What do we mean when we say, ‘minimum age of criminal responsibility’?
The minimum age of criminal responsibility is the age at which children can be incarcerated in a youth justice facility, but also the age at which they can become engaged in the broader justice system, including being arrested and subject to criminal proceedings in the Children’s Court
What is the current age of Criminal Responsibility in Australia?
The varies across Australia.
The ACT became the first to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 on 1 July 2025.
VIC announced similar reforms, initially committing to 14 but later scaling it back to 12. This will be reviewed in 2027.
TAS has announced that it will raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10-14 and will increase the minimum age of detention to 16 years. Implementation of these policies is expected to be completed by July 2029.
The NT raised the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12 in 2023. However, with the change in Government last year, that decision was reversed and is now back at 10 years.
NSW has not declared any intention of raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility beyond 10 years old
WA has not declared any intention of raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility beyond 10 years old.
SA is consulting on whether to raise the age to 12 but has not formalised anything.
QLD introduced their Adult Crime, Adult Time laws at the end of 2024 - this legislation kept the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 10, and even allowed some serious offences by children to be dealt with in the adult justice system.
Federally, the national minimum age of criminal responsibility is 10, and the Commonwealth have argued the burden of this issue lies with the States.
In Australia, the minimum age of responsibility operates alongside a legal presumption known as doli incapax – meaning that children aged 10-14 years are incapable of committing a crime. However, the doli incapax presumption is fairly complex in application and not always applied consistently. It also only becomes operative once the child has reached the trial stage of the justice process, meaning they have still been subjected to the trauma of the system in the first place.
Why should all states and territories raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14?
Medical consensus regarding child brain development shows that children under the age of 14 are undergoing significant growth and development, which means that they may not have the required capacity to be criminally responsible.
Research shows that immaturity can affect a number of areas of cognitive functioning including:
- Impulsivity
- Reasoning
- Consequential thinking
There is also clear evidence that children in our criminal legal system have high rates of additional neurocognitive impairment, trauma, and mental health issues. Given the high rate of neurodevelopmental delay experienced by children in youth centres of detention, behaviours often reflect the developmental age of the child, which may be several years below their chronological age.
Judging criminal responsibility on the basis of a chronological age is inappropriate for children who may have a much lower developmental age due to medical and developmental conditions as well as socio-political factors including trauma and poverty.
The evidence overwhelmingly shows that when children in the very young age bracket of 10 to 13 years of age are forced through a criminal legal process during their formative developmental phases, they suffer immense and enduring harm. Worse still, this compounds the disadvantage they were experiencing prior to their first contact with the legal system, particularly for those who are chronically over-represented in the criminal legal system.
You can read more about the medical impacts of Australia’s low minimum age of criminal responsibility in this letter sent to all Premiers, Attorneys-General and Health Ministers from a coalition of 32 health and medical organisations across Australia.
Why is this an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice issue?
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately impacted by these laws.
Australia’s low minimum age of criminal responsibility is separating children from their communities, inflicting deep and lasting wounds, and perpetuating cycles of injustice for First Nations young people.
The 2025 Closing the Gap report revealed that Australia is failing to meet its targets for reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in the youth justice system. Latest data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show us that on an average day in 2023/24, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people (age 10-17) were about
- 19 times as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to be under supervision
- 19 times as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to be under community-based supervision, and
- 27 times as likely as non Indigenous young people to be in detention
How is Raising the Age linked to Closing the Gap?
The abovementioned statistics cannot be seen in isolation; they intersect deeply with other Closing the Gap targets that are also off track. The over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care increases their risk of later justice involvement, while gaps in access to quality early childhood education and health services limit opportunities for healing and thriving from the start. Educational disengagement, often linked to intergenerational trauma, poverty, and systemic racism, further compounds vulnerability. Together, these failures reveal a cycle of structural disadvantage that begins long before a child enters the justice system, underscoring the urgent need for holistic reform that addresses the interconnected drivers of inequality, not just its symptoms.
Raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 would have an immediate impact on Australia’s ability to meet its Closing the Gap targets. In particular Target 11, which aims to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are not overrepresented in the criminal justice system as currently Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children represent over 60 percent of all children in detention in Australia on an average day.
Where does Australia stand internationally on this?
In 2019, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child released a general comment on children’s rights in the child justice system which recommended that the age of criminal responsibility for all nations be increased to 14.
Under scrutiny at a Universal Periodic Review in January 2021 (an instrument of the UN Human Rights Council to hold Governments accountable for human rights records) 31 countries recommended that Australia raise the age of criminal responsibility to international standards of 14 – Australia defied these calls, noting that responsibility for the age of criminal responsibility is shared with the States and Territories.
Some States and Territories have committed to raise the age to 12, is that not high enough?
There is no good age for a child to be locked away in prison. The medical evidence is clear that children under the age of 14 years are undergoing significant growth and development, and any contact with the criminal justice system can cause lifelong harm and trauma.
Raising the age to just 12 would also be in contrast to the recommendations of the Draft Final Report 2020 – Council of Attorneys-General
Age of Criminal Responsibility Working Group which recommends that the age is raised to 14 with no exceptions.
The medical evidence and internationally accepted standards make it clear that 14 years should be the minimum age of criminal responsibility. This was also pointed out by the United Nations Committee Against Torture’s recently published concluding observations on Australia, which called the current age of criminal responsibility “very low” and recommended that the age be raised in accordance with international standards.
But what about community safety?
We create safe and healthy communities by meeting the needs of children, not locking them away and making things worse in the future.
That means investing in community services to support families, health and disability care, and working with schools to keep children engaged.
What about kids who engage in serious and harmful behaviours?
It is rare for children aged 10-13 years to be charged with a serious offence of violence. The majority of children who get funnelled into the criminal legal system are dealt with for offences of theft, burglary, and property-related crime.
Where a child aged between 10 and 13 years is alleged to have caused harm to another, this is a sign of something having gone wrong in that child's life. Violent actions or behaviour in young children are often directly linked to experiences of trauma, neglect, and harm or unaddressed mental or physical health problems. Rather than criminalise trauma, it is the responsibility of our governments to provide that child with the services needed to address the underlying causes of their behaviour and to set them onto a better path. The worst place for a child to be is in prison.
There are services and programs which are more responsive to the needs of children and effective in addressing problematic behaviours.
Critically, these are therapeutic and developmentally appropriate, rather than punitive.
What should be the alternative for youth who engage in criminal activity if not youth detention?
Medical professionals say that children aged 10 to 13 years lack emotional, mental, and neurological maturity to really understand the consequences of their actions – this is why locking kids up is not only cruel, but it also doesn’t work!
When children’s brains are still developing throughout these formative years they need age-appropriate, therapeutic responses to their actions. This could mean an experienced youth worker supporting a child to recognise the harm caused by their behaviour; it could involve a case worker supporting a whole family to support a young person who is struggling; or it could mean a young person participating in a program to develop skills to cope with complex or distressing emotions. There are lots of evidence-based programs and supports that support children to learn and grow, instead of just locking them away.
Governments should prioritise and invest in early intervention, prevention, and diversion as the most effective ways to reduce child and youth offending and re-offending.
Why are you targeting federal MPs instead of state MPs?
Constitutionally, the States and Territories are empowered to set their own minimum age of criminal responsibility. This means that in Australia currently, whether you go to prison is dependent on which State or Territory you live in. A child under the age of 14 in the ACT will be supported therapeutically while just across the border in NSW, they could be placed in detention.
Given international scrutiny, the desire for national uniformity, as well as Australia’s international human rights obligations given the clear failure of the States and Territories to protect the rights of children in the youth justice system, there is a strong case for moral leadership and responsibility ultimately resting with the Commonwealth. We are therefore calling on federal leaders to manage a streamlined, timebound, nationally consistent reform of the youth justice system, including raising the age and introducing enforceable national minimum standards for youth justice.
Under section 51(xxix) of the Constitution, the Commonwealth has the power to implement Australia’s international obligations—such as those under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Both treaties require Australia to treat children in a manner that reflects their age, development, and vulnerability. The current minimum age of criminal responsibility - 10 years old - falls well below international standards, with the UN repeatedly urging Australia to raise it to at least 14.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately affected by these laws. Reform is essential to ensure a just and culturally appropriate youth justice system. Far from being extreme, federal action would align Australia with international human rights standards and follow High Court precedent confirming the Commonwealth’s power to legislate in this area (Commonwealth v Tasmania).