The age of criminal responsibility in Australia is 10. That’s younger than the age you can vote (18), drive (16), be employed (14), or make a TikTok account (13), writes Jordan Elizabeth Cory | OPINION
When I was 10, I was so excited on Christmas when Santa delivered a bicycle andthe latest tome in the series. My favourite subject was English and I enjoyed choreographing dances to songs by Avril Lavigne and Destiny’s Child.
I am now a junior surgical doctor in pursuit of a master’s degree at Harvard University. As a child I was never incarcerated. Sadly, this is not the case for many other Aboriginal children who also have big dreams and enormous potential.In recent years, there have been growing calls to raise the age of criminal responsibility in Australia, to stop the continuing displacement of Indigenous families and communities. Kids’ outcomes are not improved by imprisonment.
Each year, about 600 children aged 10 to 13 are incarcerated in Australia, and 65 per cent of them are Indigenous. Of those who enter youth detention, two in five Indigenous Australian children enter between the ages of 10 and 13, compared with one in seven non-Indigenous youth.Raising the age of criminal responsibility is only part of the solution.
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