Queensland government slammed over new laws to tackle youth crime

Meanwhile, victims of youth crime have also criticised the new maximum jail sentences, saying there’s no way judges will use them.

The proposed laws make breach of bail an offence for children, increase maximum jail sentences and force courts to consider bail history during sentencing. 

But critics argue the legislation fails to recognise the causes of crime and locking up offenders only works temporarily until the young criminals are released.

Queensland Law Society Council member Rebecca Fogerty and Human Rights Commissioner Scott McDougall both told a parliamentary committee examining the proposed Strengthening Community Safety Bill 2023 the measures wouldn’t work.

“What we know from the evidence is that they are going to be more likely to reoffend and cause harm to other victims,” McDougall said.

Debbie Kilroy from prisoner rights group Sisters Inside urged the state’s politicians to follow the example of the US state of Hawaii, where she said youth imprisonment had plummeted since the creation of an independent, trauma-informed taskforce to tackle the issue.

“We must look at Hawaii as how they are ending the criminalisation and prison of children and be more courageous not be the deep north, where we criminalise more children,” she said.

“Because the harm that will be inflicted later on when they’re adults will be more than we have ever experienced in the decades of my lifetime.”

Michelle Liddle, the mother of 15-year-old Angus Beaumont, who was stabbed to death by juvenile offenders, was also their representative.

She called for more support for families whose loved ones were injured or murdered, leading to loss of income.

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“Dental, medical, counselling, education in there, all these processes are on hand for the young offender. But again when it comes to victims, you’re left scrounging,” she said.

“You’re left, you know, knocking on doors, and you’re left searching for a mound of paperwork and trying to make sure you ask the right people in the right area the right question, which just isn’t always possible.”

Liddle argued increased maximum penalties for stealing cars from seven years to ten  and adding aggravating circumstances for offending at night, threatening violence or posting the crime on social media, would have no effect in the real world.

“There is no way a judge is going to give 14 years for somebody who’s been out at night and stolen a car,” she said.

The poll was not scientific and reflected the opinion only of visitors who chose to participate.

The proposed new laws are a spectacular backflip for the government after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and multiple ministers criticised breach of bail laws over recent years, after scrapping them upon taking office.

Palaszczuk argued the measures were about “putting community safety first”.

“We apologise to victims of crime, and that is why we are taking the course of actions we are taking today,” she said last week.