Queensland jail report ups pressure to lift criminal age

A new report revealed 86 per cent of 10- and 11-year-old children charged with a crime in Queensland are ­Indigenous.

Amnesty International Indigenous rights campaigner Maggie Munn.

A fresh push to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility nationally is under way after a ­harrowing new report revealed 86 per cent of 10- and 11-year-old children charged with a crime in Queensland are ­Indigenous.

New figures from the Children’s Court of Queensland reveal half of all convicted children are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, despite Indigenous people representing just 4.6 per cent of the state’s population.

Authored by court president Deborah Richards, the report shows on an average day last year, Indigenous children accounted for up to 72 per cent of the youth ­detention population. This was a slight decrease on previous years.

“It is disturbingly familiar that First Nations young people continue to be substantially over­represented in the younger age groups with 86 per cent (of defendants) in the 10-11 age group, 81 per cent in the 12-year-old group, 65 per cent in the 13-year old group and 58 per cent in the 14-year-old group,” she writes.

States remain split on whether to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, despite a landmark report last month recommending it be lifted without exception.

Currently, the age is legislated at 10 years across Australia, with the Northern Territory set to increase it to 12 later this year and the ACT committed to lifting the age to 14 in 2027.

A draft report from the Age of Criminal Responsibility Working Group, released by the nation’s ­attorneys-general last month, said there was strong support from legal, medical and human rights organisations to lift the age.

Amnesty International Indigenous rights campaigner Maggie Munn said having a low minimum age of criminal responsibility trapped children in the criminal justice system.

“What’s most alarming is that this is just the latest in a long history of such reports with the same statistics of gross overrep­resentation of First Nations kids, and yet, we see the government in Queensland doubling down on a punitive approach to youth crime,” they said.

“All the research and the ex­periences of folks who have been incarcerated tells us that when children are incarcerated, it begins a cycle of harm and violence that keeps them trapped in the criminal legal system, very rarely with the support needed to address the underlying causes of their behaviour.”

Ms Munn said overrepresentation of Indigenous children was a “shameful legacy of colonisation” and the state should adopt a therapeutic approach to youth justice.

The Palaszczuk government has embarked on a juvenile crime crackdown after Brisbane mother Emma Lovell was allegedly stabbed to death by knife-wielding teens during a home invasion on Boxing Day.

Unveiling the second suite of youth justice reforms in as many years, Ms Palaszczuk has committed to increase penalties and build two new youth detention centres.

Greens MP Michael Berkman, who last year introduced a failed bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, said the government needed to address the root causes of problem behaviour.

“Like properly funding existing programs so every child can access trauma-informed, culturally appropriate support if they need it,” he said.

“They can’t pretend they’re genuinely interested in addressing Indigenous overrepresentation in the courts and in detention while their consistent response to youth crime is tougher penalties and building more youth prisons.”

Queensland’s peak legal bodies – the Bar Association and Law Society – both backed Mr Berkman’s bill to raise the age to 14.

A spokeswoman for Acting ­Attorney-General Meaghan Scanlon said: “Queensland is working as part of a national agreement to develop a proposal to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12 years.”