Queensland authorities have known for years that placing children in youth detention is the worst of all possible outcomes — it’s state government policy to keep kids out of custody.
Which is why the Premier’s declaration last month that the government is “looking at expanding youth justice detention” and flagging a new youth detention centre in Cairns caught child safety advocates by surprise.
Youth crime has become a political hot potato in northern Queensland and the Palaszczuk government is sensitive to accusations it is soft on crime.
The issue was raised again in question time yesterday with victim’s families attending parliament and the opposition doubling down on their call for stronger measures, particularly for young offenders who breach bail.
“We are investing in more police to make sure that police are tackling these very complex issues in the community. Secondly, we have put in place a presumption against bail,” Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told parliament yesterday.
Last week, Australia’s National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds told the ABC that state governments are wasting money on youth justice measures that don’t make the community safer.
The Queensland Family and Child Commission (QFCC) has likewise long been arguing for a different approach to simply locking up children to punish them.
In Townsville, Cairns and Mt Isa, authorities have been struggling to deal with a small cohort of repeat child offenders of property and car thefts.
The trouble is, evidence shows locking up children can be the best way to create repeat offenders.
The QFCC argued in favour of lifting the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, to reduce the number of children in detention.
But a Greens bill to change the age of responsibility was overwhelmingly rejected by state parliament in August, by 86 votes to three.
Part of a bigger problem
“The tough on crime narrative does not work,” QFCC principal commissioner Luke Twyford said.
“We need to be smart against crime, not tough against crime.”
Mr Twyford said he continued to work closely with state government ministers in seeking better youth justice outcomes.
One major challenge is that youth crime is inextricably linked to Indigenous poverty and disadvantage.
A QFCC report handed to parliament after the age of responsibility bill vote points out in 2019-20, 79.4 per cent of the 126 children aged 10 to 13 in youth detention were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
In the year to March 31, 2021, 95 per cent of young people held in Townsville’s Cleveland Youth Detention Centre were alleged to have committed another offence within a year of their release.
“We actually need to understand who they are, where they’re coming from and tailor our response to that specific young person,” Mr Twyford said.
“Some of the most effective youth justice programs I’ve observed, and from the literature I review, it’s about involving the young person’s carers and, in particular, the elders or any adult they respect – it might be their sports coach.”
Mr Twyford said involving local Indigenous leaders is “critically important”.
“We know that the vast majority of young people who make a mistake and get in contact with police are changing their behaviour after that initial contact — around 70 per cent of young people that go to diversion don’t reappear in the justice system.”
At issue for police and most regional MPs is what to do with the minority of children who become hardened offenders.
It was a key reason behind the rejection of the age of responsibility bill.
Debating the bill, Traeger MP Rob Katter told parliament he was sympathetic to the view that locking kids in youth detention is not the answer.
But he said voluntary diversion programs didn’t work.
“The reality of putting these programs in place to save them is that we need to hire someone to go knock on the door and say, ‘Is little Johnny going to turn up today?’ only to be told, ‘No, bugger off.’
“The reality is it is very hard.”
A spokesperson for Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman said Queensland is “working towards a national agreement to develop a proposal to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12 years”.
Dealing with dysfunction
Mr Twyford acknowledged that many child offenders lived in dysfunctional domestic environments and that this required “the broader family network to be involved in young people’s lives”.
In some cases, the youth justice system is the only viable option.
“I don’t want to label the people working in the system as bad people. The detention system is doing what it’s designed to do,” Mr Twyford said.
“What I’m not seeing happen as effectively as I think it should is work occurring for that young person’s release — and within their family home or their housing context — so that their life is different.
“On the day they’re released, young people should not have the same circumstances on exit from detention as they have at entry.”
He said this requires a broader response that also seeks to address problems such as housing and unemployment faced by so many Indigenous families.
“For us, justice issues, criminal justice issues, are driven by social disadvantage and disempowerment. And we need to acknowledge that.”
Leave a Reply