical evidence, and Aboriginal voices is shocking. You can’t celebrate the Closing the Gap Agreement and the establishment, in Victoria, of the first Australian Truth and Justice Commission, while simultaneously filling prisons with Aboriginal children.”

Meena Singh, Senior Advisor, Human Rights Law Centre a proud Yorta Yorta woman: 

“This proposal would see twelve year olds - who are in grade 5 or grade 6 and only just starting to walk to school by themselves - arrested by the police, hauled before the courts and sent to prisons. It beggars belief that the chief law officers across the country can be so complacent when it comes to raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility to keep children safe and out of prisons. This plan, which flies in the face of all expert and international advice, will do nothing to help children and their families."

Last year dozens of organisations, legal, health and First Nations experts made submissions to the Attorneys General calling for the minimum age of criminal responsibility to be raised to at least 14 as a minimum. So far, only the ACT has committed to raise the age to 14. Earlier this year at the UN, countries from across the world condemned Australia’s low age of criminal responsibility and called on Australian governments to raise the age to at least 14 years. 

“That Aboriginal children will continue to be locked up across the country, at alarming rates, as a result of this decision, is simply unacceptable. The impact of this decision will further entrench the systemic disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal children. Aboriginal children who come into contact with the criminal legal system are vulnerable and are already extremely disadvantaged. They often present with multiple complex needs, disabilities, trauma and are, more than likely, subject to child protection orders,” said Carter. 

“The Victorian Government should be keeping up with other progressive jurisdictions like the ACT and committing to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years. The evidence is crystal clear - locking up children is harmful and traumatising and does not make the community any safer,” said Singh.

Media contact:
Patrick Cook, Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, 0417 003 910, pcook@vals.org.auMichelle Bennett, Engagement Director, 0419 100 519, michelle.bennett@hrlc.org.au