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On 26 July last year, state and territory attorneys-general deferred a long-awaited decision on raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14, citing the need for more time to explore alternatives to incarceration.
One year on, there is still no national consensus or change.
It’s prompted renewed calls to make the move and a coalition of legal, medical and human rights groups to write to federal Attorney-General Michaelia Cash.
The group of 47 organisations from the Raise the Age coalition - including the Human Rights Law Centre, Murdoch Children s Research Institute, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and multiple Indigenous legal centres - have written to Senator Cash seeking an update on progress.
Racisme: le petit aborigène qui donne une leçon à l Australie montraykreyol.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from montraykreyol.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
When Dujuan doesn’t come home from school one day, his mum and grandma go out looking for him until late in the night. If the police find him first, they will report it to welfare, and he could end up in foster care – or worse, juvenile detention.
“You know, your little age is the right age to go to juvenile centre,” Megan warns him.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are vastly over-represented in the Australian penal system. Nationwide, they make up close to 70% of those aged 10-14 in youth detention, despite being only about 6% of the population in that age group. In the Northern Territory, in which Alice Springs is located, the situation is even worse: at the end of March, 31 out of 33 young people in detention (94%) were Aboriginal.
BBC News
By Vibeke Venema
image copyrightMaya Newell
A documentary about a 10-year-old Aboriginal boy s experience in school, In My Blood It Runs, has reignited a debate about Australia s failure to give indigenous children a good education and a fair start in life. Listen carefully, the teacher tells the class. This one isn t a story, this is information, or non-fiction - it s fact.
She s holding up The Australia Book, a picture book from 1952, and reads: In Botany Bay, Cook landed for the first time in a new country. Then he sailed up the coast, mapping as he went. On an island in Cape York he raised the English flag. And he claimed for the English country the whole of this new land.