Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility

Timings

We are getting ready to commission with further timings to be shared, this is where we are at:

  • Discover  Ongoing

  • Design/Strategise  May 2023 to June 2024

    Indicative - subject to the passage of new legislation and broader government decisions.

  • Invest January to August 2024

    Indicative - subject to the passage of new legislation and broader government decisions. May include pilots and trials.

  • Deliver October 2023 to ongoing

    Indicative - subject to the passage of new legislation and broader government decisions. May include pilots and trails.

  • Integrate  September 2022 – onwards

    September 2022 – onwards

  • Evaluate  September 2022 – onwards

Latest update – March 2024

Long term service system reform is needed to support raising of the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

With the passage of the Justice (Age of Criminal Responsibility) Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 in November 2023 the minimum age of criminal responsibility has been raised to 12 and will be raised again to 14 by 2025. The legislation also supports establishment of the Therapeutic Support Panel (panel), an independent panel of experts to guide and facilitate therapeutic support services for children, young people, and families under a therapy plan.  The panel will commence 27 March 2024 following an open recruitment for members and the Chair.

A case work team will support the panel by working with children, young people, their families and communities.

The Safer Youth Response Service Pilot has recently been established, with Marymead CatholicCare announced as the provider. This pilot work with children and young people who come into contact with ACT Policing, including the capacity to facilitate emergency accommodation and case management as required.

Discovery: In the early stages of the panel and its implementation, we will continue discovery to understand what changes are needed in the service system to further support the MACR reform and to build capacity to work with children, young people and their families who would previously have been in or at risk of entering the criminal justice system.  This includes building an understanding of patterns of demand, the needs of children and young people and their families referred to the panel, and of current and emerging gaps in the service system. This service systemreform is ongoing and will be undertaken in partnership with the Aboriginal community controlled and broader community sectors.

Integration: Service system reformto realise the MACR reform will be undertaken iteratively with ACT Government commissioning processes across the human services.  Our work informs and is informed by insights from the upcoming Children, Young People and Families Services Program (CYFSP) commissioning Draft Insights Report to inform how MACR integrates and coordinates with the human service system including Child and Family Reform, Child Protection and Out of Home Care and Child, Young People and Family Services Program, Next Steps for our Kids and changes to the Children and Young People Act 2008.

Investment: ACT Government has recently undertaken two procurement activities to establish services to support the MACR ecosystem.  The Safer Youth Response Program will provide crisis and ongoing case management to children and young people in contact with ACT Policing.  Functional Family Therapy - Youth Justice will provide diversionary support for young people and their families to prevent contact with the youth justice system.

Our ongoing discovery phase presents opportunities to invest in and pilot innovative new initiatives or approaches to meet the needs of children and young people, and their families, accessing the panel.

Further information will be released on this webpage, through Commissioning Conversations, Sector Update Forums, and direct contact.

Please reach out to the MACR Project Team MACRreform@act.gov.au if you have any questions.

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Cycle: 1

Commissioner: Community Services Directorate

Status: Discover

We identify and document what we already know and what could be possible to explore through the commissioning cycle.  In this phase we will:

Background

Together, we are already reforming statutory and non-statutory services to improve the wellbeing of children, young people, and their families.

We are focused on how we can design and provide support services now that the minimum age of criminal responsibility has been raised to 12 in the ACT, and for the future increase to 14 in 2014.

In November 2023, the Justice (Age of Criminal Responsibility) Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 (Bill) was passed in the ACT Legislative Assembly, increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) to 14 years in two stages, by 2026 – making the ACT the first Australian jurisdiction to legislate an increase to 14 years.

This means that children and youth, between the ages of 10 and 13 years at risk of, or who have displayed serious harmful behaviours to themselves or others will not be held criminally responsible for their behaviours nor will they attract a criminal justice response, but instead will have priority access to trauma-informed, intensive therapeutic services.

We need to co-design the therapeutic and restorative care that is supported by a Therapeutic Panel, integrates with the human service system and that provides effective pathways to early support for children, young people, and their families.

We will apply commissioning as this method is consistent approach in the ACT and our opportunity to ensure our services and programs effectively meet the needs of our growing population, particularly vulnerable children, and young people.

Engagement and collaboration

We undertook initial consultations in 2021 to consider how a high minimum age of criminal responsibility could be implemented as well as an independent academic review that indicated exposing children and young people to the criminal justice system can have a significant impact on their neurological and social development and can result in life-long interactions with the justice system.

We have learnt much from this engagement and consultation, leading to comprehensive and descriptive legislation that establishes of the Therapeutic Support Panel in early 2024.  Workshops to inform the operations of the Panel were undertaken in mid-2023. A listening report from these workshop activities is now available: Listening Report - Raising the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility [PDF 681KB] [Word 669KB]

Commissioning and a co-design approach with academics, peak advocates, potential service providers as well as people with lived experience including children, young people, and their families will continue to inform development of the service system as part of operationalising the legislation, and learning as we go.

Tailored engagement opportunities will be undertaken with the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.

Contact us

To learn more about the process email Community Services Directorate email: CSDStrategicPolicyCommunity@act.gov.au

What we are looking at, listening to, and sharing

Through the co-design activities, we are seeking insights, perspectives and experiences that help us understand:

We will use your views to

Related commissioning cycles

We are listening to, connecting with, and drawing from active commissioning cycles:

Key links

We are referencing the following plans, strategies, and frameworks in this cycle:

Page updated: 06 Mar 2024