Bills Potts, Terry Goldsworthy: Qld youth crime crisis name and shame blasted

A Gold Coast mother’s plea to name and shame serious child criminals has divided the city’s top legal minds and crime experts. VOTE IN THE POLL

A Gold Coast mother’s plea to name and shame serious child criminals has divided the city’s top legal minds and crime experts, with one labelling it as “completely and utterly useless”.

The mum demanded action after her 15-year-old son was savagely beaten and robbed of his shoes during a beach party in Palm Beach last weekend.

“We’re constantly protecting children and it is not working,” the boy’s mother said.

“The worst thing you can do to a teenager is embarrass them.”

Palm Beach youth bashing on the Gold Coast on the beachfront near Laceys Lane. Picture: 9 News Gold Coast

Bond University Associate Professor of Criminology Dr Terry Goldsworthy said he backed the push to name child offenders in extreme cases.

“If a child is classified as a serious repeat offender, then perhaps they lose that right to anonymity and we do name them,” he said.

“I certainly think the children’s court needs to be made more transparent and open to allow the media to get in there and tell the community about what the sentences are and why, and why people have been released on bail.

“In terms of shaming them, I don’t know whether it would have that much of an effect on these people, to be honest.”

Criminologist Dr Terry Goldsworthy. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Criminal lawyer and former Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts said naming child criminals would do more harm than good and hamper their rehabilitation.

“While I fully understand the anger and fear that this mother is feeling, naming and shaming juvenile offenders has been found to be completely and utterly useless as a means of either deterring crime or deterring criminals,” Mr Potts said.

“The Campbell Newman government brought it in and it didn’t work. It just simply made it worse.”

Criminal lawyer Bill Potts. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Queensland Council for Civil Liberties president Michael Cope said children should be allowed the opportunity to rehabilitate.

“One of the fundamental things in doing that is not naming them, so they can have a proper opportunity to be rehabilitated,” he said.

The Gold Coast mum spoke out after disturbing footage circulated to social media showing a frenzied group punching and kicking at her helpless teen son lying on the sand as others cheered them on.

The woman, who could not be named herself for legal reasons, believed the current laws were fuelling the state’s youth crime crisis.

A Gold Coast mum has called for serious child criminals to be named and shamed. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Presently in Queensland, it’s an offence to identify minors being dealt with under Queensland’s Youth Justice Act.

“Right now, they get away with it because no one is allowed to know their names,” she said.

“They go to juvie on remand while their charges are pending, it’s too full, they’re let out the next day and off they go again.

“It’s time to put them on the stand in front of everybody.”

Last week, a 17-year-old Southport boy was the third person to be arrested over the alleged bashing and robbery of three teens in Palm Beach.

The 17-year-old was charged with one count each of grievous bodily harm, robbery in company and stealing.

He was due to face children’s court at a later date.