Last weekend saw the Country Liberal Party take victory in the NT elections. One of the party’s key platforms was lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10.
Just two years ago, the NT government raised the age from 10 to 12, and now residents seem keen to lower it back down again after a run of high-profile crimes by NT youths.
The move comes at a time when there are large calls around Australia to set a national minimum age of criminal responsibility of 14. Upon winning the election, new NT chief minister Lia Finocchiaro said the policy would be one of the first enacted.
Ms Finocchiaro said it was something her government would enact immediately.
“We’re lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 so that young people can be held accountable and that appropriate consequences for their age are delivered, such as boot camps,” she told reporters.
But the NT already has the highest youth incarceration rate in Australia, more than triple that of the next highest state (WA).
Right across the country, indigenous youth are jailed at much higher rates than youths from other cultural backgrounds, leading to accusations that the rule change is actually just thinly veiled racism.
But there is also no denying that crime in the NT has exploded, particularly this year, and that a majority of that increase is coming from young people.
What do you think they should do? Is lowering the criminal age fair?
.
