Process to raise the age of criminal responsibility: Submission to the Council of Attoneys-General

Chief law-makers in Australia must promote the rights of children with a commitment to raise the age at which children can be locked up, the Human Rights Law Centre has told a Working Group tasked to consider raising the age of legal responsibility. 

Currently across Australia, children as young as 10 can be arrested by police, charged with an offence, hauled before a court and locked away in prison.

Australian laws on legal responsibility, which result in 10 year olds being sent to prisons and held in police cells, are out of step with medical science on child development and international human rights standards.

Read the Human Rights Law Centre’s submission to the Council of Attorneys-General here.