When will Qld’s tough youth crime laws start working?

Queensland’s tough youth crime laws face scrutiny amid almost daily reports of shocking offences. Despite harsher penalties, scepticism remains about their effectiveness and whether deeper societal issues are being ignored.

Will Queensland’s adult time, adult crime laws really work?

Months after David Crisafulli was elected as Queensland Premier on the back of a campaign to make Queenslanders feel safe again, we continue to see almost daily examples of teen crime out of control.

Homes and businesses invaded, cars stolen, wild highway chases and in the most shocking of cases, the lives of innocent people cut short.

In December, the LNP introduced its Making Queensland Safer laws, which allow magistrates to treat children as adults for some serious offences.

Under the changes, any youths found guilty of murder face minimum mandatory life sentences.

But after we put the question to our readers across our social platforms on Friday, many were openly wondering when we would see a difference.

Crimes involving young armed offenders continue to create real fear for ordinary Queenslanders.

Will the risk of a life in jail act as a deterrent to young people involved in crime?

Most however, were asking the question whether magistrates and judges would actually follow the expectations of the community in handing out tougher sentences.

Opposition Leader Steven Miles says Mr Crisafulli’s crime laws have already failed.

“David Crisafulli needs to explain why his laws have not done what he said they would do,” he said.

Labor Leader Steven Miles says the adult time, adult crime laws haven’t acted as a deterrent as promised.

“He said that his laws would act as a deterrent, not that they would be a consequence, that they would act as a deterrent.“

In our poll of readers across social media, most people believed that the adult time for adult crimes laws were long overdue, a step in the right direction and should be given a chance to work.

Most comments were critical of judges and magistrates for failing to hand out heftier sentences and releasing offenders on bail.

WHAT YOU HAD TO SAY

Kane Cashin

It’s not fixing the root cause. I can guarantee these kids aren’t exactly looking up the consequence of an action they may impulsively do before they do it …

This is an attempt to apply a simple bandaid to a complex problem

Niell Graham

Here’s the problem, the government can make any law they like, but at the end of the day it’s the judge who decides how much time they will get. If the judges don’t give these young offenders adult time then the judges should be held to account.

Connie Alexander

Yes, parents would then realise that children needs love and stability or it is not going to end well. I am in favour of 1 year military service after school for all school finishers.

Claire Jenkins

No. For starters, for the law to apply a crime has to have already been committed, meaning the law hasn’t prevented the crime. Secondly, deterrence doesn’t work, that’s why prisons are full. Add to that the fact that we’re talking about children who are years away from having fully formed frontal lobes. This policy is a vote winner but will have little if any effect in practice. If we genuinely want to act on youth crime it starts with addressing the cause of this behaviour. But that’s hard work the government doesn’t want to do.

Alan Kirby

It’s doubtful, the young kids doing this stuff are mostly uneducated, I’m a prison officer, I see them inside, they love it inside, free food, no need to work, aircon cells, health care, what’s not to like,,, correctional centre concept is a failure, bring back jail as a punishment system, make them regret their behaviour

Vicki Mailhiot

Make all the laws you want, but if the judges don’t give sentences fitting the crime, nothing will change

Luke Dorrington

If you are stabbed you deal with the adult consequences. Job loss, rent / mortgage, medical costs and trauma. The perpetrators need to deal with the adult consequences of their actions.

Richard Matherson

It doesn’t work on adults, so it definitely won’t work on kids. We need to bring back Westbrook type youth work farms and use them

Paul Sullivan

He’s got more chance of stopping the seagulls stealing your chips

Andromeda Andrea

It’s a Trump style move, with all the dumb as a clutch plate knee jerk simple solutions being vomited up for the press, pleasing the masses who don’t want to think too deeply about the complexities involved. Ironically, nor the consequences.

Lesley N Nye Keegan

Rising youth crime is a symptom of a broken society. Fix the broken societal problem and youth crime will drop significantly.

Carole Goodman

Cannot work. We are dealing with youth who are already troubled. We need to deal with the root of the problem- the lack of a healthy self-image in these young people.

Dalray McCarthy

They will if the courts use them and stop letting them out on bai

Chris Johnson

We need to deal with poor parenting. Teens running around the suburbs at night and police being abused by parents when they take them home or have the parents pick them up from the station. This is a reality. Deal with this issue and the so-called “troubled ” kids will be a minority.

Mark Newlan

I’ve always advocated that a 12 seater bus trip for a once off trip for all juvenile young offenders to a major prison for a tour of a major prison and a group-therapy session with the lifers for the juveniles what they are in for once they hit adult prison. If that doesn’t scare the sh’it out of them nothing will.

Of course the do gooders will say that would traumatised them

Chris J Evans

I think you can have any law you want BUT when these kids face a Judge. The judge is not doing his job!

I’ve worked in the kids prison in Townsville. They have a better time there than at home. It’s a holiday!

The government REALLY needs to put things in place so they never want to go back!

Lindy Orwin

Bigger punishments don’t work on teens whose brain’s frontal lobes, the area that understands consequences, haven’t even fully developed yet. How about addressing homelessness, poverty, unemployment, special education, drug use, the lack of affordable teen activities in many communities and all the other social influences on crime. Locking them up longer with adult criminals is like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

Lindy Martin

Need a camp in the middle of Australia away from everything and everyone run by our army soldiers. 1mth would do better than 3 years jail

Danial Beinke

Still waiting to see a real case

Originally published as When will Qld’s tough youth crime laws start working?