Submission on the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility

05/03/2020

Policy and law reform

The NSW Bar Association has made a submission to the Council of Attorneys-General Age of Criminal Responsibility Working Group Review. The submission recommends that the Working Group advocate to COAG to:

a. Uniformly raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility across all Australian jurisdictions to 14; b. As an alternative to the criminalisation of children between 10 and 14, investigate and adopt a response of culturally competent treatment, education and rehabilitation to address behaviour as appropriate; c. Urgently implement recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s 2018 Pathways to Justice – Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Final Report, including the establishment of the proposed District Court of NSW Koori Court (the Walama Court) in NSW.

The submission is available here.