The Northern Territory is the first Australian jurisdiction to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility above 10 years of age.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 It's a welcome change. It's a positive first step in continuing to reform our youth justice
00:07 system in the Northern Territory and shifting away from an over-punitive model to a truly
00:17 early interventional and therapeutic model of youth justice. It is a long overdue reform.
00:29 These recommendations to raise the age to 12 were made way back in 2017. We've seen
00:36 long delays, delay after delay, but we do welcome that this is finally happening today.
00:44 What many people would say, however, is that raising the age to 12 isn't enough to bring
00:51 us in line with the international standard as recommended in 2019 by the Committee on
00:58 the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Committee that is, which recommended 14. So
01:04 again, it does bring us further in line with international standards. Yes, it's a welcome
01:11 step.
01:12 The NT government says that the reason it took so long to implement the change is that
01:15 it had to set up youth diversion programs in tandem with this move for those aged 11
01:22 now and under. How do they work?
01:28 We have youth diversion programs operating at present. Children right up to the age of
01:35 18 can be referred to youth diversion programs at a number of stages in the youth justice
01:42 or the criminal justice system. What this does provide is additional services to capture
01:52 and support young people that are coming into crisis, have some sort of issues going on
01:57 in their life that cause them to offend. So that was the reasons that we've heard for
02:04 delays in previous years. But again, it's welcome that we have raised the age. We do
02:13 need the services. We need services that support young people. We welcome working with the
02:20 government. We're open to working with the government to look at what sort of programs
02:26 and services are needed. The majority of young people that come into contact with the youth
02:31 justice system are children that have things such as cognitive issues, other health issues,
02:38 mental health issues, issues of trauma, and generally are children that come into contact
02:48 because of some crisis in their life. The majority of children entering the criminal
02:55 justice system are also children that are exposed to the child protection system also.
03:01 So there's generally some issues happening, whether it's at home or elsewhere, that cause
03:07 them to come into contact with police and other services. What we also know, again,
03:14 as our knowledge of adolescent brain development, is that the effect of charging people at a
03:23 young age doesn't have the effect that one would hope, and that is for them to stop offending.
03:30 What we know is it often makes situations worse, but it's a case that children at that
03:34 young age aren't fully cognizant of their actions and of what's going on.
03:40 [no audio]