ACT Greens leader and ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury responds to Bill Stefaniak’s column on raising the age of criminal responsibility (CW 25 November 2021, p.14), arguing that supporting marginalised kids and improving community safety is at the heart of the ACT’s reforms.
When I was 10 years old, I was blessed with supportive family, a great school, and a great community in my hometown of Batemans Bay. I was a cub scout and I loved playing outdoors.
I had no understanding of the criminal justice system and was blissfully unaware that kids the same age as me, my peers, were being arrested by police, brought before the courts on criminal charges and receive custodial sentences.
Right across Australia, vulnerable and marginalised kids as young as 10 are still being pushed into the criminal justice system. It is a blight on Australia. Here in the ACT, we are presented with a critical and historic opportunity to change the way we treat disadvantaged kids.
The ACT Government has committed to the important reform of raising the age, including putting the integrated support and services in place that these children and young people need to put their lives back on track.
Children don’t commit crimes because they are evil people. A child who commits a criminal act has, overwhelmingly, arrived at that point through trauma, mental health issues, abuse, neglect or disability. Under the age of 14, medical evidence shows us that children don’t have that full appreciation of the seriousness of their actions.
Most are being criminalised for the disadvantage their families have been pushed into. The system is stacked against them at every turn.
Ignoring the personal context and hoping to change the child’s behaviours through imposition of more trauma by sending them to jail does not function as a deterrent. Instead, it sets their trajectory towards future offending.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports 94% of imprisoned children aged 10 to 12 returned to prison before they were 18. It is clear that locking children up is not a crime prevention measure.
Instead, we believe that when a vulnerable and marginalised child engages in harmful behaviour, the appropriate consequences look like a support system that puts their life back on track.
I agree with Mr Stefaniak when he said some 13-year-olds do commit serious crimes and that they should be held accountable. And I agree that the systems we have to assist under-10s are not fully suitable for under-14s – we need more. If we truly want to end harmful behaviour, rather than entrench it further, there needs to be a system to address the root causes.
Where we disagree is that system should be prison. I am adamant that we should have a therapeutic response, not a custodial response.
In committing to raising the age, we recognise the reality that some children and young people can, and do, cause harm to themselves or others, but the ACT must have effective systems in place to support these children and young people, and their families, as well as safeguarding the community.
Early, coordinated and sustained help for children and their families is vital in this reform. We must ensure that these children and young people are able to access timely and holistic support before, during and after a crisis.
It is important to remember that the ACT is not reinventing the wheel here. This is not some out-there social experiment. Globally the median age of criminal responsibility is 14. Countries like Germany, France, Chile and Italy all have a minimum age of 14 and have low rates of imprisonment of children.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child says the age must be raised to 14. The evidence from stakeholders in fields such as psychology, paediatrics, social work, child protection, mental health, disability and forensic medicine is crystal clear.
We know that we must safeguard the community. We also know that we must ensure no child is left unsupported. Just our luck that we can address both of those problems with the same reform.
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