Queensland youth crime focus of community-led roundtable

Locking up kid criminals in adult watch houses will lead to further threats of crime across the state, exasperated community leaders warn ahead of a youth justice roundtable.

Locking up children in adult watch houses will lead to further threats of crime across Queensland, exasperated community leaders warn.

Key non-government figures will hash out a plan to ensure government policy to reduce juvenile offending is sensible and based on evidence in the lead-up to the highly anticipated meetings of the bipartisan Youth Justice Reform Select Committee.

The Courier-Mail can reveal community leaders will hold a youth justice roundtable early next month to canvass ideas for the parliamentary committee, which was established to conduct an inquiry into state government reforms.

Queensland Council of Social Service CEO Aimee McVeigh.

The roundtable will be led by the Queensland Council of Social Service as well as the peak body for Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child protection organisations (QATSICPP) and the Youth Advisory Centre (YAC).

The aim is to bring various community and legal stakeholders together to formulate ways for the committee to reduce crime while also addressing offending trends related to Indigenous children.

“Importantly, given the over-representation of First Nations children in the youth justice system, it is an opportunity to amplify solutions designed and delivered by First Nations Peoples,” the invitation to the roundtable - seen by The Courier-Mail - says.

QCOSS chief executive Aimee McVeigh said the community leaders were particularly concerned by the government’s recent reforms to override the human rights act to hold young offenders indefinitely in adult watch houses.

“People don’t feel that the government is competently responding to the issue of community safety and so what we are seeing is increased calls on the government to do things differently,” she said.

“While it’s absolutely legitimate for the community to want to feel safe, and for the community to call on the government to do more, it is the responsibility of a competent government to respond in a way that reflects the evidence of what works.

“We absolutely know that detaining children in adult watch houses (and) making breach of bail a criminal offence are not evidence based policy solutions and they are not things that will keep the community safer into the future.”

Ms McVeigh said “long term impact of embedding young children in a criminal justice system is that we will have more crime”.

Independent Noosa MP Sandy Bolton will chair youth justice roundtable.

She said the creation of the bipartisan committee, chaired by Independent Noosa MP Sandy Bolton, is an opportunity to progress solutions that are not reliant on political gains.

Another key focus for the roundtable will be addressing the justice targets from Closing The Gap given the enormous over-representation of Indigenous in incarceration, particularly among youths.