No work has been done in New South Wales (NSW) to plan for young children no longer being incarcerated, stymieing calls for the state to follow other jurisdictions in lifting the age of criminal responsibility.
Amid national pressure to stop locking up children aged under 14, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Northern Territory (NT) have this year raised the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12—a position Victoria is also set to adopt by December 2024.
But NSW remains in a wait-and-see phase due to concerns that alternate services are not in place if children aged 10 to 13 can no longer be incarcerated.
“In NSW, there has been no work done on this,” Attorney-General Michael Daley told a parliamentary hearing on Nov. 10.
“My view is that you can’t raise the age of criminal responsibility unless you’ve got some way to deal (with the changes).”
As of Nov. 10, NSW was holding nine children aged under 14 in custody. All were on remand and four were Indigenous.
One child was aged 11 and another was aged 12.
Officials said numbers were prone to fluctuate as many remand periods were “very short”, with the total of young minors in custody falling to as low as four on Oct. 29.
Mr. Daley is due to meet with Raise The Age campaigners on Nov. 15 ahead of a meeting of state and federal attorneys-general on Dec. 1 that will deal with the topic.
Mr. Daley said he accepted there were better ways to deal with some young offenders than “simply locking them up.”
“But it’s the alternative pathways that are the problem,” Mr. Daley said.
“You’ve got to make sure there are comprehensive supports available in every corner of the state, not just the city.
“We are a long way from that.”
The ACT last week legislated to lift the age of criminal responsibility to 12 immediately and then to 14 from July 2025.
The Victorian government in April committed to lifting the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years by the end of next year, before raising it again to 14 by 2027 with some exceptions.
The Northern Territory raised the age to 12 in August, while Tasmania has pledged to raise the minimum age of criminal detention to 14.
The United Nations recommends 14 as the minimum age of criminal responsibility.
“Raising the age is one action that Australian governments can take right now that will have an immediate and generational impact to end the over-incarceration of First Nations people,” Oxfam’s Jimi Peters said the previous week.
