‘Extremely concerned’: UN warning over youth justice in Australia
A pair of UN experts have lashed Australia’s youth justice system and urged Queensland’s parliament to reject new laws further criminalising children.
Two United Nations experts have sounded the alarm over the state of Australia’s youth justice system, labelling it “in crisis” and leading to children having their human rights breached.
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Edwards and UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Albert Barume issued a joint statement this week, criticising Australian state and territory youth justice, and particularly the disproportionate rate of incarceration of First Nations children.
“The various criminal legal systems operating in Australia appear to be in crisis nationwide,” they said.
“Children are suffering undue harm to their safety and wellbeing, as well as to their educational and life prospects as a result of short-sighted approaches to youth criminality and detention.”
They also slammed the age of criminal responsibility across Australia, and said it is “younger than in most other industrialised countries”.
“The first goal should always be keeping children out of prison,” Edwards and Barume said.
“We are extremely concerned that present approaches are creating a future under-class of Australians.
“Juvenile facilities should prioritise education and rehabilitation to support childhood development. Criminal justice reform alone does not result in fewer anti-social or criminal behaviours.”
The UN experts took particular umbrage against the Queensland government’s expansion of its Adult Crime, Adult Time laws.
Legislation passed by the Queensland parliament this week expanded this scheme to another 20 offences, including arson, trafficking in dangerous drugs, endangering a police officer when driving a car, threatening violence and damaging an emergency vehicle when driving a motor vehicle.
Edwards and Barume said these laws are incompatible with basic child rights.
“If passed, the Queensland bill would result in additional adult penalties being applied to children for a wide range of offences,” they said.
“This would have an especially negative impact on the lives of Indigenous children, who are already disproportionately represented in the criminal legal system. We urge members of the Queensland parliament to vote against this bill.”
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli rejected the criticisms from the United Nations Special Rapporteurs.
“Here’s my message to the United Nations: ‘you don’t control me, and I don’t answer to you, I answer to Queenslanders’,” he said.
“I say to the United Nations: ‘we make laws to deal with one of the biggest issues this state has ever faced, and it’s a generation of repeat, hardcore young offenders’.”
Queensland has the highest number of children in prison than any other jurisdiction in the country, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s latest data, with 317 children in prison in the state on an average night.
Of the total incarcerated children in Australia, 60 percent are First Nations, while just 5 percent of the total child population in the country are Indigenous.