Page 2052 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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Association, have called on the ACT Government to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age to further protect vulnerable children in our community; and
(d) on 28 July 2020, the Council of Attorneys-General meeting deferred a decision on raising the age at which children can be held criminally responsible, despite extended consideration of the issue; and
(2) calls on the ACT Government to:
(a) support the raising of the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age;
(b) recognise the need to resource new programs and implement new policy frameworks to support young offenders under the age of 14; and
(c) commission preliminary work to prepare the legislative, policy and resourcing frameworks required for an incoming government to legislate for raising of the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age.
I welcome the opportunity to bring on this motion on behalf of the ACT Greens to call on this Assembly to support raising the age of criminal responsibility here in the territory. The debate surrounding incarcerating children and young people at as young as 10, 11, 12 and 13 revolves around the proven lifelong negative impacts of that incarceration. It is a debate about the criminal justice system’s inability to see children’s offending as, most often, the result of vulnerability, risk factors, and missed opportunities for early intervention support services.
By bringing on this motion here today, we are backing the calls from a range of prominent community groups calling on the ACT government to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14. Groups including, but not limited to, the ACT Human Rights Commission, ACTCOSS, the Aboriginal Legal Service of New South Wales and the ACT, Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services, Gugan Gulwan Youth Aboriginal Corporation, Anglicare New South Wales South and ACT, the Law Society and the Youth Coalition of the ACT have recently called on the ACT government to take this important step to further protect vulnerable children in our community. In their letter to all ACT MLAs, they say:
We should be supporting kids to thrive in family, community and culture, not forcing them into the quicksand of the criminal legal system.
At the time of our open letter, I publicly expressed the ACT Greens’ support for this important reform. Where children are imprisoned, the evidence and research tells us, it sets the trajectory for the rest of their lives and can increase the risk that they will be involved in the adult criminal justice system as they mature. We believe that with the right supports in place and a well-resourced youth sector, we can provide better alternatives to custody for children under 14.
To be clear, it was and remains my strong preference that the standing Council of Attorneys-General should act decisively to make this reform. As I said in the days leading up to the last meeting of that council, if they do not, the ACT should be willing to go it alone. We should not be held to the lowest common denominator on such an important question. The ACT is a good place to advocate for this important
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