ACT Chief Police Officer Scott Lee raises concerns as age of criminality increase looms

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4 hours ago

Canberra's top cop has raised concerns ACT support services aren't ready for the impending change to the age of criminal responsibility.
The ACT Legislative Assembly passed a bill to incrementally raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years, in November 2023.
The first increase, to 12 years old, happened on November 22 that year, and the next increase is scheduled for July 1 this year.
Under the change, rather than face criminal charges, children and young people under the age of 14 will instead be referred for support to address their behaviour.
But the ACT's Chief Police Officer Deputy Commissioner Scott Lee told ABC Canberra he anticipates the change will put pressure on police resources.
"I've had conversations with government and the other directorates that I have concerns that those services will not be fully in place," Deputy Commissioner Scott said.
"We are actually working through with ministers and other directorates at the moment, to ensure that we've got processes in place.
"The legislation says that as soon as practical we're to pass these children to other services for therapeutic support.
"So we need to ensure those service are available and we can hand them across.
"Regardless of the age of the child we will continue to respond, because where there's a risk to the child, in terms of their safety, or a risk to people — we will continue to respond, we'll continue to intervene and ensure the child is safe and everyone else is safe.
"And then under legislation, obviously we will need to look at then ensuring that support services are available 24/7."
ACT Minister for Police Marisa Paterson said today she was adamant that services would be available and that they were ready for the change in legislation.
She said a round table would also take place this week with ACT Policing and Minister for Children, Youth and Family Michael Petterson to ensure everyone is "on the same page".
"I do believe services are in place, we have the safer youth [response] service, which is just transitioning to a 24-hour service," she said.
ACT Attorney-General Tara Cheyne echoed the Ms Paterson.
"I accept the CPO's comments about having concerns, and I think [with] any new thing there is going to be hesitation and nervousness about the implementation," she said.
"We do have the investment in the systems around ACT Policing to ensure that where they do need to support young people into other systems that they will be there and they will be available."
She agreed with the CPO's comments about the legislation being practical but insisted that over time the change would be a success.
She said she was confident "things will go smoothly".
But Canberra Liberals MLA Deborah Morris said the government had "raced" through the transition, putting the community and vulnerable young people at risk.
"I fear this will make children in Canberra less safe and it will also put police in a very difficult position of not knowing how to do their job," she said.
"I'm concerned that vulnerable young children will be targeted by organised crime because they know that a child under the age of criminal responsibility will encounter less resistance from authorities.
"This is something I have heard from local businesses ... and it's also been put to me by members of our police force."
However she conceded that the true impact of the changes would remain unknown until after July 1.
Greens leader Shane Rattenbury, who was the ACT Attorney-General when the legislation passed, said the chief police officer's comments were "disappointing to hear and really concerning".
"This has been set up very very carefully to allow a long lead-time," Mr Rattenbury said.
"At that time the minimum age of criminal responsibility rose from 10 to 12 — and the view was you could do that quite quickly because there was a very small number of children [of concern] in that age group."
"But there will be more children in the 12 to 14 age group — and so there was an effectively 18-month lead-in time.
"There was a lot of study and work done before that — so this has not been a surprise.
"If a young person is involved in dangerous activity the police can still intervene and bring them into custody."
"The point is you need a range of service responses so the police can hand them over to somebody — whether that's back to the parents or to some other organisation to make sure they're safe and then intervene.
"We need to make sure young people are still held accountable."
If services were not ready to go in the coming weeks, Mr Rattenbury said it will be due to a failure by the government to invest in the necessary supports.
"Some young people will do dangerous things — they'll do things that will have a negative impact on other people in the community — that's always been the case," Mr Rattenbury said.
"The point of this reform is to make sure Canberra's children are diverted away from harm, toward the support they need to be part of safer and more connected community."