Experts have called for the minimum imprisonment age for children in Queensland to be increased from 10 to 14 years, saying it would cut down on recidivism.

August 10, 2018

Human rights, medical and legal experts have called on the Queensland government to increase the minimum age children can be locked behind bars for a criminal offence.

Each year around 150 children aged 10 to 13 are imprisoned in Queensland’s children’s prisons each year, Amnesty International says.

The human rights group says it’s the highest incarceration rate of all states and territories and the Palaszczuk government should increase the age of criminal responsibility to 14.  

Campaigner Belinda Lowe said too many childhoods are being lost in detention centres.

“We’re not only taking away the lives of children now, we’re taking away their futures,” Ms Lowe said.

Ms Lowe said children arrested under the age of 14 are three times more likely to re-offend later in life than those arrested for the first time after they’ve turned 14.

It comes weeks after former police commissioner Bob Atkinson recommended raising the age to 12 as part of broader reforms to Queensland’s youth justice system.

Indigenous children account for 70 per cent of youth detainees across the state, with property and theft offences making up a majority of crimes committed by all children, Amnesty International said.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service chief executive Shane Duffy said the current approach to youth crime wasn’t working.

“We’ve got a massive number of young people sitting on remand in police cells,” he said.

Mr Duffy said families not being able to afford bail meant many children would remain on remand for periods stretching longer than the sentences they are later given.

Amnesty International research found 86 per cent of children in Queensland prisons had not been sentenced.