The Greens will Raise the Age of Criminal Responsibility to 14 and no-one under 16 in NSW will go to prison.
Prison is no place for a child. But in NSW, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is just 10 years old. Kids young enough to still have baby teeth are harassed by police, handcuffed, strip-searched, hauled before the courts and locked in prison cells.
When a child is imprisoned they are denied the care, support and education they need. The international standard for the age of criminal responsibility is 14. Other States and Territories in Australia are raising the age, it’s time NSW gets on board.
Medical and legal experts agree that children are developmentally incapable of criminal responsibility. The evidence is clear that incarcerating and punishing children for their mistakes instead of caring for them in their communities creates and reproduces trauma, and does nothing to put vulnerable kids back on track.
First Nations children and young people make up more than half of the youth population in NSW prisons. This disproportionate representation is a marker of the ongoing impacts of colonisation, white supremacy and dispossession, and continuation of the taking of First Nations children from their families. First Nations communities need to have the power to make their own decisions about the support and care of their young people.
The Greens will:
- Raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years of age with no-one under 16 eligible for a custodial sentence
- Develop a whole of government strategy to keep young people out of prison and address the structural drivers of criminalisation
- Establish a statewide diversionary and restorative justice framework, including specific support for First Nations led justice reinvestment programs
- Require active efforts to be taken to support the families of young people impacted by the criminal legal system
- Require police and all youth detention centres to respect the human rights of children and reduce the harm done to young people in custody
RAISE THE AGE OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Greens will push the next government to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years of age, without exception.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on countries to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years old. China, Russia, Germany, Spain, Sierra Leone, Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Rwanda are just some countries which have taken this step.
In May 2021, 76 expert justice and youth organisations from around the Country called on the Council of Attorneys-General to raise the age from 10 to 14 as a matter of urgency. The Northern Territory, the ACT, and Victoria have begun taking steps to raise the age. Yet NSW has not.
It is rare for children aged 10-13 years to be charged with a serious offence. They are mostly in the criminal justice system for property-related offences - that is, crimes of poverty. Children with disability are also significantly over-represented in the criminal system, particularly children affected by cognitive disabilities, developmental delays and mental health concerns.
Where a child aged between 10 and 13 years is alleged to have caused harm to another, it's because something has gone very wrong in that child’s life. Violent actions or behaviour in young children are usually directly linked to experiences of complex trauma, poverty, neglect, and harm or unaddressed mental or physical health problems.
Rather than criminalise trauma, it is the responsibility of government to provide that child and their family with the services and support needed to address the underlying causes of their behaviour and to set them onto a better path. The worst place for a child to be is in prison.
Responses to children committing offences need to be restorative, not punitive. When children come into contact with the prison system for the first time, their chances of future contact with the criminal system drastically increased, throughout their childhood and into adulthood.
Instead of perpetuating this trauma and driving children down a path of contact with police and the prison system, we can divert these children and dedicate resources to healing and protecting them and prevent them from coming into contact with the justice system in the first place. The Greens are committed to helping children and young people learn from their mistakes and setting them up to lead full and happy lives.
ESTABLISH A WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO KEEPING YOUNG PEOPLE OUT OF PRISON
Changing the way youth justice is done in NSW requires a coordinated, whole of government approach. The Greens will commission an independent review of service gaps and resource a community-led consultation and codesign process to develop and coordinate this strategy and establish a best practice framework for supporting young people at risk.
The Greens will resource the development of a transition plan to release all children under 16 from prison and ensure young people impacted by the criminal system get the support they need to heal. Government and communities will codesign long term solutions and wrap around services to prevent youth offending and establish age appropriate responses that will not compound trauma and send children down a road they may struggle to ever return from.
In NSW it currently costs $713 940 per year to keep a child in prison. With a total youth prison population of around 200, this is over $142 million per year that could be spent on preventing children from coming into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place. The Greens will reinvest this money in children and families, and build communities not prisons.
ESTABLISH A STATEWIDE DIVERSIONARY AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE FRAMEWORK
Community diversion has been shown to reduce costs to government and be an effective way to keep children and young people out of the criminal legal system. The Greens will establish a statewide diversionary and restorative justice framework to keep children out of prison.
Justice reinvestment and diversionary programs already exist in NSW, and are shown to reduce criminalisation. The Greens will fully fund and expand these to become the designated, statewide responses to youth offending. This will include targeted support for First Nations led justice reinvestment programs that are place-based, trauma informed and culturally appropriate, to ensure that First Nations children are supported to remain in their Community and connected to their Culture.
INTRODUCE LEGISLATION TO SUPPORT FAMILIES OF YOUTH OFFENDERS AND PREVENT INCARCERATION
When a child commits an offence it is broadly recognised to be the result of trauma or challenges in their living circumstances. The Greens will work to ensure that when a child is in trouble that every effort is taken to support them and their family or caregivers. This means wrap-around services that assist families make sure families can access appropriate housing, support for attending school and necessary counselling services. This includes for children over 16 who receive a custodial sentence to help them get back on track when they return home.
Children in out of home care are also much more likely to end up in youth detention. The Greens will establish an ongoing training and monitoring program to ensure that all residential out-of home care staff, and all NSW police officers, work to the Joint Protocol to Reduce the Contact of Young People in Residential Out-of-Home Care with the Criminal Justice System, in order to reduce the contact of young people in out-of-home care with the criminal justice system.
REDUCING HARM IN YOUTH DETENTION CENTRES
The Greens will push the next government to overhaul our youth detention centres. Security should be viewed as a last resort and instead, when a child 16 years or over receives a conviction, that sentencing is focussed on rehabilitation and reintegration rather than punishment. This means youth justice responses must be led by young people themselves, their communities, psychologists and educators, ensuring that children and young people have every opportunity to learn and grow.
By taking a trauma-informed, health-based approach, we can reduce the harm caused by incarceration. We will fight for an end to the use of solitary confinement against children.
The Greens will ensure independent oversight of youth detention centres, and push for an end to discriminatory police practices that target First Nations kids and children with disability. This will include establishing an independent oversight body that can fully investigate and refer for prosecution complaints of negligence, misconduct and mistreatment in youth detention centres and by police.
HOW THE GREENS HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR YOU
In the last parliament, it was the Greens who:
- Uncovered the cost of youth detention in NSW in budget estimates
- Introduced a bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 and keep kids under 16 out of prison
- Moved a Notice of Motion in the Parliament to Raise the Age
- Fought for and won additional protections against forced child removals of First Nations children