Is youth crime a ‘crisis’? Here’s what Queensland figures really show

Raw police data for the Queensland city held up as a bonfire of youth crime show children account for a smaller share of offending than when the Palaszczuk government was content to leave the Youth Justice Act as it was.

Police charges levelled at youths aged 10-17 in the Toowoomba local government area peaked in May last year, following a surge that began about nine months earlier.

But by December and January, juveniles’ slice of the criminality pie, measured as a proportion of total charges, had fallen to relatively low levels.

The volume of youth offending in Cairns and Townsville local government areas had been trending upwards since late 2020. But the figures, fluctuating wildly and subject to later recalibration, had tapered off.

Queensland wide, children were responsible for about 20 per cent of the state’s total charges for crimes committed in December and January – high, but roughly on par with the past three summers.

Toowoomba became a flashpoint last month in the latest round of headlines and opposition attack lines claiming youth crime was out of control.

The pressure culminated in the Queensland Labor government presenting a plan to override the state’s Human Rights Act, allowing it to put more young offenders in detention and keep them there longer.

The measures have been universally slammed by youth justice experts.

At a Toowoomba press conference last month, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk acknowledged that local youth crime problems “started to arise a year ago” but said there had been a recent “escalation”.

Recent youth crimes have sparked fierce debate among the community and party leaders Annastacia Palaszczuk and David Crisafulli.

The latest data sets, which have limitations, show kids’ share of total charges increased from 16 per cent in December to about 26 per cent by February. This was still down from the May 2022 peak of 33 per cent and comparable with other spikes going back to early 2020.

The raw data sets do not count the number of unique offenders or crimes, but the total number of charges (or offence counts) levelled against both cohorts in any given month. They do not capture severity, brazenness, repeat offenders, punishments or future charges for offenders currently on the run. They are not a full picture of Queensland crime.

But the tables contain the only current and publicly available figures that separate youth and adult offending.

Brisbane Times collated figures for Queensland and five local government areas back to March 2018 – the first full month 17-year-olds were included in the juvenile statistics – and measured juvenile charges as a proportion of an area’s total. The results present a modest indication of adult versus juvenile representation in total crime volume.

Of all the analysed LGAs, criminality was most skewed in Mount Isa, where children consistently made up more than 40 per cent of police charges. The most recent peak (46 per cent) was in December 2021, and it had since been loosely trending down.

The juvenile proportion of Toowoomba’s total charges was bigger when factoring in more visible crimes such as offences against people and property (more than half for May 2022), but this trend had also tracked downward.

Car theft was a significant problem. In Townsville, for example, the juvenile share of charges had been increasing from a low of 28 per cent in May 2019 to 88 per cent by February this year.

Figures for the mega Brisbane LGA showed the proportion of youth charges had been trending up to a high of 23 per cent in November last year before dropping to 14 per cent for February.

(The raw number of charges for February would significantly change as police rounded up criminals through March. But whether that would change the proportional breakdown would not be evident until the next dump of statistics.)

The Queensland Police Service could not provide more detailed analysis because the data had not been collated, raising questions about what evidence the Palaszczuk government was using as it considered major changes to the Youth Justice Act.

Palaszczuk’s office could not produce any data, instead referring to Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll’s comments at the Toowoomba crime forum last month. “What we clearly see in the statistics in the last 12 months, there is a spike that we have seen, not only in Toowoomba but across the state as well,” the commissioner had said.

Anecdotal evidence from Toowoomba is firm that juvenile crime is more prevalent and severe. The February death of 75-year-old Robert Brown, allegedly at the hands of teenagers, galvanised the community’s anger.

Easy-to-read police data for the broader Toowoomba police district showed 2022 was the worst for crime since 2019. But the data is not broken down into juveniles and adults.

Police said the raw data sets should be taken as an “indication” of trends rather than fact. For example, a child who stole a car in Toowoomba and was picked up in Brisbane would be recorded in the latter’s statistics. Targeted police operations and resources also skewed figures.

Queensland wide, the children’s share of total charges was broadly increasing until early 2020, when it dropped off. This lower period coincided with pandemic restrictions, but also the end of that year’s summer holidays.

The state figures show juvenile charges slowly reaching pre-pandemic levels by the summer of 2021-22, before tapering down through the winter and up again for the summer just gone.

By November last year, the youth proportion was the highest it had been any time since early 2018, but only marginally, and in line with the seasonal trends.