Will Australia Raise the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility (original) (raw)
Related papers
The common law influence over the age of criminal responsibility - Australia.
This article explores how Australian jurisdictions came to have an approach to the age of criminal responsibility similar to that which existed in England and Wales until 1998. It discusses recent debates in Australia about reforming the minimum age of criminal responsibility and the presumption of doli incapax. This shows that while there has been criticism of the presumption of doli incapax within Australia no jurisdiction has taken the English step of abolishing it. It finds that a greater challenge to the presumption of doli incapax may, however, come from calls for an increase in the minimum age of criminal responsibility to the age of 12. While several common law countries have raised the minimum age level to 12 (as called for by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child), they have also abolished the presumption of doli incapax, thus reducing protection for 12-and 13-year-olds. This article argues that unless the minimum age of criminal responsibility is raised to 14 or 16, as preferred by the UN Committee, there are good reasons to retain the presumption of doli incapax.
2021
Thank you to all the services, organisations and individuals that provided their time and thinking to this project. We would also like to thank and acknowledge the young people and carers who shared their experiences of the youth justice system and their lives. The Review team appreciates and respects the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the First Peoples and Traditional Custodians of this country. We pay our respects to Elders, both past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of this land. We acknowledge and value the rich and diverse cultures and long history of Australia. We understand the important role of maintaining cultures and the ongoing relationship with the land. We also acknowledge the children, because this is where culture lives and grows, and they are the future. GLOSSARY Common Acronyms Acronym Full Citation ACT Australian Capital Territory ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder AIHW Australian Institute of Health and Welfare ASD Autism Spectrum Disorder CALD Culturally and Linguistically Diverse CAMHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services CSD ACT Community Services Directorate CYPS Child and Youth Protection Services EYOP (Victorian) Embedded Youth Outreach Program EYOR (ACT) Embedded Youth Outreach Response JACS (ACT) Justice and Community Safety Directorate LSAC Longitudinal Study of Australia's children NDIS National Disability Insurance Scheme MST Multisystemic Therapy MTP Multidisciplinary Therapeutic Panel PTSD Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Youth Justice, 2017
In Australia, children as young as 10 are charged, convicted and sentenced for breaches of the law. Drawing on interviews with youth justice professionals in Victoria, this study finds that inconsistencies in practice undermine the extent to which the common law presumption of doli incapax offers an effective legal safeguard for very young children in conflict with the law. This article advocates that the Australian minimum age of criminal responsibility be increased to 14, that the principle of doli incapax be applied consistently to all persons under the age of 18 and that justice responses be supplanted by therapeutic supports for children and families.
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR LAW IN AUSTRALIA: ESSAYS IN CONTEMPORARY LAW REFORM
For reasons of effectiveness, efficiency and equity, Australian law reform should be planned carefully. Academics can and should take the lead in this process. This book collects over 50 discrete law reform recommendations, encapsulated in short, digestible essays written by leading Australian scholars. It emerges from a major conference held at The Australian National University in 2016, which featured intensive discussion among participants from government, practice and the academy. The book is intended to serve as a national focal point for Australian legal innovation. It is divided into six main parts: commercial and corporate law, criminal law and evidence, environmental law, private law, public law, and legal practice and legal education. In addition, Indigenous perspectives on law reform are embedded throughout each part. This collective work—the first of its kind—will be of value to policy makers, media, law reform agencies, academics, practitioners and the judiciary. It provides a bird’s eye view of the current state and the future of law reform in Australia.
The limits of jurisdiction: law, governance and Indigenous peoples in colonized Australia
2010
Mark Finnane, The limits of jurisdiction: law, governance and Indigenous peoples in colonized Australia,Palgrave Macmillan, reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan Finnane: Limits of jurisdiction 2 The limits of jurisdiction: law, governance and Indigenous peoples in colonised Australia Mark Finnane In events well known and controversial in Australia, the last year of the Howard Government (1996-2007) saw a federal "intervention" in one of its own territories with the aim of restoring order in Aboriginal communities. Under the mandate of an "Emergency Response" the government designed a comprehensive program of policing (including military aid to the civil power), welfare reform and criminal law amendment. The response comprised both material and symbolic elements. Among the latter was a widely publicised announcement that "customary law" would no longer be an excuse for criminal behaviour. Some months later the Commonwealth Parliament amended the Crimes Act to delete a requirement passed only in 1994 (with bi-partisan support) that a court take account of "cultural background" in sentencing decisions. Today the Crimes Act directs that "a court must not take into account any form of customary law or cultural practice as a reason for: (a) excusing, justifying, authorising, requiring or lessening the seriousness of the criminal behaviour to which the offence relates; or (b) aggravating the seriousness of the criminal behaviour to which the offence relates." 1 Such a determined government attack on "customary law and cultural practice" more than two centuries after the British settlement of Australia prompts us to consider how such traces of Indigenous authority and even assertions of jurisdiction have survived. For it will be argued here that far from being resolved in 1836, the question of Indigenous amenability to imported British criminal law in Australia remained surprisingly open. Historians as well as jurists have generally agreed that when the New South Wales Supreme Court affirmed in the case of R v Jack Congo
University of New South Wales, 2020
Young offenders have complex needs that are not being sufficiently catered for by caregivers or the state. Detention, mostly for minor misdemeanours, not only fails to address the needs of these children, it is physically and psychologically damaging; a violation of their rights under a number of international treaties and conventions, exposing them to disadvantage. Some children in Australia, such as Bronson Blessington, have even been sentenced to life imprisonment for offences committed at 14; an age where the presumption of doli incapax still applies. More consideration must be given to diversion or prevention where possible, and addressing the underlying causes of prejudice and criminogenic behaviour. A thorough review of the juvenile justice system, and consequently, the minimum age of criminal responsibility, is necessary to safeguard the rights and futures of children across Australia.
The Australian Criminal Code: Time for Some Changes
Federal Law Review
Among general texts, Simon Bronitt and Bernadette McSherry, Principles of Criminal Law (2 nd ed, 2005), ch 3, 'Principles of Criminal Responsibility' is remarkable for the authors' decision to adopt the conceptual vocabulary and structural framework of ch 2 of the Criminal Code, in place of common law 'actus reus' and 'mens rea', as the basis for their text.