It is a critical time in the ACT Raise the Age campaign, there will be a vote soon in the age of criminal incarceration. Recent reports from ACTCOSS that in the ACT “At current levels, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children are locked up at 18 times the rate of non-Indigenous children. This is the […]
The national Raise the Age coalition of medical, legal, Aboriginal-led and human rights organisations today congratulated the new ACT Labor-Greens Government on its historic commitment to change the law in the ACT and raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility. State and territory Attorneys-General delayed making a decision to raise the age when they met […]
Following the likely return of the Gunner Labor party to office in the Northern Territory, the government must now make good on its promise to raise the age of criminal responsibility. In 2017, the Gunner government committed to recommendations from the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory including […]
At its annual Council of Attorneys-General (CAG) meeting last week, Australian lawmakers extended a review into raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14. Now, Amnesty International Australia is calling on the nation’s police to effect a moratorium on arresting and detaining children younger than 14 until the recommendations of […]
Responding to the Communique from the Council of Attorneys-General today in Adelaide which progressed the review of raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility of 14, Amnesty International Australia Indigenous Rights Manager Tammy Solonec said: “We know there is the will to raise the age in Australia, but it’s disappointing that the Communique hasn’t noted […]
In the ACT & across Australia, a child as young as 10 years old can be charged, sentenced and locked up. Every year, 600 children – most of them Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children – are locked away in youth jails. On International Human Rights Day, join us at our #raisetheage forum as we […]
On Monday 27 July, every Attorney-General will be in meeting together online to debate whether states and territories should continue locking up young kids. They think the community doesn’t want them to change this. Together, we can show them that we do. When politicians meet to answer the very simple question of whether we stop […]
Responding to new data from the Northern Territory government showing a decline in the number of children in Northern Territory youth prisons, Amnesty International Australia Indigenous Rights Manager Tammy Solonec said: “The trend towards fewer kids being locked up in the Territory is welcome, but there are still 363 children in prison, which is 363 […]
Your voice is powerful. Members of Parliament took your signature on our petition to raise the age of criminal responsibility seriously, and introduced a draft law to do just that. Now we need to up the pressure. The Bill Selection Committee – a group of politicians who decide what draft laws get debated and voted […]
Australia has been urged by a committee of international experts to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age.