The Victorian Government’s backflip on its pledge to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, following a tabloid scare campaign, has been widely condemned by First Nations, human rights and community groups.
Below, Nerita Waight, CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS), explains why she is confident the evidence-based change will happen, at some point.
Nerita Waight writes:
In my lifetime, Victoria will raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years old.
It seems like it will take a different decision made in a different time. We may have to wait for a different Premier – but it will happen.
I know it will happen because Aboriginal communities want it to happen. We have led the policy and advocacy for raising the age because it will give our children and their families so many more opportunities to build a better life.
Tabloid newspaper editors come and go. Governments are always rising and falling in Victoria. But Aboriginal people, my people, have been a constant on this land for over 60,000 years.
We outlived the megafauna, we survived an ice age, and we have survived 236 years of colonisation. We have thrived on this land and survived every challenge by taking strength from our connections to culture, kin and Country.
We will survive the Victorian Government’s treacherous decision to ditch their promise to raise the age to 14 years old – even though our children, families, and communities will bear the brunt of this decision.
Raising the criminal age of responsibility is not a controversial or novel policy.
Evidence matters
Over 30 nations across the world already have a minimum age of 14 or higher. Years of medical research shows that children’s brains are not developed enough to be capable of criminal intent – and that interaction with the justice system has significant detrimental effects on their health.
This is an evidence-based policy that has already been long implemented in other places. Those other places have recognised the harm inflicted by the criminal legal system on young people from over policing to charge to arrest to the first court appearance. It is frustrating to have to continually recite all the evidence for raising the age.
Speaking to someone opposed to raising the age is like talking to a climate change denier. But the evidence should make raising the age an easy win for a government – so why did the Victorian Government backflip on their commitment?
It is clear that a scare campaign run by Victoria Police and the Herald Sun about a manufactured “youth crime wave” panicked the Victorian Government. Panicked and timid policy making is bad leadership.
There’s obviously some political calculus about how Victorians might vote at an election and the impacts of the Voice referendum, but I think these calculations are made in error.
In an increasingly fractured media environment, tabloid newspapers like the Herald Sun have nowhere near the influence they used to wield over Victoria. It is peculiar that the newspaper continues to hold such a strong sway over the political class. Government MPs seem to have a 1990s view of the Herald Sun’s importance.
The Victorian Government also seems to have a very 1990s view of how Victorians view and experience crime. Despite what some might try to tell you, crime rates are much lower now than in the 1990s. It is a phenomenon common across large cities in many countries.
The prevalence of crime has dropped significantly and the public’s understanding of the causes of crime is shifting rapidly. Over the last decade, we have seen public opinion shift rapidly on issues like marriage equality and I think Victorians’ views on crime are shifting under the feet of our politicians.
Certainly the hundreds of small donors who give to VALS every year and the thousands of people who like and share our social media regularly do not support the Government’s backflip on raising the age.
Invest in safer, stronger communities
The Victorians who support our work want governments to invest in the things that actually make communities safer and stronger. Things like ensuring everyone has stable housing and income, access to health and education, and connection to community, things that actually stop the drivers of crime and ensure young people are not stuck in the spin cycle of the criminal legal system.
Our people have always known that these are the solutions. That is why Aboriginal people established grassroots organisations including legal services – like VALS – health services, childcare services and organisations to provide all the services we were not getting fair access to from governments.
Those organisations have also given our people great strength. And we are claiming back the rights we deserve and transforming the systems that we all live under.
While the referendum last year showed that the majority of the nation is still racist, the State and Federal elections in 2022 showed there is a substantial group of Victorians who believe that justice for Aboriginal people is important enough for them to change their vote, and there is enough of them to change the outcome in many electorates.
Through our strength and resilience as a peoples, Aboriginal communities are turning the tide and that’s why I know that the minimum age of criminal responsibility will be at least 14 at some point, whether that happens whilst I am on the frontlines or a rocking chair no one knows.
I do not hope for raising the age as hope died a long time ago. I do not wait for raising the age because children and young people in Victoria need help now. Instead I work alongside my community to embed holistic approaches that create safe and supported communities.
We will thrive again because we are an enduring constant on this land that cannot be broken.
• Nerita Waight is CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS)
Other reaction and commentary
First Peoples’ Assembly condemns broken promise to Raise The Age
Yoorrook Justice Commission condemned the decision. Chair of Yoorrook, Professor Eleanor Bourke said:“We cannot underestimate the tsunami of disappointment that this announcement will create for First Peoples communities. This decision is so contrary to the evidence it is difficult to comprehend – evidence heard by Yoorrook and countless other inquiries, commissions and coronial inquests over a period of decades.”
Deputy Chair of Yoorrook, Adjunct Professor Sue-Anne Hunter said the announcement was “a major setback for the rights of Aboriginal children, who are dramatically over-represented in Victoria’s youth justice system”. “The evidence shows that criminalising young people at an early age doesn’t rehabilitate them, it puts them on a pipeline to the adult justice system and a life of disadvantage and injustice. This decision means our people will continue to suffer for generations to come. But if we amend the law and raise the age, everyone benefits.”
Amnesty International: Shocking backflip on raising age of criminal responsibility a profound betrayal by Victorian Labor Government.
Human Rights Law Centre has denounced Premier Allan for continuing to imprison children after breaking the promise to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 by 2027, calling it a “heartless backflip”.
Federation of Community Legal Centres Victoria is “deeply disappointed” by the broken pledge, but says the Youth Justice Bill “is still an improvement on the current system, albeit a step forward rather than the leap it could have been”.
Victoria Legal Aid said the disappointing decision “severely undermines progress towards addressing systemic racism” and would have “a severe impact on young people, particularly First Nations young people and children of colour”.
Commission for Children and Young People said the backflip for community safety “has let children and young people down, particularly children from disadvantaged backgrounds, children who have experienced trauma, mental ill health or live with disability”.
VACCHO statement before the decision was officially confirmed.
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