Point: Rethinking education for children in juvenile detention centres

In many areas of law, however, a person under the age of eighteen may make decisions or be deemed old enough to be legally responsible for their actions (Law Library of Congress, 2007). The Convention on the Rights of the Child, re-draft of General Comment 10, General Comment 24 (United Nations Human Rights, 2007) recommends that all countries increase the minimum age of responsibility to at least fourteen years of age. Both risk and protective factors are viewed within the categories of child factors, family factors, school context, life events and community and cultural factors (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2020; Feld, 2017; Homel et al. 2015). The United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty (United Nations Human Rights, 1990, 2007) state that such education should be provided external to the detention facility in community schools wherever possible and, in any case, by qualified teachers through programmes integrated with the education system of the country so that, after release, children may transition back into their education without difficulty.