Editorial: Numbers just appalling as govt fails to arrest youth crime

Queensland’s youth crime crisis is not getting any better, and the statistics show that in black and white, writes the editor.

This government is not having any success so far in driving down youth crime, and it needs to take the key metrics given to it on a platter by experts seriously if that trend is to be reversed.

To its credit, the government has published the six-monthly results on youth reoffending, Indigenous young people in detention, and the proportion of serious repeat offenders after it promised to do so in February after The Courier-Mail’s Enough is Enough campaign.

Those results are quite simply appalling. Repeat offending is up from 66 per cent to 69 per cent, and the rate of Indigenous kids who have contact with Youth Justice has also climbed from 415 per 10,000 to 419 per 10,000 in 2022-23 – more than 11 times the rate of non-Indigenous kids.

On top of that, everyday Queenslanders could not be blamed for questioning the transparency of that data, given it was quietly released on a government website with not an alert, media statement or press conference to speak of.

Yes, it has been published – technically fulfilling Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s promise to release the data.

The question is, does it pass the pub test that the public was not told it was there? To recap, the government was asked in February to track and publicly publish these key performance indicators every six months after a suite of experts agreed they were the measures that mattered most.

Within hours of Queensland’s five daily newspapers – The Courier-Mail, Gold Coast Bulletin, Toowoomba Chronicle, Cairns Post and Townsville Bulletin – all asking the Premier to do this, it was agreed to.

That no one in the government got on the front foot, presented the data and gave an explanation to the Queensland community around the figures, is staggering.

Youth crime is an issue that has touched nearly every Queenslander over the past two years. It has certainly impacted the families of the 20 people who have died in the past two-and-a-half years in Queensland in incidents that have been linked to youth crime.

Voters want action – and they want accountability. Today, victims of some of the state’s most shocking juvenile crimes will march on parliament to demand immediate action.

Two families will be in attendance who have been campaigning for change for more than two years.

They are the families of Angus Beaumont and Matthew Field and Kate Leadbetter, and they have become familiar faces to Queenslanders amid this youth crime scourge.

That these brave families need to keep turning up time and time again to protest inaction on youth crime is heartbreaking.

Eight people have died allegedly at the hands of juvenile criminals in the first eight months this year – one person a month on average.

It’s not getting any better, and the statistics show that in black and white. The experts could not be more clear – we need to drive down youth reoffending, address the horrific number of Indigenous young people in detention and lower the proportion of juvenile criminals who are serious repeat offenders.

And if the public can see these figures every six months, they will know if the issue of youth crime is being successfully addressed.

It was never going to be a simple fix, and publishing this data is a good start. The government must keep striving to drive down these figures and ensuring they are transparent and easily accessible.

PARENTS IN THE DARK OVER NAPLAN

Today’s NAPLAN results paint a bleak – and incomplete – picture.

One in five Queensland year 9 students is falling behind basic national standards for writing, grammar and punctuation, and about 12 per cent of the year 3 cohort need extra help.

However, changes to the way the test is carried out and how results are assessed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority mean parents cannot use the 2023 results to make informed decisions about schools they may be considering sending their children to.

Essentially, the previous 15 years of NAPLAN results are now irrelevant, and the new results are useless as a tool to indicate trends in a school’s academic performance. They are merely a baseline for the new testing regimen.

It’s another frustration for parents who use NAPLAN as a tool to give them real data about their child’s – and their school’s – academic performance.

It seems little effort was made to find a way to make the 2023 results compatible with previous years, with ACARA saying the change was a “necessary evil”.

It’s cold comfort to parents who this week are trying to make sense of figures without any context.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here