National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS), the national peak body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services, is one of the numerous legal organisations that have expressed their apprehension regarding the Country Liberal Party’s plan to lower the age of criminal responsibility.

Karly Warner, chair of NATSILS, voiced vital concern over Finocchiaro’s intention of lowering the age of criminal responsibility by articulating how it contradicts her efforts to improve youth justice issues due to its likelihood of exacerbating crime rates in the Northern Territory.

“The new Chief Minister has been elected on a platform to reduce crime, but her punitive agenda will do the exact opposite,” she said.

Warner stressed that approaches emphasising law and order focusing on punishment have historically had no success and will instead lead to adverse effects.

“Law and order posturing about punishment, power and control has never worked before, and it won’t work now.

“If the stated agenda of the new government proceeds, it will backfire. Chief Minister Finocchiaro will preside over a more dangerous Northern Territory in the months and years ahead,” she said.

“The responsibility of governments is to do everything possible to prevent crime, not look tough in response.”

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Warner also expressed how NATSILS remains worried that programs proven successful in preventing youth crime will be given lower priority by the government.

“We are extremely concerned that the proven programs that actually work to keep young people engaged in the community and prevent crime, which have never been properly supported or funded anyway, will now be even further deprioritised,” she said.

“Putting 10-year-old children in jail, bringing back spit hoods and increasing incarceration won’t stop crime – it will perpetuate the cycle of trauma, violence and government neglect that led us here in the first place. We need to support young people, and their families and communities, not harm them.”

Instead of changing the age of criminal responsibility, Warner recommends that the government should prioritise establishing early intervention and diversion programs led by Indigenous community organisations.

“Keeping kids locked up leads to horrific outcomes not only for them, but for their communities and families. Instead, we need early intervention and diversionary programs led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community-Controlled Organisations,” she said.

“Our sincere hope and appeal to Chief Minister Finocchiaro is for the new government to pause, sit down with us and local communities and properly understand the things that increase crime, and what can be done to prevent crime, before locking up our children and creating a more dangerous Northern Territory,” Warner said.

Additionally, Jared Sharp, the principal legal officer for the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, discussed how imprisoning children as young as 10 is a “devastatingly backward step for the Northern Territory, which already locks up more children than any other jurisdiction”.

Sharp underscored that reducing the minimum age of criminal responsibility would profoundly impact the welfare of children and lead to higher recidivism rates among those aged 10 to 12 years.

“Time spent in detention has seriously negative health and wellbeing impacts for a young person and risks compounding any underlying issues that might have contributed to them coming into contact with the justice system in the first place.

“There are no community benefits to locking up children. Children first imprisoned between the ages of 10 and 12 are twice as likely to re-offend than those first sentenced as young adults, meaning that early detention has a criminogenic effect,” he said.

“Child development experts are clear that children’s brains and behaviour patterns are still developing until their late teens. Diversion and rehabilitation are more suitable for young offenders.”