Katter’s Australian Party launches relocation sentencing policy in a bid to fix youth crime

Katter’s Australian Party has launched a bold plan designed to intensively rehabilitate youth offenders as the state battles a crime scourge.

Youth offenders would be sent away to small facilities in outback Queensland for up to year to undergo “intensive rehabilitation” under a bold Katter’s Australian Party plan designed to tackle the state’s crime surge.

KAP will on Monday launch its “comprehensive” plan for relocation sentencing, outlining for the first time how it could work and what it would look like as they called on the state government to commit to trialling a program.

KAP leader Robbie Katter said the policy was “genuinely attempting” to rehabilitate and provide hope for vulnerable criminalised children while protecting the community.

Under the substantive policy plan the state government would build and run small facilities in remote areas of North and Far North Queensland for no more than 30 children each.

Young offenders, grouped together based on age and split by sex, would be sent to a facility for six to 12 months. Children who commit sexual or serious violent offences would not be eligible.

Children would live in secure demountable and provided formal schooling and vocational training in areas like mechanics, fabrication, agriculture and hospitality while receiving drug and alcohol rehabilitation and mental health programs.

The children would have access to physical activities like bushwalking and camping alongside cultural activities with the KAP policy underscoring the “importance” of bringing communities on board by collaborating with Indigenous elder and youth workers.

Katter’s Australian Party state leader Robbie Katter flanked by fellow members (from left) Bob Katter, Shane Knuth and Nick Dametto

“Queensland is under siege by child criminals, and our youth justice system is fundamentally broken,” Mr Katter said.

“This situation is a blight on all of us, and is the source of rising political and social unrest – we cannot continue this way any longer.”

The party is asserting the idea is already gaining traction, with the Western Australian government last year pumping $15m into a soon-to-be opened on-country rehabilitation facility for at risk youth in the Kimberley.

It’s also a concept floated by a state government-ordered report from 2018 written by Bob Atkinson, which called for “alternative” sentencing options like “court-ordered periods at on-country residential programs”.

Mr Katter called for the government to hit pause on its plans to build two new youth prisons — one in the southeast and the other in Cairns — until the KAP’s policy had been “genuinely considered”.

Queensland has the highest youth incarceration rate in the nation behind the Northern Territory, while Mount Isa — where Mr Katter is based — has the highest youth crime rate in the state.

Youth Justice Minister Di Farmer, at a recent budget estimates hearing, confirmed 20 per cent of children committing crime were considered serious repeat offenders and were responsible for 54 per cent of offences.

It was also recently revealed about 500 children are held in watch houses across the state each month, despite the government in 2019 committing to end the practice.