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“I believe the children are our future – teach them well and let them lead the way.” So the song goes … Superficial as those lines are, they tap into a simple wisdom: all children deserve a good start – a fair go. It seems inarguable, doesn’t it?
Sadly, this is not what we deliver to all of our children in Australia. Too often, when children are disadvantaged at the beginning of their lives – by income, location, discrimination, family violence … whatever reason – we punish them for it.
Our system often fails to rally around these children to ensure they can survive and thrive, instead funnelling them into the criminal justice system. One way we do this is through Australia’s incredibly low “minimum age of criminal responsibility”.
The outcome of such an approach – the face of which has become a young Aboriginal man named Dylan Voller, who is desperately trying to reform his life in full glare of the media – is what has led to the royal commission into the protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory.
And, as many of us have before – from inquiry after inquiry, through thousands and thousands of pages of reports, after hundreds of harrowing interviews with children and young people who have gone through our child protection and juvenile justice systems – we hope for recommendations and political will to reform our system from the very core, not tinker ineffectually around the edges.
It is deeply distressing to reflect on what we have heard from and about children in the Northern Territory – Aboriginal children over-represented among them. Over and over again, we have heard stories of children who wanted care and love – children who wanted to be with their families and friends, to be safe in their culture, some decision making power in their lives, to have access to education and a chance for stable work. To feel like they were heard.
These are aspirations we all hold – aspirations we should be realising. Yet, expert after expert tells us we are falling short. Serious health conditions have gone untreated. The impacts of trauma have gone unnoticed. Educational needs have continued to be unsupported. Connection to family and culture has been undervalued.
As a nation, we have ignored, again and again, the silent suffering of children and families. At the same time, we have also seen the strength, determination and pain of Aboriginal communities.
But Australia is not alone in this picture.
In 2011, I worked in Bangladesh to reform its juvenile justice system. The minimum age of criminal responsibility was nine years. Police could arrest children in need of protection on grounds of vagrancy, begging, prostitution, smoking and dropping out of school. Children below the age of criminal responsibility could be kept with adult prisoners, further exposing them to abuse and violence. There were only three specialised juvenile courts in the entire country.
Organisations like Unicef recommended reforms grounded in the rights of children – about strengthening child protection systems, enabling better access to justice, diverting children from legal procedures and expanding community rehabilitation services.
On the other hand, some countries arrived at the concept of “responding to deeds in the context of children’s needs” much earlier. In Scotland, in 1964, the Kilbrandon Report was handed down, concerned with children exhibiting “delinquent behaviour”. Lord Kilbrandon – somewhat astonishingly for the times – viewed all such children as having the shared common experience of “a failure in the normal experiences of upbringing … and social education”.
The overall outcome was the creation of community panels that considered how to address the underlying causes of offending and give children opportunities to be heard.
You see, the images we saw on Four Corners, which sparked the NT royal commission, are symptomatic of a common experience throughout the world. That, in fact, the most vulnerable children, those in most need of care, guidance and opportunities, are frequently those we subject to punishment and retribution through systems in which maltreatment and mistreatment can occur.
Who among us would make better life decisions when subjected to these sorts of experiences?
Australia’s minimum age of criminal responsibility is 10, still one of the lowest in the world. The global average is 14, and numerous national and international experts have recommended we raise it to 12.
Do we really believe that detaining a 10-year-old is the mark of a progressive democratic system?
Children who have access to quality education, are included in their communities and have safe people in their lives have a chance at making better decisions, and getting back on track. To not become trapped in the criminal justice system.
There are already some successful programs and approaches in Australia that do this.
Community concerns and anxieties about violence and antisocial behaviour are completely legitimate. I understand and share them. But there are more effective ways to ensure community safety at the same time as being more humane to our children.
It is far beyond time for us to recognise our system is wrong. Prevention, based on the best interests and rights of children, will always be better than punishment. To use a croaky old saying, it’s far better to have a fence at the top of the cliff than a net at the bottom.
It is true that children are our future – but they are also complex human beings in the here and now. So if we strive to provide the best future and opportunities for all our children, we are, in the end, also providing the best future for us all.
By Alison Elliott
15 November 2017
Alison Elliott is a senior policy manager at Unicef Australia, specialising in youth justice and children’s rights
