CLP recommits to locking up 10-year-olds, despite it having ‘absolutely no impact upon public safety’

Landmark changes to the age of criminal responsibility could be reversed under a CLP election push.

The Country Liberal Party has made the ability to lock up primary school-aged kids a key policy platform eight months out from the Territory election.

On Tuesday, Brennan MLA Marie-Clare Boothby reconfirmed her party’s commitment

to reverse changes to the minimum age of criminal responsibility, meaning 10 and 11-year-old children could once again be arrested, charged, sentenced and jailed.

In 2022 the Territory became the first jurisdiction in Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12, five years after it was recommended by the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory.

The then-Police Minister Kate Worden said the changes impacted less than 1 per cent of all kids in detention, with 10 and 11-year-olds responsible for 3 per cent of all youth offending.

Yet the CLP has made locking up 10 and 11-year-olds the centre of their youth justice election platform, with Ms Boothby criticising that primary school-aged kids would “never face a consequence”.

“The reality is that these youth offenders (will) never see a court and never face a consequence for what they’ve done and that is not the Territory that we want,” she said.

While the legislation meant these children could not be charged, they are still able to access youth diversion programs.

According to the latest police annual report, 76 per cent of kids aged 10-17 who took part in a diversion program did not reoffend within the next 12 months.

CLP member and Brennan representative Marie-Clare Boothby speaking near parliament on January 2, 2023.

This is the inverse of recidivism rates for kids in detention, with around 70 per cent charged with a new offence after release according to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.

Yet Ms Boothby took a swipe at youth diversion programs as “just words”.

“Where are the results that actually lead to better outcomes for those youths, for the victims that are impacted?” she asked.

NT Attorney-General Chansey Paech hit back against the CLP’s “retrograde plans and antiquated ideas” which were a “well-worn path to nowhere”.

“The current state of youth crime is a result of decades of failed policies,” Mr Paech said.

NT Attorney-General Chansey Paech has backed 2022 change that resulted in the Territory being the first place in Australia to not lock up kids under 12. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

He said raising the age was in line with the latest evidence-based community models to break the cycles of crime among young people.

“Research … proves the earlier children come into contact with the justice system, the more prolonged their involvement is likely to be.”

The Criminal Lawyers Association of the NT also warned that lowering the age of criminal responsibility would have “absolutely no impact upon public safety”.

“It is a shame that the CLP are reverting to failed policies of the past rather than putting forward new ideas that will actually make our community safer,” President Beth Wild said.

Ms Wild said while there were only a small number of primary schoolers involved in the criminal justice system, they were “always the most disadvantaged, vulnerable kids you could imagine”.

“As often as not, those children were homeless girls aged 10 or 11,” she said.

“The idea that we change the law to ensure 10 and 11-year-olds can be prosecuted, rather than supported to turn their lives around is a sad reflection on the state of this debate.”

Ms Wild pointed to programs like the boarding house at Yipirinya College as examples of how Territorians can help at-risk kids escape the cycles of reoffending.

“That makes sense both in terms of our immediate concerns about levels of crime as well as long term investment in the future of the NT,” she said.

Originally published as CLP recommits to locking up 10-year-olds, despite it having ‘absolutely no impact upon public safety’