Children in the ACT can no longer be arrested, charged or sentenced under territory laws until they turn 14.
Rather than facing charges, children will now be referred to therapeutic support services that will seek to address the root causes of their behaviour.
Youths who commit serious crimes such as murder, serious violence and sexual offences will be exempt from the reforms, which took effect on 1 July and raised the age of criminal responsibility from its previous place of 10 years old.
Other Australian jurisdictions have some of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility globally, falling well below international standards set by the United Nations.
The UN has repeatedly called on Australia to raise the minimum age to 14 "without exception", arguing that children aged 10 to 13 lack the developmental capacity to be held criminally responsible.
'The ACT has looked at the evidence'
Jonathan Hunyor of the Justice and Equity Centre said locking up 10-year-old children only worsens social problems.
"The ACT has looked at the evidence, and the ACT is obviously serious about making their community safer because we know that locking up kids makes the community less safe," he said.
"What locking up kids does is it cruels their chances, it takes them away from positive influences."
Rather than helping kids build social capital, "what we do is place kids in a situation where they build criminal capital," Hunyor added.
"They go to the university of crime, they get taught that they're criminals."
'Programs need to run inside communities, not prisons'
Dr Faith Gordon, an Australian National University youth-justice researcher, said the ACT is now in line with "what international evidence has been telling us for years".
Pointing to countries such as Norway, she notes that "big jumps in funding for programs that are run inside communities, not prisons" had led to "big drops in the number of children locked up".
She said that Indigenous-led diversion schemes were in place in parts of Australia but "deserve proper investment and real decision-making power" if governments want to tackle the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the criminal justice system.
Here's where the rest of Australia stands when it comes to the age of criminal responsibility.
Victoria
Victoria raised its minimum age from 10 to 12 under the Youth Justice Bill passed in 2024 and has promised a formal review of a further rise to 14 in 2027.
Tasmania
The Tasmanian government will raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years and will increase the minimum age of detention to 16 years by developing alternatives to detention for children aged 14 and 15 years. Implementation is expected be completed by July 2029.
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory briefly led the nation when it raised the age of criminal responsibility to 12 in 2023. A change of government reversed that decision in August 2024 and the minimum age is back to 10.
NSW
Australia's most-populous state has held the line at 10, despite medical and legal bodies urging change. A joint statement from Mental Health Carers NSW and BEING NSW this year renewed calls to match the ACT's standard.
Queensland
Queensland's Adult Crime, Adult Time laws, introduced at the end of 2024, kept the age at 10 and allow some serious offences by children to be dealt with in the adult system.
South Australia
Adelaide is consulting on whether to raise the age to 12 but has not drafted a bill.
Western Australia
Western Australia has also kept it at 10. Legal Aid WA confirms the age in its current guidance and the government has given no timetable for reform.
The federal position
The national minimum age is 10, but balanced by the safeguard principle of doli incapax, which requires prosecutors to prove a child aged 10 to 13 understood their actions were seriously wrong.
In July 2024, then attorney-general Mark Dreyfus was asked about a national change at the National Press Club.
He said the issue remained "under consideration" and argued it was less urgent for Canberra because "we have no children presently convicted of Commonwealth offences".
Gordon said the "patchwork of legislation across the country is impractical and unfair".
"A child in Canberra now gets health and family support. A child an hour away in NSW can still be taken to a police cell. We need a single national rule so every child, no matter where they live, has the same chance."
