Across Australia, children as young as 10 can be arrested by police, charged with an offence, hauled before a court and locked away in a prison.
Australia is one of the few countries in the world that still incarcerates children as young as 10 years old. Evidence shows that forcing children through a criminal legal process at a critical time in their development leads to lifelong harm to their health, wellbeing and future. NPY Women’s Council supports the #RaiseTheAge campaign and stand with other First Nations leaders advocating to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years to align with the recommendation by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.
65% of children in jail in Australia aged 10-13 are First Nations (Human Rights Law Centre, 2020). First Nations organisations and communities have been calling on governments to raise the age of criminal responsibility for decades, seeing firsthand the harm that incarcerating children can cause. The national campaign to Raise the Age was formed in 2020 by a coalition of First Nations organisations, legal, medical and human rights organisations. The national campaign calls on all state, territory and federal governments to change the legal age of criminal responsibility so that children under the age of 14 cannot be sent to prison. NPY Women’s Council stands with the position of the Raise The Age coalition.
The 2017 Royal Commission into the Detention and Protection of Children in the Northern Territory made a key recommendation to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years old. The Royal Commission found that a hard-line approach would not reduce crime, with research showing that children jailed before the age of 14 are three times more likely to re-offend. Despite these recommendations, in October 2024 the Northern Territory government became the first in the country to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years old, this move came two years after the previous Labor government raised the age to 12. Northern Territory now joins both South Australia and Western Australia where the age of criminal responsibility also sits at just 10 years old.
“We have been talking about three states, three governments, three funding’s and three rules. These are all tough laws for us to follow. NPYWC have been trying to make these laws easier, they should just be dealing with one law.”
- Margaret Smith, NPYWC Chairperson
Research shows youth incarcerated in Australia have a high prevalence of severe neurodevelopmental impairment (Bower et al., 2018). In addition to this, research shows that incarcerating children has ongoing, long-term effects including:
- negative impacts on their general health
- heightened mental health concerns, including an increased risk of suicide, psychiatric disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse
- worse mental health in adulthood
- increase in adult functional limitations
- poor emotional development
- disrupted education leading to poor educational outcomes
- increased rates of recidivism (Ackerman et al., 2024; Barnert et al., 2017)
"They are learning and they are too young to be locked up, they have a long way to go before they know what is right or wrong and what is good for them…
…They shouldn’t be locked up, they need the chance to sit with their family and learn more about what is right or wrong. If they are locked up at that age (10yrs) all they know is how to obey the security guards and live in jail, it is not right."
- Maimie Butler, NPYWC Deputy Chairperson
NPY Women’s Council is part of the Central Australian Youth Justice Committee alongside NAAJA and Justice Reform Initiative, and is working towards improved data access of numbers of young Anangu removed from the NPY Lands into the carceral system.
References
Ackerman, E. & Magram, J. & Kennedy, T.D.. (2024). Systematic Review: Impact of Juvenile Incarceration. Child Protection and Practice. 3. 100083. 10.1016/j.chipro.2024.100083.
Barnert, E. S., Dudovitz, R., Nelson, B. B., Coker, T. R., Biely, C., Li, N., & Chung, P. J. (2017). How Does Incarcerating Young People Affect Their Adult Health Outcomes?. Pediatrics, 139(2), e20162624. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-2624
Bower, C., Watkins, R. E., Mutch, R. C., Marriott, R., Freeman, J., Kippin, N. R., Safe, B., Pestell, C., Cheung, C. S. C., Shield, H., Tarratt, L., Springall, A., Taylor, J., Walker, N., Argiro, E., Leitão, S., Hamilton, S., Condon, C., Passmore, H. M., & Giglia, R. (2018). Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and youth justice: a prevalence study among young people sentenced to detention in Western Australia. BMJ open, 8(2), e019605. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019605
Human Rights Law Centre, (2020, July 27). “Australian governments continue to fail kids by refusing to raise the age at which children can be locked in prison”. https://www.hrlc.org.au/news/2020/7/27/australian-governments-continue-to-fail-kids-by-refusing-to-raise-the-age-at-which-children-can-be-locked-in-prison