This was published 2 years ago
Opinion
At 10, I was dancing to Avril Lavigne, but that’s old enough to be locked up in Australia
By Jordan Elizabeth Cory
Marking the 14th anniversary of prime minister Kevin Rudd’s 2008 national apology to the Stolen Generations – the systematic forced removal of Indigenous children from their families, communities and cultures – Prime Minister Scott Morrison remarked this week: “Sorry is not the hardest word to say; the hardest is ‘I forgive you.’ ”
Morrison also declared that “forgiveness is never earned”. But what is an apology worth if you continue to commit the same behaviour? The Prime Minister is omitting an important fact: Australia is still reckoning with the reality that the Stolen Generation is not in the past; it never really ended.
Dr Jordan Elizabeth Cory, a Kamilaroi woman and junior surgical doctor. Right, her #MeAt13 portrait, when she was 13 years old. At that age, she would have been old enough to be criminally responsible. She wants others to share their #MeAt13 photos.
Indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated race on the planet – 2406 per 100,000 in 2021. Indigenous Australian youth are 20 times more likely than non-Indigenous youth to be locked up. One in every two young people incarcerated in Australia is Indigenous, despite comprising only 6 per cent of those aged 10 to 17.
The age of criminal responsibility in Australia is 10. That’s younger than the age you can vote (18), drive (16), be employed (14), or make a TikTok account (13).
When I was 10, I was so excited on Christmas when Santa delivered a bicycle and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the latest tome in the series. My favourite subject was English and I enjoyed choreographing dances to songs by Avril Lavigne and Destiny’s Child.
I am now a junior surgical doctor in pursuit of a master’s degree at Harvard University. As a child I was never incarcerated. Sadly, this is not the case for many other Aboriginal children who also have big dreams and enormous potential.
In recent years, there have been growing calls to raise the age of criminal responsibility in Australia, to stop the continuing displacement of Indigenous families and communities. Kids’ outcomes are not improved by imprisonment. By redirecting troubled youth into early-intervention therapeutic programs instead of detention, Australia could interrupt the intergenerational Stolen Generations and horrific incarceration rates of Indigenous Australians.
In late 2021, Australia’s attorneys-general indicated an intention to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12, but that is simply not enough. The ACT is the only jurisdiction as yet to commit to raising it to 14, while the Greens are applying pressure in some states.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in consultation with medical professionals, agrees the absolute minimum age of criminal responsibility is 14. That is also the world median.
Each year, about 600 children aged 10 to 13 are incarcerated in Australia, and 65 per cent of them are Indigenous. Of those who enter youth detention, two in five Indigenous Australian children enter between the ages of 10 and 13, compared with one in seven non-Indigenous youth.
Raising the age of criminal responsibility is only part of the solution. Australia needs to invest in alternative programs to ensure children with trauma history and violent behaviour receive therapeutic, evidence-based rehabilitation.
Indigenous kids are 11 times more likely than non-Indigenous kids to be in out-of-home care. Reform is overdue.
Further, there have been more than 470 Indigenous deaths in custody since the 1991 royal commission into the matter. There needs to be more accountability by police and justice departments with transparent, independent inquiries into each death, with an emphasis on community participation. We also need an independent audit on the status of each of the 76 recommendations of the royal commission.
Thirty years later, in 2021, Victoria became the second last Australian state to decriminalise public drunkenness, one of the key recommendations of the royal commission. Between 2013 and 2017, NSW police pursued 83 per cent of Indigenous people caught in possession of cannabis through the court system, compared with just 40 per cent of those who were non-Indigenous. There is rationale to support cannabis decriminalisation as a means of reducing Indigenous arrests, incarceration rates and deaths in custody.
Keeping children out of detention is the focus of a campaign to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14. Credit: Anthony Johnson
Australia needs to start earning the forgiveness of Indigenous people – starting with raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14. It is unconscionable for Australia to continue policies that only result in more broken families, broken communities, loss of culture and more Stolen Generations of Indigenous children.
What can everyday citizens do to support raising the age? Call your federal, state, and territory MPs and senators, and ask them to support #RaiseTheAge. Share a #MeAt13 photo of yourself at 13 years of age to create more conversation – because no child should be in prison.
Dr Jordan Elizabeth Cory is a Kamilaroi woman, junior surgical doctor, and Fulbright and Roberta Sykes scholar currently studying her master’s of public health at Harvard University.