The Victorian Greens will introduce a legislation in parliament to lift the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years old.

Currently, in Victoria children as young as 10 years old can be imprisoned if found guilty of certain crimes.

Greens spokesman for health and justice, Dr Tim Read, said criminalising children and imprisoning them has long terms effects on their mental health and development.

“The medical evidence is clear – children’s brains are still developing at this age, giving us an opportunity to redirect a criminal trajectory for everyone’s benefit,” he said.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends 14 years as the minimum age.

In a meeting held earlier this year, 31 United Nations member states called on Australia to meet this criteria.

Human Rights Law Centre executive director Hugh De Kretser said “Australia’s very low age of criminal responsibility was out of step with international standards”.

There is mounting pressure for states and territories to make changes to their legislation and to also recognise there is a clear gap in acknowledging which communities are most vulnerable to youth crime.

Amnesty International Australia’s Indigenous rights leader, Nolan Hunter, said the fact that the majority of children being sent to jail are Indigenous, “is not only in opposition to the UN’s own recommendations, but it is just morally wrong.”

It is up to each Australian state or territory to decide whether to raise the minimum age, both the Northern Territory and ACT have expressed the intention to do so.

The Greens plan to introduce the bill in the Victorian upper house within the next week with the vote to take place later this year.

Photo: A prison cell by Dylan Oliphant available HERE https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Look_At_The_Life_Of_Prison.jpg and used under a Creative Commons Attribution. The image has not been modified.