Ann Wason Moore opinion: Many teen girls need help too

Most youth offenders are male - but it’s far from all. It’s time we started to consider what to do when the girls go out of control, writes Ann Wason Moore.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cures.

It’s a cliche so old that it uses the imperial system, but its metrics stand true today.

Which is why the Queensland Government’s $50m commitment to ‘crime prevention schools’, including $10m to the Gold Coast’s own Men of Business (MOB) Academy, makes cents - even with the state debt now ballooning past $200bn.

The ethos here is that $50m spent over the next five years will save the state multiples of that amount over the coming decades, in terms of both financial and social costs.

Australia currently spends more than $1 billion per year on youth detention, according to the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services. That equates to $3320 per day per child.

So every child prevented from entering the system literally saves the state a fortune.

But that’s just what we can calculate with a dollar sign, the social costs of youth crime includes victim trauma, decreased community safety and increased fear and anxiety, as well as the negative impacts on offenders themselves.

The extra funding for MOB, which provides early intervention for at-risk boys, will allow the program to expand from years 11 and 12 to years 7 through to 12.

Minister for Youth Justice Laura Gerber with Men of Business founder, Marco Renai, at the announcement the school will receive $10m over the next five years. Picture: Jacklyn O'Brien.

Founded 15 years ago and growing from eight students through to hundreds of alumni now, MOB has proven its program works. And incredibly, it has done so from the ground up … fully self-funded in its early years and growing with the help of community support before receiving government recognition.

However, this state funding does raise the question … what about the girls?

When it comes to youth crime, boys are certainly over-represented. According to March 2025 crime statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than two-thirds of youth offenders were male, and the most common age was 16 years.

However, recent data shows a notable increase in violent offences involving girls.

In fact, the Queensland Youth Justice Strategy released in June last year showed that girls were considered a ‘priority cohort’.

Just look at some of the worst headlines to come out recently on the Gold Coast.

In April, police charged three girls following three separate assaults this year, including an attack on a 14-year-old girl at Varsity Lakes Train Station. In May, two girls were part of a machete-wielding gang who allegedly threatened a man before violently assaulting him and stealing his car during an armed robbery on the Gold Coast.

Just last week, an off-duty police officer was allegedly attacked by a group of teenagers on a Gold Coast tram after he attempted to stop one of the girls from verbally assaulting staff.

It’s not just boys who are responsible for our youth crime problems.

While there are programs to help at-risk girls on the Gold Coast, there are none in quite the same model as MOB Academy, a senior secondary school that is an alternative to mainstream schooling. (The BUSY schools at Southport and Coolangatta come closest.)

Now, that is not the fault of MOB. They created this lane, they excel in it and they deserve all of the funding.

But given that new academies are being built in other parts of Queensland, why not also dedicate some money to creating a program for Gold Coast girls as well?

Now, I hate to take an ‘all lives matter’ perspective (the alternative to ‘black lives matter’ which has been rightfully criticised for denying that police violence and discrimination disproportionately affects black Americans), because I think we can all acknowledge that our boys are most in need of our help right now – whether they are on the path to crime, mental health concerns, or radicalisation to the toxic manosphere.

And as MOB Academy founder Marco Renai said, building better men meant building better brothers, boyfriends, husbands and fathers … which only benefits our girls.

But we would be remiss not to acknowledge that our girls need help too. And while, yes, that would cost more money, it’s a false economy not to budget for their future.

Originally published as Ann Wason Moore opinion: Many teen girls need help too