The country’s peak medical and legal bodies have renewed calls for Australia to cease the “national tragedy” of jailing children as young as 10 years of age.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) and Law Council of Australia (LCA) released a joint statement on Tuesday, urging all governments around the country to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14.
"Prison should not be a rite of passage for any child," the statement said.
The age of criminal responsibility in all Australian jurisdictions is 10 years of age, below the international average of 14.
Human rights groups, backed by government data, have long noted Australia's lower-than-average minimum age disproportionally affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
“Raising the age of criminal responsibility will prevent the unnecessary criminalisation of vulnerable children,” AMA President Tony Bartone said.
“The AMA views the incarceration of children as unacceptable.
“Most children in prison come from backgrounds that are disadvantaged. These children often experience violence, abuse, disability, homelessness, and drug or alcohol misuse.
“Criminalising the behaviour of young and vulnerable children creates a vicious cycle of disadvantage and forces children to become entrenched in the criminal justice system."
Both the AMA and LCA have long argued in favour of increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility.
Raising the age would help ensure Australia’s response to some of the country’s most vulnerable children is health and welfare-based, LCA President Arthur Moses said.
File image of the Don Dale youth detention centre in the Northern Territory. Source: AAP
“Early contact with the criminal justice system increases the chances of incarceration, leading to an almost-inevitable progression to the adult corrections system. It does not make communities safer,” Mr Moses said.
“Very serious offences are rarely perpetrated by children.
"Moreover, more than half of children in detention are sentenced, being either detained by police prior to court or on remand awaiting trial or sentencing.”
Raising the age was a recommendation of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory.
Australia’s top legal officers deferred discussion on the matter until next year at a Council of Attorneys-General meeting last month.
Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter said he was confident the current system was working "relatively well" and he was "not overly enthusiastic" about the proposal to lift the age.
Politicians should show a more bipartisan approach to the issue, Mr Moses said.
“It is time that they showed some courage and leadership to implement these changes,” he said.
“Our children should not be used as political footballs in a law and order auction.”
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