{"id":3240,"date":"2019-06-14T11:40:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T01:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/?p=3240"},"modified":"2019-07-18T16:23:18","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T06:23:18","slug":"too-young-for-facebook-old-enough-for-prison-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/2019\/06\/14\/too-young-for-facebook-old-enough-for-prison-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Too young for Facebook, old enough for prison?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Children can\u2019t sign up to Facebook until age 13 but in Australia they can be prosecuted for a criminal offence at age ten, and that needs to change!<\/p>\n

As former head of Medical Services at the prison-like Parkville Youth Justice Precinct in Melbourne, paediatrician Dr Mick Creati has seen children as young as 11-years-old incarcerated.<\/p>\n

And jail, he says, is no place for a child.<\/p>\n

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Science tells us that ten is too young to be held criminally responsible. Picture: Getty Images<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under Australian law children are deemed criminally responsible at age ten and can be prosecuted and imprisoned.<\/p>\n

According to Dr Creati, the science tells us that ten is too young to be held criminally responsible; children\u2019s control over their impulses isn\u2019t fully developed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0latest neuroimaging of the prefrontal cortex<\/a>\u00a0(the part of your brain responsible for planning and impulse control) shows that it isn\u2019t fully developed until the age of 25, and as such, children at the age of 14 years have less developed impulse control compared to adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt ten years of age, it is even less so,\u201d says Dr Creati, a fellow with\u00a0Royal Australasian College of Physicians<\/a>\u00a0and an academic at the University of Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven as adults, we know we are not fully in control of our impulses, otherwise supermarkets wouldn\u2019t put chocolates next to the checkout. We go there, not planning to buy them, but impulsively put the chocolates in our trolley.\u201d<\/p>\n

But every year, around\u00a0600 Australian children under 14 are incarcerated <\/a>for acts which Dr Creati claims could be explained as \u201cunderstandable on neurocognitive grounds \u2013 acts that are very much unplanned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are kids in custody who have gone out with friends and the friends have stolen a car, and the child is told to get in the car or they are out of the friendship group,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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There are calls calls for an increase in Australia\u2019s minimum age of criminal responsibility. Picture: Shutterstock<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cImpulsively, the child jumps in the car and if they are older than ten years of age they can then be charged with a crime because that\u2019s the law. They can end up behind bars.\u201d<\/p>\n

The behaviour people label as \u2018criminal\u2019, Dr Creati argues, could be better understood as behavioural issues of a ten-year-old that stem from their poorly developed capacity for planning and impulse control.<\/p>\n

Dr Creati was one of several health and legal experts at a\u00a0Murdoch Children\u2019s Research Institute\u00a0seminar this week considering calls for an increase in Australia\u2019s minimum age of criminal responsibility.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a call that is backed by a number of groups including the College of Physicians, the\u00a0Human Rights Law Centre,\u00a0Amnesty International, and the\u00a0National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO).<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t sign up to use Facebook until you are 13, but in Australia you can be prosecuted for a criminal offence at age ten,\u201d said Professor Kinner, who also heads up the\u00a0Justice Health Unit<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia has one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the world. Germany, Italy and Russia specify 14 years as the criminal age of responsibility,\u201d says Professor Kinner, who hosted the\u00a0Too young for Facebook, old enough for prison<\/em>\u00a0seminar.<\/p>\n

Dr Creati notes that a 2018\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0found that of 99 children in custody in Western Australia, 89 per cent had at least one neurocognitive or neurodevelopment impairment.<\/p>\n

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Youth detention can be traumatising, for example being locked in a cell at night or held in solitary confinement. Picture: Getty Images<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cChildren who come into contact with the criminal justice system often have neurocognitive challenges such as intellectual disabilities, foetal alcohol syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or mental disorders like depression and anxiety related to trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese children need care and support, not criminalisation,\u201d Dr Creati says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you accept that 89 per cent of these children have neurocognitive deficits, we are looking at kids functioning at a lot younger than 10 and they are being incarcerated for their impulsive, ill-thought out behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Creati says when a child of nine runs foul of the law, the options are to support their parents, address their learning difficulties, and endeavour to engage them in school, but when a child hits double digits the \u2018legal pathway\u2019 is too often pursued.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo survive and thrive, children need consistent positive parenting in a family, engagement with a school, positive peer engagement, and pro-social activities like sport. If you remove a child from those protective factors and incarcerate them, you alter their life trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou actually increase the risk of recidivism, and in addition to that the practices of youth detention are traumatising, for example being locked in a cell at night or held in solitary confinement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s laws are especially pernicious for many disadvantaged Indigenous communities, with young Indigenous Australians over-represented\u00a0in detention by a factor of 23<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last June,\u00a0all of the children aged under 14 years<\/a>\u00a0incarcerated in the Northern Territory were Indigenous.<\/p>\n

Dr Creati knows this problem more than most.<\/p>\n

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Children who come into contact with the criminal justice system often have neurocognitive challenges. Picture: Shutterstock<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He appeared as an expert witness at the\u00a0Royal Commission into the Detention and Protection of Children in the Northern Territory<\/a>\u00a0(2016-17) and continues to work at an Indigenous Community Controlled Health Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to work with Indigenous communities to find solutions, and I don\u2019t see this as an issue of Aboriginality but social disadvantage \u2013 all socially disadvantaged children have a much higher risk of being incarcerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

This article was written by Christine Tondorf\u00a0 (University of Melbourne, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) and first published on Pursuit<\/a>. Read the\u00a0original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Banner: Getty Images<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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