Boyhood deserves the love of a stable family where dreams grow, not criminal records

There are many reasons why most of us don’t spare a thought for the children involved in our criminal justice system.

So many reasons we can reel off as to why they should be serving their time, taken off our streets, and taught a good lesson.

Dr James Fitzpatrick.

Across Australia, the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years. That means that we can, and do, send 10-year-old children to prison. Perhaps more of us should spare a thought for these children.

The plight of these children I ponder here in a poem that I wrote a few years ago, after assessing a 10-year-old child in a detention facility in Western Australia.

Boyhood, by Dr James Fitzpatrick

Boyhood should involve playing cops and robbers, not being one. Boyhood deserves the love of a stable family. Boyhood is where dreams, not a criminal record, should flourish and grow.

Boys should not know what a judge is, not what a courtroom looks like, not what ‘lock-up’ feels like. Boyhood memories should be of sniffing the morning air, not sniffing petrol.

Boyhood doctor’s visits should be for a cough or cold, not to inform a pre-sentencing process. Boyhood sports should be soccer and footy, not break and enter.

Felony should mean you tripped, and grazed your knee, robbery should be the consistency of jelly and Grandmas.

Sentencing should be what happens in English class. Court should be where you learn to play tennis.

Security should be your natural born right, not hired guards keeping you under surveillance.

The worst of boyhood should set you up for a wonderful life. I wonder why some boys are set up by life, for the worst.

The boy I met today deserves far more than his community, his systems of care, and politicians of the day, have provided for him. Boyhood indeed.

I remember my own boyhood, four years in a country boarding school in central NSW, a long series of adventures and opportunities. We took risks and experimented beyond the scope of what my parents, teachers, or the priests at my boarding school would have expected.

We broke things, broke into things, we stole things, burned things, we drank and smoked things that we should not have at our young age (or at any age). We skated close to danger from the environment around us.

Most of us were also challenged by, and fended off, dangers presented by people around us. My journey through boyhood into adolescence was one of risk-taking, near misses, firm but fair lessons, and second chances. The systems around me responded with discipline that didn’t leave a mark.

I went on to join the army, then study agricultural science, then psychology, then medicine, then a PhD in medicine, and then on to a career as a researcher, paediatrician, and business owner. I don’t have a criminal record.

I was not taken away from my family for extended periods of time by a higher authority. My parents weren’t wealthy, but they could afford books, holidays, and school fees at a mid-tier catholic college.

Now a few decades later I focus my work in the justice system, with highly skilled colleagues, assessing the cognitive capacity of children and young people who are going to court for crimes no more malicious than those of myself and my peers when we were children.

My colleagues and I have conducted hundreds of assessments in the West Australian and Northern Territory youth justice systems. I have empathised with the stories of many of these children and youth.

These boys and girls are also risk-takers, but when they fail it is not a near miss, not a second chance. It is a fast track into the justice system, in which they become fluent as a rite of passage.

Relatively speaking, I was a rich kid, and I went to boarding school. The poor kids I see in my work as a doctor are fundamentally no different to me, but they go to prison.

But there is hope. There are some practical steps that can be taken. Firstly, the WA government can increase the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years.

This will mean that children younger than this need to be provided with an alternative pathway, rather than sentencing and detention. Each year in WA this would affect around 120 children aged 10 to less than 14.

In 2021, 31 United Nations member states, including Canada, France, and Norway, called on Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility. This would bring our progressive society in line with the 2019 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommendation that 14 years should be the minimum age of criminal responsibility worldwide.

Since then, across Australia only the ACT has acted on the issue. Come on WA, we can do better than that.

Secondly, we need to assess the behavioural and neurodevelopmental capacity of all children who come to the attention of the law.

This is achievable. In WA we have an international reputation as leaders in assessing and diagnosing complex conditions, including Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, in the justice system.

Providing a behavioural and neurocognitive assessment for all 10 to 14-year-old children when they come to the attention of the law will enable therapy and support funding to be accessed through mechanisms such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Medicare, and school-based disability funding.

Third, we need to develop and sustainably fund a therapeutic diversionary pathway as an alternative to sentencing and incarceration. Again, that is achievable, and it may be the circuit breaker that turns off the tap of children who are undertaking their rite of passage in youth detention facilities.

The cost of this pathway including purpose-built facilities on country, out of major cities, would be less than the cost of putting these young people through court and into prison.

Additionally, costs may be partly met through National Disability Insurance Scheme or other funding sources where young people have a documented disability.

These diversionary pathways would reduce the strain on the State budget, and provide better outcomes for these children, surely priorities for an enlightened WA government.

Take time to spare a thought for the children and young people involved in our criminal justice system. There are many reasons we should be hopeful of putting them on the path to a bright future.

After all, that is what childhood is about!

Dr James Fitzpatrick is an expert in FASD and the chief executive at Patches Australia in Nedlands, Perth.