Our Opinion
Petition to raise the age presented to Queensland’s Attorney-General
On Monday, 22nd August 2022, a petition calling for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from 10 to 14 was presented to Queensland’s Attorney-General, the Honourable Shannon Fentiman MP. The petition contained 26,853 signatures with many of these signatories being the heads of organisations or associations each representing the voices of many hundreds, if not thousands, of their staff and members.
The petition was presented to the Attorney-General by sector leaders including Matt Gardiner (54 Reasons – formerly Save the Children), Aimee McVeigh (QCOSS), Damien Atkinson (Youth Advocacy Centre) and Lindsay Wegener (PeakCare Queensland).
Presentation of the petition followed similar petitions having been handed to the Attorneys-General of several other States and Territories and the Commonwealth Government which contained around 200,000 signatures.
Presentation of the Queensland petition followed less than a week after heated debate in Parliament during which a Bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility was defeated, as reported on in the 18th August edition of eNews.
Listen to this interview of PeakCare’s Lindsay Wegener conducted by the ABC’s Rebecca Levingston prior to the petition being handed over.
You may also like to read this article, published by the Courier Mail, Mercury, Gold Coast Bulletin, Toowoomba Chronicle and the Herald Sun within which Queensland Police Union President Ian Leavers states his opposition to raising the age on the basis that it would create a generation of “invisible criminals”. Mr Leavers argues that while Police “don’t want to arrest juvenile offenders or have them held in watchhouses… the community do expect consequences for bad behaviour”. While Mr Leavers states that Police have success in diverting 90 per cent of young offenders from criminal behaviour, “other government and support agencies need to do their bit”.
These media publications also reported on a poll they conducted. Of around 3,000 respondents to the poll, 11% voted that ‘Yes, kids under 14 shouldn’t be in jail, 85% voted that ‘No, 10 year-olds know right from wrong’ and 4% said that they were “not sure”.
Tell us your opinion below. Do you support or not support the petition to raise the age of criminal responsibility? Do you agree or disagree with the issues discussed in his interview with ABC radio? Do you agree or disagree with the comments made by Mr Leavers? Do you agree or disagree with the findings of the poll? Your comments can be entered below, anonymously if you prefer. Now is the time to make your views known.
Punitive approaches just don’t work, and evidence does not support locking up our children. Sending children to prison is not a solution to youth ‘crime’, we need to invest in primary prevention programs, evidence-based parent programs.
We need o address the ’causes’ of behaviour that results in children coming into contact with the criminal justice system.
We need to bring Australia’s juvenile justice laws into line with UN standards and raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14
Great work Peakcare!
It’s about time we come into line with the evidence on children’s development and cognition, as well as international standards for criminal responsibility. We’re repeatedly called out by the United Nations for this rights violation and it needs to be addressed.
Sadly, I’m’ not surprised by the outrageous and out of touch comments by the Union’s Ian Leavers. He isn’t interested in doing what works to prevent crime, nor interested in the evidence, just tired old rhetoric to justify punitive approaches and locking up children as young as 10. Incarceration isn’t the only consequence available to society for children under 14, as he suggests. It’s deliberately obtuse.
Ian Leavers’ comments are inconsistent. He cannot on the one hand claim credit for successfully diverting children from criminal activities while, in the same breath, state his opposition to raising the age of criminal responsibility – a well-researched and evidence-based policy that stops very young children being placed on a trajectory into a lifetime of involvement with the criminal justice system, as well argued by Lindsay Wegener in his ABC radio interview. Ian Levers needs to make up his mind!
Ian Levers’ statement about other government and support agencies needing to do their bit is insulting to the dedicated and hard-working staff of these agencies who work tirelessly and with enormous success in helping young people make better life choices and find a place in society where they are valued and respected.
The ABC interview of Lindsay Wegener was fantastic – well done!
I fully support the petition to raise the age of criminal responsibility. Having read many of the appalling comments posted in response to the article published by the Courier Mail and others, it is difficult to give any credence to the findings of their poll.
Yes I support the petition to raise the age of criminal responsiblity
Unfortunately, those who oppose MACR14 give little attention to the relevant stats on YJ across the past 10 years or longer. These indicate (among other things) that there is an ongoing trend towards smaller numbers of kids actually offending in the first place. Add to this the renewal and expansion of the youth conferencing system since the Newman exit in 2015. Now happening in around 30 locations statewide – with a strong record of kids who’ve been in this process NOT re-offending. Unfortunately, the public is easily blind-sided by the scare tactics of the Police Union …. highlighting on steroids the very small number of tragic deaths caused by tearaway kids in stolen cars. So much of this in the Townsville area. As a former Townsville person, I know too much and all too well of the apalling history of police-Murri relations there. Truthtelling is very uncomfortable for the leadership and the rank and file of QPS. The big scale, statewide body of evidence for further reform is inconvenient. Very clear that Leavers gets whatever access he wants from both the Qld parliament and the Murdoch media. Several professional leaders in adolescent mental health, paediatrics, special education, employment pathways (to name a few) are kept at arms length (patronised and duck-shoved) by this government in particular. Tragically, the government is fearful of losing out in a “tough on crime” dogfight at the next election. Good on you Lindsay, QCOSS, YAC and others for taking the MACR14 case up to Fentiman. She and other relevant ministers need do the fearless moral inventory on these concerns.
Comprehensively support the need for us to raise the age in QLD. Shockingly disappointing that this was not previously passed by the government when they had the opportunity. We urgently need effective and appropriate community-based diversionary options for young people and particularly options that take into consideration the complex neurodevelopmental challenges that many young people who are involved with youth justice are experiencing. Continuing to criminalise children who have complex physical, mental and developmental needs is an appalling violation of human rights.
100% support Lindsay Wegener’s comments. QLD Government has been aware for some years of an alternative system to deal with children of all ages without criminalising or placing them in detention centres. The system is Court ordered Control Orders with 24/7 supervision where needed in a therapeutic environment for rehabilitation. It offers holistic family support. Will reduce crime, save $billions over the next decade and phase out existing costly, inhumane and ineffective detention centres. The current system requires an Auditor General investigation into waste of public monies. If a child dies in custody under the current system a Coronial Inquiry will ask some serious questions of Ministers and Administrators given their knowledge of this alternative system that should be in place. Keith Hamburger AM
Thanks all for keeping this issue ‘alive’ – lives depend on it! Evidence indicates the dreadful mental health outcomes and high recidivism rate of juvenile detention and it’s about time all states raise the age, at least! We need to bring Australia’s juvenile justice laws into line with UN standards and raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.
If we don’t hold them at least somewhat accountable for their behaviours, how will they ever learn right from wrong. We all learn, children included, by the feedback we get from our behaviours. If the result is not desirable then we don’t do it again, if the result is desirable or neutral then we are more inclined to have another go… I would be happy for the age to be raised if someone could show me (us) an truly “effective” means of re-training these young people who have already been set up with a damaged behavioural blueprint.
I am a residential youth worker, I recently had an 11 year old child go to court on 4 charges, including theft and stealing fuel whilst in a stolen car. That child walked out of court with ZERO consequences, and next week had two more charges of theft. I cannot even stop the child from walking out of the house whilst telling me they are going out to do more illegal stuff – if I do then the police will be coming to get me..
There has to be some form of consequences or it will just be free range anarchy, and even the older gang members know they can use younger kids to do their dirty work with the knowledge that there will be no consequences. Most of the young people I work with are very cognitively aware of the age applicable consequences that will apply to them – and play the game very well – which tells me they are also very capable of knowing right from wrong.
The other issue is – there will never be a one size fits all solution. Some kids respond well to one form of learning, whilst others respond best to another. Maybe we need to be more willing to assess these kids better and be willing to try a variety of approaches instead of trying to fit them all in the same box… Military style boot camps work very well for some, and for others a more gentle therapeutic approach is best (and I have been involved with both to see that for myself). But yet we seem to want to fit all young people in the same model..
Even 14 still teeters on too young!
It is a shame to lock someone up at the young age of 10. Unjustified!
I am not surprised by Mr Leavers comments, his comments highlight an unsophisticated, ill-equipped and outdated policing practices that speaks to the level of leadership and investment in this specialist area at the highest level. An appropriate and proportionate response, must be rights based and child centred and age appropriate. I agree we need to raise the age and I am fully supportive of the petition to raise the age of criminal responsibility, the evidence is clear, supported by research that evidently demonstrates there are far more effective alternatives. I also agree that children need to understand the impact of their behaviour on others and themselves, however incarceration and isolation from family and community for 10-14 year old’s is punitive and contrary to the UN Rights of the Child. We know this, that is why detention as a last resort is a fundamental and universal principle of restorative Youth Justice. Raise the age, provide education, training and establish specialist policing practices supported by evidence best practice for QPS, that hold community policing approaches in high regard. Invest in prevention and early intervention programs and methods that support families to be the primary agents of behavioural change and engage the whole of community in proportionate and appropriate responses that divert and deter children from offending.
Politicians’ fascination with ‘law and order’ has been more about gaining political advantage than about community benefit .
There is convincing argument that there is no link between crime and incarceration. Crime is linked to inequality.
There is a role for incarceration where a person is deemed a physical danger to community members.
The Scandinavian countries have low levels of inequality and incarceration. They also have excellent social services, including rehabilitation which changes a cost to government into a contributing asset.
It will require a culture change from confrontation to collaboration and trust.
My request and recommendation is to raise the threshold age for children.
Also strengthen the focus on parole rather than remand, and
look closely at the Scandinavian system.
I think we can all agree that detention is not the answer as it is clearly not preventing repeat offending or addressing the underlying issues at hand. However, the thought of going to detention or even the experience that so many of these troubled youth have there is a K so not a deterrent. Having worked as a front line residential care worker in full time capacity for a number of years ( not as a qualified expert with little to no hands on experience) I can say that a large number of the kids I worked with, possessed the intelligence to understand right from wrong and were capable of communicating exactly that. They were able to detail why the engaged in such behaviours and how the excitement and rush they got out of it far outweighed the consequence of going to detention. They would also openly voice their opinions of detention , using such descriptions as “easy “and “cruizie”.
If this is how detention is viewed in the eyes of young offenders then I hardly think it is a fit place to address the criminal behaviours.
I fully support the implementation of more effective programs however hardly think advocating for young children committing adult like offences to be excused from facing any form of consequence before alternatives are in place is acceptable.
I would suggest all the experience of the minds advocating for raising the age work together on a fitting solution before petitioning for such significant changes that will no doubt see members of the community suffer the impacts.
The brain doesn’t stop developing until the age of 25 years old. These young people who are criminalised are highly vulnerable and are still children. I 100% agree to raising the age even to older than 14 years old. It could be raised to 25 years old. If a crime is committed, rehabilitation and therapy and community service will be a better solution and will prevent the young person from offending again.
I am not in support of raising the age of criminal responsibility. I have worked in the residential care sector for a number of years, typically working with young people that demonstrate extreme behaviour and are recidivist offenders.
While I have extensive knowledge around trauma informed care and the impact that trauma can have on a young person’s development, I am also aware of the significant issue communities are facing in relation to youth crime.
In my experience, young people who demonstrate extreme behaviours and are recidivist’s offenders appear to just stop engaging in these behaviours when they turn 18 and exit care. Why? Because they are aware of the real life consequences they are about to face.
Challenging your opinion on raising the age of criminal responsibility does not draw criticism to the residential care sector, it further highlights a system that is not working. Residential care sector workers do not make the law and more often than not, create more changes in behaviours through consistency and realistic consequences.
I personally have worked with young people who have proactively caused physical and emotional injuries to members of the public and have displayed no remorse and have made statements indicating that the legal system is a joke. I have personally witnessed these same young people have meeting with their lawyers, who are openly advocating that they do not have the intellectual capacity to know right from wrong.
There has been a massive shift in the young people in residential care over the last five years, where residential care workers are no longer supporting young people with pain-based and reactive behaviours. More often than not it is proactive and a significant risk to the community. I would genuinely be interested to know when members who are advocating for raising the age actually worked with young people?
It takes a number of criminal charges in order for a young person to be placed in Detention. Young people across Queensland are recidivist offenders due to there being no consequences, maybe a referral to Youth Justice if that. Then comes the “bail conditions”, where a young person is placed on a curfew but there is no consequence if the young person chooses to break this curfew as it is not a criminal offence. Or maybe the young person is required to engage in Community Services, which may include attending a BBQ with likewise peers.
The fact that there is comments in support of the age being raised to 24 is concerning. There is young people in Queensland with up to 500 chargers to their name. Imagine if you or a loved one were a victim at the hands of a significant crime that left you permanently injured only to be told that there is going to be no criminal proceeding due to the “young” person not having a fully developed brain. Unless you have been in this position, I do not feel that anyone can fathom the impacts that being told there is going to be no consequence for the perpetrator and are free to continue life in the community would have on you. E.g. a death due to a stolen vehicle.
At the end of the day, numerous people that work across our industry and within the detention centre themselves are aware of the lack of deterrence due to the current consequences and lack thereof. Lets not forget this is a jail and not a recreational facility, which according to the young people is what it presents as.
Comment originally made by Youth Worker on on August 31, 2022 at 3:24 PM in response to the news article “On raising the age of criminal responsibility – petition presented to Queensland’s Attorney-General” published on 23rd August 2022
Everyone’s views are derived from lived experience, working with young people, evidence and research and medical realities. This can be a passionately debated issue. Whilst there is debate on whether or not to raise the age of criminal responsibility, it seems to me that most people don’t believe incarcerating very young children has any positive impact on offending behaviour. There are so many complexities at play, and many have been discussed above very eloquently and passionately.
I don’t think there are many people out there who want to see children 10 – 13yrs old in detention. Yet, as long as the age of criminal responsibility remains 10 years, then children that young face the risk of exactly that. No one is saying it is okay for young children to commit crimes. It isn’t. But there are many other, evidence-based and trauma-informed ways of enabling change, that actually work, and don’t involve incarcerating children.
Life Without Barriers has publicly and firmly supported raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years of age. We provide residential care for children in the child protection system. We work with families and children across the spectrum of trauma and pain. We firmly believe holding young children criminally accountable when they are not old enough to be considered responsible in any other adult-like capacity is not the answer. Children in out of home care, and substantially greater for First Nations children, are already behind the eight ball. Respectively 9 and 17 times more likely to intersect with the youth justice system. It’s tragic.
Centuries old punitive strategies simply aren’t what we need to help these kids and make a change. Compassionate, trauma-informed and evidence-based interventions that are adequately resourced are what we need.
I know it can be frustrating. Victims of crime rightly feel violated, workers who experience the mask that Lindsay describes above get frustrated and it is understandable kids can be seen as manipulative. But are we looking at their actions from the perspective of an adult? They are children, they think like children, and their brains are not the same as an adults. If I look at the statements and actions of a child who is sprouting bravado through the lens of an adult, the view is skewed. Yes, often the capacity of a child to demonstrate empathy is unformed or still developing. Yes, bravado and apparent pride are common with children. I look at my own family and would be horrified if my children were treated the same at the age of 11 as at the age of 17. They are so different in their maturity, understanding, ability to grasp consequence fully, and even display empathy.
I’m not saying that children who commit offences don’t have any capacity to know their actions are wrong. There is a difference in the capacity to understand fully the severity and consequence of those actions, however, between a 10 year old and a 15 year old.
What I, and LWB, do say is incarceration of 10-13yr olds is not the answer. There are other ways. If the age of criminal responsibility is raised we, society, will be forced to explore those other ways and maybe make a genuine change for the better.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on countries to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years old. Raising the age of criminal responsibility has been identified as an area for urgent reform for the physical and psychological health of nearly 600 children under 14 who are in prison each year in Australia.
This is a view shared by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, medical and legal experts, service providers, Australian and international human rights organisations, the global community and multiple foreign governments through United Nations (UN) processes, and UN human rights bodies.
Young children do not belong in the criminal justice system, including prison. The children and young people for whom we provide care and support are already dealing with trauma – that is why they are in our care.
In consideration of Queensland’s Human Rights Act 2019 and following the extensive evidence of how best to respond to young children who engage in criminal activities. Mercy Community supports raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age, and that services should be provided to support children, families, and communities.
There is a long list of countries that all have similar criminal responsibility ages equal to that of Australia. Some of these countries would be ones in which Australia would be closest aligned to. England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand and United States of America, Canada all have ages of criminal responsibility between 10 and 12.
Given 85% of the 3000 people surveyed and voted against raising the age as well as the sheer number of above mentioned countries all not adhering to the UN’s recommendations, you think that it may evidence that there is currently no alternative other then to hold young offenders in detention.
It’s not just Australia that is being recommended to make changes but there does not appear to be any mention of all these other countries because it does not suit someone’s narrative.
Work on new realistic alternatives, test them , provide data and evidence then advocate for the removal of the only current safe guard keeping communities somewhat safe.
All these experts are simply regurgitating the same info and throwing in the token word like “rehabilitation” here and there but can’t actually comment to what this would even look like on a scale large enough to accomodate for the volume of kids they want excluded from detention.
Thank you for your comments. In relation to the countries that you mentioned, within the United States the age of criminal responsibility varies from State to State ranging from 6 years old in North Carolina to 12 years old in Massachusetts, with 33 States having no minimum age. In respect of Federal crimes however, the minimum age is 11 years. In Canada, Greece and the Netherlands, the age is set at 12. Scotland also raised the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 in 2019. In Ireland, the age of criminal responsibility is set at 12, but children aged 10 and over can be charged with serious offences including murder, manslaughter and aggravated sexual assault, noting that it is extremely rare for children under 14 to be involved in committing offences of this type. In New Zealand, the age is 10; however children under the age of 14 years can only be prosecuted for an offence when the maximum penalty is 14 years imprisonment or more (subject to a presumption of incapacity). Within most European countries, the age is set between 14 and 16 years. For example, the age is set at 15 in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and in Austria, Hungary, Italy and Germany, the age is 14. In Portugal, the age is 16 (as it also is in Japan), and in Belgium and Luxembourg the age is 18. Globally, the average age of criminal responsibility is set at around 14 years – hence, the United Nations’ recommendation to countries such as Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibly to at least 14 years. For a complete breakdown of the age of criminal responsibility set by countries within Africa, Oceania, Asia, the Americas and Europe, you are invited to view this website – https://archive.crin.org/en/home/ages.html.
You are also invited to consider the information contained within this publication of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare – https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2016-08/apo-nid67236.pdf – and this publication by the Australian Institute of Criminology – https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi181.pdf – that both provide comparisons between Australian and international youth justice systems in respect of the age of criminal responsibility. It is noteworthy that, in general, countries that have lower ages of criminal responsibility also have higher rates of crime, recidivism and incarceration. Conversely, countries with higher ages of criminal responsibility and which have invested in alternative approaches have much higher rates of crime, recidivism and incarceration.
It is suggested that you also read the numerous submissions lodged with the Council of Attorneys-General (CAG) in 2019 that can be located here – https://www.raisetheage.org.au – including, in particular, those submitted by the Australian Medical Association, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Royal Australasian College of Physicians and Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. Far from being “experts… regurgitating the same info and throwing in the token word like ‘rehabilitation’ here and there”, these are highly reputable organisations that have advocated for extremely well-researched positions. In fact, when PeakCare prepared our submissions for the CAG and the Queensland Parliamentary Committee that recently examined (and rejected) a Bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility, we invested a great deal of time and effort in attempting to locate research where the findings indicated any benefits that might arise from retaining the age of criminal responsibility at 10. We were unable to find any.
Why would we want to look towards the USA for answers? It has some of the highest rates of both crime and imprisonment in the world. There are also a number of States continuing to use capital punishment despite it having no value in deterring people from crime. Why would we not be looking towards the Scandinavian countries where their strategies that do not criminalise children are achieving far better results in keeping their communities safe?
This is a brief note to point out a typographical error in the last sentence of the second last paragraph within my previous response. The sentence should read, “Conversely, countries with higher ages of criminal responsibility and which have invested in alternative approaches have much LOWER rates of crime, recidivism and incarceration”.
So by removing the fear of repercussions you think that will solve youth crime? You know thats the problem right? They have no fear, they know they will get away with it, do you honestly think these kids are going to listen to a bunch of adults telling, oh Johnny that was very naughty, you shouldn’t have done that. Young crims have you white knights wrapped around their fingers. You are fools if you think they are going to change, youth crime is on the rise, and fast, because they know they will get away with it, there was literally an interview with some and they even said this…you guys are the problem. Stop tieing peoples hands.