Children as young as 10 years-old could be sent to juvenile detention in the Northern Territory under the new government.
Arrernte man Andrew Lockyer works with children incarcerated in the notorious Don Dale detention centre in the Northern Territory.
"If we're putting laws in place to traumatise our young people, well then, we're setting up our community to fail," Mr Lockyer said.105.7 ABC Darwin: Emilia TerzonFirst Nations leaders and experts across Australia have slammed the bucket of policies – which include reintroducing the use of spit hoods and making 10-year-old children criminally liable.
ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Commissioner Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts says policies in the Northern Territory have been a "war on Aboriginal children"."The fact that there is even consideration and discussions of holding children as young as 10 years-old who still have their baby teeth, who are still literally children, held to this idea of criminal responsibility actually speaks to the negligence of the leadership of that territory.
Chief Minister-elect Lia Finocchiaro is standing firm on the territory's new policies, including lowering the age of criminal responsibility and bringing back spit hoods.The NT's new Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro stood firmly behind the law reforms and said she planned to lower the age of criminality from 12 back down to 10.
This comes off the back of her report last week to reform the nation's justice systems, that recommended the age of criminal responsibility be raised to 14 across the country. The Country Liberal Party won in a landslide election on Saturday, with a suite of amendments to legislation and policies, which would include denying bail for alleged serious violent and repeat offenders, mandatory minimum sentences for assaulting frontline workers, criminalising public drunkenness, and building two new women's prisons.
"Nobody wants violence in the community, but people need opportunities to be able to have a crack at life and try to better themselves in life, rather than just being locked up."
Lia Finocchiaro Youth Crime Bail Laws Don Dale
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