Indigenous people over represented in youth crime data

The number of young people offending was small but required a delicate response, a researcher says. (David Gray/AAP PHOTOS)

Young children appearing in NSW courts are overwhelmingly from disadvantaged backgrounds and often Indigenous, new data shows, as debate swirls about raising the age of criminal responsibility.

A day after the Victorian government backflipped on a promise to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, NSW data showed legal proceedings were taken against 4662 people aged 10 to 13 years in 2023.