Advocates are questioning youth justice reforms in the Northern Territory. 

Last year, the Northern Territory government announced that it would raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12, making it the first jurisdiction in Australia to do so. 

Some saw this as a watershed moment, but critics say that the government has been too slow to act, given raising the age of criminal responsibility was a key recommendation of the 2017 Royal Commission into the Detention and Protection of Children. 

They fear that, with a perception that the laws have changed, children are still being exposed to the Northern Territory's prison system. There have also been questions about the delay in implementing the reforms. 

The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency's principal legal officer, Nick Espie, says that young people aged 10 to 12 were still being arrested, charged, and proceeding through the courts, despite the reforms. 

The 2017 royal commission also recommended that the high security unit of the Don Dale youth detention facility be shut immediately, and there be a plan to close the entire centre within three months, after reports of children being shackled to chairs and tear-gassed. Mr Espie said the government had had enough time to consider alternatives.

While the Northern Territory government has not provided a specific time frame for when programs will be up and running, Territory Families Minister Kate Worden said that the programs would take different forms and operate at different levels of intensity based on individual and family needs. 

Opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro has argued that law breakers should be held accountable regardless of age, and that raising the age of criminal responsibility was “putting the rights of the offender above the rights of the community to be safe”.