NT officially lifts age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12

The Northern Territory is the first Australian jurisdiction to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility above 10 years of age.

Transcript

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.

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