There are more than 600 children aged 10 to 13 in prison in Australia, 65% of whom are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage. A private members’ bill has been introduced to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, yet it is opposed by Attorney-General Christian Porter. Surely Australia is ready to stop locking up children?
The Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter, in a statement to the ABC, called the bill highly controversial because it would mean there would never be any circumstances where a person aged 10 to 14 could be held responsible for their actions.
Porter was previously WA Attorney-General. Presumably he knew that almost 40 per cent of Western Australian youth in detention have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and almost 90 per cent have a neurological impairment.
We are waiting for change, but the Coalition apparently needs more time.
It is hard to believe, but in Australia, today, there are more than 600 children, aged between 10 and 13, in jail. About 65% of them are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) heritage.
If you wanted to consciously set about handicapping a person for life, what better way than to separate them from family and friends, take them out of the classroom, lock them up, and impose the rigors of life in an institution on pre-pubescent children.
This reeks of another ‘Stolen Generation’ disgrace, and we can’t blame ‘redneck’ police, or consciously racist bureaucrats for this. No, this state of affairs sits squarely on the shoulders of our federal and state attorneys-general. In November 2019, Attorney-General of Australia, Christian Porter, was of the opinion that the current system was working well. That opinion appears to be, at best, wilfully blind.
One of the cornerstones of criminal law in Australia, and other common law jurisdictions, is the concept of “mens rea“. The phrase means a guilty mind, and it must be present, to prove intent to commit a crime.
Think back to when you were 10. Did you know the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’? How about lawful and unlawful? How did you rate when it came to weighing up your options, the consequences and rewards of your intended action, and your willingness to accept the outcome, if there was one?
The attorneys-general of this great nation have been in a bind. They feel they have not had enough time to consider whether it is appropriate to continue to lock children up in detention. That is not to mention the 600 who are already there.
In mid-2020 they indicated that more work needed to be done on alternative forms of punishment before they could make recommendations. The last point appears to ignore the real possibility that instead of looking at alternative punishments, perhaps we could look at whether they are old enough to actually be criminally liable. They are legally infants. They cannot vote, or marry, or drive a car, or sign a contract, or consent to sexual activity, so how do they commit crimes? We could consider improving their lives, rather than jailing them.
Why change is necessary, now
Professor Judy Cashmore, of the University of Sydney Law School, lists five reasons why it would be a good idea to lift the age of criminal responsibility in Australia
- Most children who offend at these ages (10-13) will “simply grow out of it” with appropriate support, but those who won’t will need an appropriate public health response, not a justice based one;
- The younger a child is at their first contact with the criminal justice system, the greater their chances of future offending. Increasing the age of incarceration will mitigate the harm to the child;
- Indigenous children are highly over-represented in this group of children so positive, culturally and age-appropriate responses are critical to reduce this over-representation;
- It is extremely costly to put children into juvenile detention – that money urgently needs to go into therapeutic justice re-investment;
- Raising the age to 14 would bring Australia into line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is time Australians were again proud of their civic culture, rather than being stuck in a time-warp of ‘old white man’ reaction.
The Morrison Government has a chance to undo some of the reputational damage it has caused to Australia over the past eight years. Raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 is a no-brainer. There seems overwhelming support among the public. Let’s get the children in custody released quickly. Their lives are being trashed as we speak.
Mark Buckley is a writer based in regional Victoria. He has a particular interest in politics, history and ethics in public life. He blogs at www.askbucko.com
Comments
4 responses to “Forgive them for they know not what they do: stop putting kids in jail”
A National Obscenity.
Lawyers are dead hopeless at this kind of stuff. Punishment by authority is short-sighted way of preventing runaway violence (Revenge is mine! saith the Attorney General), but in the long term it doesn’t work. How much more evidence do we need that doing nothing doesn’t work either? Violent children provoke revenge, which provokes revenge by their parents, which provokes more revenge, and before you know where you are, the whole community is at war with itself. Their presence is diagnostic of a bad neighbourhood. Violent children need time in new environments which use behavioural science to shape pro-social behaviour and extinguish anti-social behaviour. If it can be done with autistic people, it can be done with people with fetal alcohol syndrome. Behavioural science has shown that there are more effective ways to extinguish anti-social behaviour than punishment which always has unwanted byproducts. Institutions that administer attorney-generals’ revenge fail to generate pro-social behaviour. They are more effective at turning out sociopaths.
This is opposing the industry of fear and retribution. Prisons and policing are big business. Wife killing is not.
Families failing to achieve success with children is not addressed, except as a profit making opportunity. Sick parents create issues that affect the rest of us. Pay people to take permanent sterilization. Advertize the benefits of a selfish lifestyle, and ensure everyone knows how expensive children really are to bring up. I reared 5 of them.
Porter is just indicative of the poor pool of talent entering politics, due to forces that prefer it that way!
Well let’s start with that law-breaker/adulterer/serial monogamist Attorney-General Charles C. Porter who has clearly not been held responsible AT ALL for his illicit relationships carried out on his salary and our citizenry time! The numbers of kiddies kept locked up by these ugly LNP laws is similar to the real numbers of children likewise arrested and gaoled/tortured in “best buddy” Netanyahu’s Israel. Who is taking lessons from whom?