AnalysisAustralasiaChild RightsFeaturesHumanityLaw & OrderSocietyWorldYoung Generation
The Child Inside: In Australia, We Prosecute 10-Year-Olds, Especially If They’re Black.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Data from Australia’s criminal justice system shows clearly that we’re failing to rehabilitate children, while making them more likely to reoffend.
And yet kids as young as 10 are still being charged with criminal offences.
- Warwick Jones investigates
- New Matilda
A 10-year-old Aboriginal girl wearing pigtails and a school uniform walks into the Geelong Children’s Court, dwarfed beside two welfare workers.
It’s late autumn, 2015.
The girl’s been taken out of her grade four class to come before the court charged with stealing a phone.
She’d been removed from her family home and…