Update from Australia by Amy Hall.
At 10 years of age, children should be developing in a nurturing environment of freedom and safety. But in Australia, 600 children between the ages of 10 and 13 were imprisoned in 2019 – over 60 per cent of them Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
It was hoped the Council of Attorneys-General would raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 years old in July, but instead they said more work was needed on alternatives for children ‘who exhibit offending behaviour’.
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