As thousands of children and young people return to school from holidays this week, almost 500 Australian children and young people under 14 will be spending another day in prison. You might have seen people posting photos of themselves in year seven on social media with along with #MeAt13, a message to decision makers that 13-year olds belong in school, not prison as part of the #RaiseTheAge movement.
So, what is #RaiseTheAge and why is it so important?
In Australia children as young as 10 can be arrested, charged, taken before court and imprisoned. The #RaiseTheAge campaign calls for federal, state and territory governments to change this so that children and young people aged 10 to 13 aren’t sent to prison.
Across Australia, in just one year, almost 600 children and young people aged 10 to 13 years were locked up, and thousands more were put through the criminal legal system. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately impacted by these laws and pushed into prison cells at even higher rates, accounting for the majority of 10 to 13-year-olds in prisons.
When children and young people are put through criminal legal processes at such a key period in their development they can suffer serious harm to their health, wellbeing and future.
The State’s current approach breaches Australia’s commitments to several human rights conventions (including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatments), while also failing to recognise the medical evidence regarding the brain development of children and young people.
Many of the young people detained in South Australia have experiences of trauma, child protection intervention, relationship breakdowns in their families and they can experience barriers in life resulting from foetal alcohol syndrome and learning disabilities.
Because of the risk of harm that comes with breaching the rights of young people in detention, raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years old is supported by our State’s Commissioners for Children and Young people and many national and international legal, health, community, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations.
It’s way past time
Late last year state Attorneys-General committed to developing a proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years old – despite the fact that advocates both nationally and internationally have long called for a raise to 14.
All 16 of Australian’s children’s commissioners and guardians, which includes South Australia’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People and Guardian for Children and Young People, responded with a joint statement to say that this is not raising the age far enough nor is the process moving quick enough. They have together urged all state and territories to introduce legislation to raise the age to 14.
Who is behind #RaiseTheAge?
#RaiseTheAge was developed by a group of legal, medical and social justice organisations, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community owned organisations. This includes National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, Change the Record, Human Rights Law Centre, Law Council of Australia, Amnesty International Australia, Australian Medical Association, Royal Australasian College of Physicians and Public Health Association of Australia.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has also called on countries to raise the age to at least 14 years old.
Why is 12 years old not high enough?
Raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old would improve the lives of approximately 44 (9%) of the 499 young people aged 10–17 detained in Australia. By not raising the age to 14 we are leaving most detained young people at risk.
Figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that here in South Australia where pre-court detention is available, more than half of all young people in detention were unsentenced. This means that our system is locking up children and young people and putting them at risk before they’re even sentenced in court.
Also in South Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are overrepresented in detention at 28 times the rate of non-Aboriginal young people despite representing only 4.5% of the general population aged 10-17 years old.
Children and young people 13 and under are not at a stage of development where they may be able to fully understand the impact or consequences of their actions – cruelty aside imprisonment is not an approach that works.
What is the alternative for 10 to 13-year-olds?
It’s rare for people this young to be charged with serious offences of violence, the majority are funnelled into the criminal legal system for offences of theft, burglary and property-related crime.
When children and young people aged between 10 and 13 are alleged to have caused harm to another person this is a sign that something has gone wrong in their lives. Violent actions from people this young are often directly linked to experiences of trauma, neglect, and harm or unaddressed mental or physical health problems.
Rather than criminalising trauma, South Australia needs to invest in an alternative for placing young people in secure care while waiting to be sentenced as well as further development of diversion pathways. South Australia could redistribute the funds required to incarcerate young people under 14 to community-led early intervention to address underlying issues faced by young people and to build the capacity of the youth sector to better support young people before they enter the youth justice system.
Basically, rather than punishing 10-year-olds for the things that have happened to them, we invest in prevention services to support them so they never enter the criminal legal system in the first place.
It's way past time to raise the age of criminal responsibility, this isn’t political, it is human rights.
You can also read our joint submission calling on the Council of Attorneys-General & the Federal Government to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 (2020) with our sister peaks across the country here.
