Don Dale riot sparking questions on how to treat juvenile offenders in N.T

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Image credit: Wikipedia Image URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Don_Dale_Juvenile_Detention_Centre.jpg

Last night at the Don Dale youth detention centre in Darwin a riot broke out after two detainees broke out of their cells, caused chaos and tried to escape.

This is the place where children as young as 10 years old are being put behind bars.

The incident is sparking questions about why nothing is being done since another incident in 2014 where youth were tear gassed in 2014 which resulted in a royal commission later that year.

One of the commission’s key recommendations was to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12 years, and only allowing children under 14 to be sentenced to detention for serious offences.

The Wire spoke with an Indigenous Rights expert today who says Australia needs to address these kids’ issues in a different way to just locking them up.

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