Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service: State must urgently raise age of criminal responsibility

Calls are mounting for the Tasmanian government to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility, with one lawyer saying more and more kids are ‘falling into the quicksand’ of the youth justice system.

The state government must urgently increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 instead of waiting for a nationally consistent approach to the issue, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service says.

At a meeting of the nation’s first law officers on Friday, an agreement was made to release a 2020 draft report on the age of criminal responsibility, produced for the Council of Attorneys-General but kept under wraps until now.

The 140-page document recommended that Commonwealth, state and territory governments raise the age to 14.

Raise the Age rally on parliament lawns in Hobart last month. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service (TALS) acting state manager Hannah Phillips said there was “no question” that the state should increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

“I don’t see why we need to have national consistency – it’s state-based legislation as to the age of responsibility,” she said.

“So we need to be leaders.

“It needs to be done now. Every delay that happens is meaning that [more] young people are falling into the quicksand of the justice system.

“And they go to Ashley [Youth Detention Centre] and then they go to Risdon. And I’ve always said, [Ashley] is kindergarten for Risdon. I rarely see a young person who does not go from one to the other.”

Ms Phillips said it was “pretty solidly the case” that 50 per cent of detainees at Ashley were from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background.

“That’s because Aboriginal people more generally are in such a disadvantaged group of the population,” she said.

Ashley Youth Detention Centre near Westbury in northern Tasmania.

The Greens have backed TALS’ call for the age to be raised.

The ACT has already committed to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14, while Tasmania says it will lift the minimum age of detention from 10 to 14.

Attorney-General Elise Archer said on Sunday that a nationally consistent approach was “highly desirable” but she had asked the Justice Department to progress work on how the state could develop a reform framework “as a priority next year”.

The Age of Criminal Responsibility Working Group, co-chaired by Western Australia and the Commonwealth, is continuing to develop a proposal to raise the age.

The Tasmanian government has committed to closing the notorious Ashley by the end of 2024, replacing it with a detention and remand centre in the state’s south, two assisted bail facilities and two supported residential facilities.

Locations for the facilities are yet to be determined.