In short:
The Northern Territory has passed new laws that lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10, about two years after the previous government raised the age to 12.
It comes a day after the Country Liberal Party government pushed through tougher bail legislation and extra powers for police as part of a suite of law and order changes.
What’s next?
New laws on public drinking and assaults on workers are expected to pass when parliament resumes next week.
Taking a kid from that family would be an immediate improvement no matter how it was done
Drag can think of many things a government could do to a kid worse than being in an abusive household. Hypothetically: Killing, slave labour, chemical experiments, exposure to addictive drugs. Realistically: Surrounding him with a bunch of older criminals who will traumatise him just as bad as his parents and also teach him how to scale up his crimes to violent crimes against civilians. What if the older kids beat him up, or get him on alcohol or cigarettes?
Drag can also think of solutions that don’t involve any violence. Like family therapy, a support pension, or rehabilitation programs for the parents.
https://tfhc.nt.gov.au/children-and-families/support-services-for-families
Services do.exist, and it’s bold of Drag to assume these children aren’t already exposed to alcohol, cigarettes or other addictive drugs, this could even be happening in their home, along with violence and crime. It could even be part of abuse they experience at home.
Abusive homes are inhumane, prison is inhumane, child separation is inhumane, forced rehab and therapy are inhumane. I’ve known a couple of car stealing 11 year olds and they just thought it was fun, they slso knew there would be no consequences, so why not?
Did you mean, why not criminalise them?
If so, because theres lots of experiential evidence that it doesn’t work to change criminal behaviour, and as drag alludes to, plenty of evidence now that the criminalised children are locked into a cycle of crime throughout their life.
Their life of crime becomes a cost to you and I, and all those who are victims of their shit behaviour, as well as the State. Its a cost i’d rather pay once through proven crime prevention pathways.
And the above only considers their direct impacts on people personally not even to consider the moral, humanist, or economically efficient use of a nations resources as elements here.
Wheres the CLP’s case that a policy like this is going to work this time?
What are their targets for acheiving the change?
If those targets aren’t met and peoples cars are still getting stolen, or worse, will they own their policy mistakes, or will they blithely double down on this flawed and absolutist policy?
No, I was referring to the attitude of the children involved. This article describes it well, they see no reason to stop what they are doing, they think it’s fun. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/nations-heart-is-breaking-again-in-alice-springs-tiny-menaces-helpless-police-and-no-solution/news-story/993f4002a59f6d4324012f11ab9252c5?amp
When the cop brought the kid back to his house, he should have called a social worker and sent them down to connect the family with these services. The kind of parents who do this aren’t often in the right state of mind to seek out support. They need to be helped as much as the kids.