OPINION: Parking politics is the way forward for youth crime

Once the die is cast it seems that no amount of intervention appears to change the course of events when it comes to these kids. It’s time we look for a way forward on youth crime, writes Robert Schwarten.

The youth who stole my wife’s car and drove it at 140 km/h over a bridge and through a red light – miraculously without killing anyone – has since killed his own sibling while driving yet another car he stole, while out on parole.

This boy did not know his father, and his mother died from substance abuse when he was aged four.

He was “raised” by a relative with nine other children.

According to court records he left school at 14, and we can assume that, given his foetal alcohol syndrome, he did not function well at school in the years he was enrolled.

He has since built up a record of offences as long as a cat’s tail.

I studied him in court as he was being sentenced to jail. He had just come from detention and did not flinch; he seemed to have no fear of being incarcerated.

Now, whether that was because he has no sense of consequence or because it was a better option than his current living arrangements (bludging on relatives) I couldn’t say.

But I do know he has been in and out of all manner of detention since he was 14.

He has shunned court orders, ignored correctional programs, and has always shown no respect for anyone or anything.

David Crisafulli and John-Paul Langbroek share their thoughts on the state of youth crime on the Gold Coast.

He is functionally illiterate and of low intelligence.

I spent two decades in Parliament trying to work out what to do with people like him.

One of my ideas when I was the MP for Rockhampton was to close his hometown Woorabinda’s school for any kids past Year 3, and bus the older kids half an hour down the road to Baralaba so that they could be exposed to different role models.

Maybe that may have helped put this bloke on a different path. We will never know, as my plan was rejected by the Education Department bureaucrats of the day on the basis of having no net benefit.

What I do know is that once the die is cast it seems that no amount of intervention appears to change the course of events when it comes to these kids.

Every member of our family has now had an unfavourable interaction with young thieves, and all fit this same mould.

Trying to stop the problem before it starts is the logical conclusion, of course.

But what do we do with those who are already now apparently beyond care and correction? Maybe it’s just as Bob Dylan says: “If you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose”.

That is not to suggest we diminish the seriousness of this issue; far from it.

The dreadful loss of innocent lives to these young criminals – not to mention the huge financial burden of loss and damage and the brazen contempt for public safety – is beyond any level of decent societal standard.

It cannot be ignored. But the truth is that any politician who claims that they have the recipe to fix this problem once and for all with a few law changes here and there should be treated in the same way they would be if they proposed legislation that would force the sun not to shine.

The whole sideshow of finger-pointing and hysterics over youth crime rates will continue no matter who is in office.

If the Opposition in Queensland had any honesty, it would acknowledge this truth and offer to work with government to find some way forward.

Robert Schwarten. Picture : Chris Ison / The Morning Bulletin.

But such an approach would run counter to the – misguided – belief that whoever beats the law and order drum loudest wins the election. (If that was true Labor would have lost all Townsville seats in 2020. Fact is voters are not as stupid as some pollies think.)

Nobody should condemn the victims for striking out at the government, especially those who have lost relatives and friends in mindless acts of violence and dangerous driving.

Their reaction is totally understandable – and the upside here is sometimes out of victimhood sprout noble ideas such as the One Punch Can Kill campaign and the more recent crackdown on unwarranted possession of knives.

But the rest of the community is mostly awake to the endless calls from the Opposition to sack government ministers and criticise, while offering a blank sheet when it comes to policy.

It was refreshingly honest of the Premier to say she did not have the solution to youth crime. It would be even more telling if the Opposition Leader followed suit – because anyone looking at the state LNP through the youth offending prism can see it is as free of solutions and ideas as a snake is of hips.

But maybe, just maybe, there is some hope that an issue like this that is tearing at the fabric of society can arouse the sort of bipartisanship we saw in the four-year term referendum.

Maybe an all-party standing parliamentary committee inquiry into youth crime under the new arrangements which I helped create in my last term of office is the way forward.

Robert Schwarten was a minister in the Beattie Labor government.

Originally published as OPINION: Parking politics is the way forward for youth crime