Picture of baby-faced offenders reveals reality of youth crime crisis on Gold Coast

Disturbing details have been revealed in CCTV images taken inside a Gold Coast home in the early hours of the morning. FULL STORY

IT’S a horrible, chilling photo, that goes to the heart of the youth crime crisis.

Two young boys, and they are most certainly boys, inside a southern Gold Coast home they have just broken into in the early hours of last Saturday morning.

It’s clear from their slight frames and childish faces – which the Bulletin must obscure for legal reasons – that the pair can be no more than about 10 or 12 years old.

They hold their shoes in their hands because they know there are people asleep in the house and wish to avoid making noise.

The couple who live at the property with an elderly relative told the Bulletin the boys spent half an hour at their home, rifling through their belongings, before slipping out quietly when they were about to be disturbed.

Young boys captured on CCTV breaking into a house on the Gold Coast.

Everything was captured on CCTV installed because there have been so many similar incidents in the area.

“They weren’t far from me when I came down the stairs,” one of the homeowners said.

“Probably six metres in front of me. They were that close. And if you’re not expecting it, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, wait a minute, who’s been in my home.’

“It’s quite a nerve-racking feeling, knowing you’ve had people in your house.”

The homeowner said that despite spending half an hour in the property, the boys left with nothing of value.

“They took a pair of shoes of mine, and didn’t like them, so dumped them around the corner,” she said.

“They took (my husband’s) wallet and that was found on the beach and somebody brought it back to us.

“So they got nothing, and you think, what was all that about?

“But the worst part is them going through your stuff.

“It’s all on video. You see them lifting up things and looking in things. They were there for half an hour.

“When they left it was light. It was daytime. It’s just horrible.”

The couple’s house was one of a number allegedly broken into by the boys on Saturday morning.

Police catch offenders – but all too often they are soon back on the streets and back to their old tricks.

It didn’t take police long to catch up with them. When they looked at the CCTV images, they knew exactly who the offenders were.

They had been in trouble before. The couple said an officer told them one was in court just a week previously and let go.

Like most people, they are appalled that children caught up in the youth crime wave appeared to face little consequences.

“The cops knew exactly who they are. They know the kids,” they said.

“The cops’ hands are tied too. They arrest them, they get a slap on the wrist, they’re out again. And they start their tricks again.

“Where’s their mum and dad?

“ … If we’d done this kind of thing in our day, God forbid what would have happened to us.

Well what’s happened since those days? What’s different?

“The kids are the same, the people haven’t changed, they’ve just got to be sorted out.

“I’d never dreamt that we’d have this kind of thing. You think, how the hell is this happening in our lives?”

The couple suggested something like the reform schools of the past might need to be brought back, not just for the sake of protecting the community, but also to help the offenders.

“This thing that was built in Toowoomba for Covid, that should be turned into a reformatory school,” they said.

“They should be in a reformatory school, learn how to behave, before it’s too late for these kids.

“Somewhere along the line someone’s going to get a hammer and these kids are going to cop it.”

Deputy Premier Steven Miles. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

The number of young people in detention in Queensland has grown in recent years, from 3.6 youths in detention for every 10,000 young people aged 10-17 in 2019-20 to 4.8 youths per 10,000 in 2021-22. The national average is 2.8.

Yet as Deputy Premier Steven Miles recently admitted, “there is clearly an increase in youth crime”.

What happens when these children make contact with the courts and social services needs serious examination.

It’s clearly not working.

We must ask what, as a society, are we teaching these children? At the moment, they appear to be concluding that apart from the occasional short stay in juvenile detention there are minimal consequences to their actions.

Police at the scene where a teenager was shot in the arm in Helensvale on Monday. Picture: Keith Woods.

This column was struck by a glaring contrast when attending the scene of a shooting incident in Helensvale on Monday evening.

Beside a Red Rooster restaurant, a 19-year-old who police say had been driving a stolen car that evening was treated for a gunshot wound.

Just metres away, inside the restaurant, were other teenagers, working hard in first jobs.

The teenage staff of the restaurant, from good families, learning good lessons about hard work and earning your way.

The teenager on the ground outside, learning a very harsh lesson about the dangers of going a different road. Without a dramatic turnaround in attitudes, one must fear the baby-faced criminals pictured breaking into a southern Gold Coast house at the weekend face learning their lessons the tough way too.

Follow @keithjwoods

Originally published as Picture of baby-faced offenders reveals reality of youth crime crisis on Gold Coast