Thursday, 5 October 2023

Age of criminal responsibility

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:09): (292) My question today is to the Attorney-General. Attorney, since we last met in this place the Yoorrook for Justice report has been delivered. A strong call in the report is to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14. The report states:

The Victorian Government has committed to raise the age to 12 within the next year and to 14 by 2027. Yoorrook heard that this is too slow.

Specifically the commissioners called out the claim that more time is needed to develop alternative models for 12- to 13-year-olds, writing that as of May 2023:

… there were no 12-year-olds and only one 13-year-old in the entire youth justice system (custodial and community supervision). Even allowing for some fluctuations, the investment and time needed to develop an alternative service model for 12 and 13 years olds should not take four years …

Attorney, truth-telling is one of the three pillars of the Uluru statement, and Yoorrook fulfils a part of that function. Why is the government not listening to these clear calls to raise the age to 14 sooner than 2027?

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:10): I thank Ms Copsey for her question. Ms Copsey, my answer to this question has not changed since the time that I announced that we would be raising the age from 10 to 12. Indeed I was a witness at Yoorrook and was very honest and clear in responding to the questions from the commission in relation to the government’s position on raising the age. We have a commitment to raise the age from 10 to 12 – that will be in legislation that will come to the Parliament early next year – and we have a commitment to raise the age further to 14, subject to a consideration of relevant offences as well as the alternative services model.

What we do not want to see is a situation where you change a number and you have children falling through the gaps. We know that there is a very complex cohort of youth offenders aged 13 and 14 – and 12 – and we really want to make sure that we have the right services responding to them. In a lot of instances that is what is happening, as evidenced by the small number of children in that age group that are in custody. The children that are committing offences are having wraparound services, interventions from NGOs and other government services already. That is having a great impact on reducing the amount of young people in our custodial settings. I would actually like to see a situation where when we raise the age to 14 it is irrelevant because we have all of the services in place that are already preventing those children from needing to be put in custody in the first place.

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:12): Thank you, Attorney, for your answer. You have partially answered my supplementary, I believe. Can I confirm that when you introduce that legislation – the youth justice bill that will be presented early next year – that bill will only include legislating the raise to the age of 12 and that the raise to the age of 14 will require a separate process, and can you give me an indication of the time frame that that process of legislating the raise to the age of 14 will require?

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:12): Ms Copsey, yes, I confirmed this information when I announced our policy in relation to legislation to raise the age to 12. I made it very clear that the legislation would not provide measures to raise the age to 14 and that that would be a separate process subject to further consideration of what those laws would look like and indeed the development of the alternative services model. The commitment is to aim to have that done by 2027.