About this Event
The criminal responsibility of children is a highly charged and tangled issue.
Debates about the age at which children should be able to be held criminally responsible and on what basis such a determination can be made have intensified in recent years throughout Australia.
This lecture will delve into these debates concerning what the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) should be and whether there should continue to be a rebuttable presumption that older children are not criminally responsible (at common law called the presumption of doli incapax). This will include issues such as:
- how the MACR and presumption of doli incapax developed in Australia;
- what changes have been made to the MACR in recent years;
- what the implications are of different MACRs (and 'carve-outs') applying across Australia;
- how the presumption of doli incapax currently operates in practice;
- why the presumption of doli incapax is subject to criticism;
- what changes have been made to the presumption of doli incapax in Victoria and New South Wales, and;
- what the future holds for the criminal responsibility of children.
About the speaker
Thomas Crofts is a Professor in the School of Law and in the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences at City University of Hong Kong. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Sydney University School of Law and QUT School of Justice, and Visiting Professor at Northumbria University School of Law. Before joining CityU he was Professor of Criminal Law and Director of the Sydney Institute of Criminology at the University of Sydney School of Law. He has been researching the criminal responsibility of children since the mid-1990s, completing his doctorate on this topic in 2001, which was published as The Criminal Responsibility of Children and Young Persons (Ashgate, 2002). More recent publications in this field include: ‘Rethinking the age of criminal responsibility’ in: Crofts, T., Kennefick, L. & Loughnan, A. (eds.) International Handbook on Criminal Responsibility (Routledge, 2025), 360–375; ‘Age of Criminal Responsibility - Getting Older and Wiser’ (2025) 47(4) Criminal Law Journal 470–489 ; ‘The logic and value of the presumption of doli incapax (failing that, an incapacity defence)’ (2023) 43(3) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 546–573 (with David Hamer); ‘Act Now: Raise the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility’ (2023) 35(1) Current Issues in Criminal Justice 118–138; and 'Prosecuting Child Offenders: Factors Relevant to Rebutting the Presumption of Doli Incapax' (2018) 40(3) Sydney Law Review 339–365.
About the lecture series
Peter Brett (1918-1975), appointed Senior Lecturer at the Law School in 1955, Reader in 1961, Hearn Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne from 1963 to 1964 and Professor of Jurisprudence from 1964 until his death, was distinguished by both his scholarship in criminal law and legal philosophy, and his determination to contest injustice in the courts. He was one of the group of lawyers who stopped the hanging of Paul Tait in 1962, creating a landmark in the history of capital punishment in Australia.
If you are a University of Melbourne alumni, information about your participation may be shared with the Advancement team, as explained in our .
Event venue & nearby stays
Theatre G08, Melbourne Law School (Building 106), 185 Pelham Street, Carlton, Australia
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.