Children as young as 10 continue to be locked up in Australia, with policy-makers urged to unite on raising the age of criminal responsibility at an upcoming meeting.
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More than 8350 children aged 10 to 13 faced the criminal justice system in the 2018-19 financial year, a new report from Amnesty International says.
Indigenous kids continued to be "grossly over-represented", making up 64 per cent of those aged under 14 in prison.
Amnesty is calling for the age of criminal responsibility in Australia to be raised to 14, with the Law Council of Australia, the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Human Rights Commission also backing the change.
The issue is set to be on the agenda when the nation's attorneys-general meet via video-conference on July 27.
A working group has been seeking feedback after a review was initiated in 2018, but federal attorney-general Christian Porter last year said he was not "overly enthusiastic" about the proposed change and felt the present system worked well.
The Amnesty report said almost a quarter of children in detention were aged 14 or under and the majority of those were on remand.
Indigenous children continued to enter youth justice supervision at a younger age than their non-indigenous counterparts.
"We have the solutions - all the evidence shows that culturally appropriate, community-led justice reinvestment is a much more productive way to manage kids when they get into trouble," Amnesty's indigenous rights adviser Rodney Dillon said on Wednesday.
"Condemning little kids as young as 10 to the justice system is not only a waste of money and time, but of precious young lives who deserve to be with their families, not in jail."
A private member's bill calling for the age of criminal responsibility to be lifted to 14 was also introduced to federal parliament last year by crossbench MPs Rebekah Sharkie and Zali Steggall.
Australian Associated Press
