New laws won’t curb youth crime: JCU criminologist Glenn Dawes
A JCU criminologist doens’t believe the new youth crime laws will make a different to offending. Here’s why.
Townsville
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New laws pegged as a solution to the youth crime scourge won’t work, according to a James Cook University criminologist.
Glenn Dawes said this was because life was safer on the streets and behind bars than at home.
The new laws, which passed parliament on Thursday, include breach of bail being a crime for children, increasing the maximum penalty for stealing a car from seven to 10 years, and a more severe penalty of 14 years if the offence is committed at night or involves violence.
Mr Dawes, a JCU associate professor, flatly answered “no”, when asked if the laws would decrease youth crime, because they did not affect the causes of youth crime.
The associate professor said he spoke to young people who would rather stay at Cleveland Youth Detention Centre than go home, because of violence and abuse.
Further, a lot of young people were not in detention long enough to be rehabilitated, Mr Dawes said.
However, there were “hardened” people who did “need to be taken off the streets”.
There was a false impression “this crime wave” was being driven by youths, he said, when often it was 25 to 30-year-olds perpetuating and involving the young people.
“It’s happening everywhere, it’s not just Townsville.”
Positively, Mr Dawes hoped the new laws would bring about more magistrates and more court hearings, so offenders went through the system quicker.
Townsville-based social justice advocate Dr Stephen Hagan said just like in the Northern Territory a couple of years ago, Queensland would soon have 100 per cent of their juvenile inmates being of First Nations descent.
“It won’t take long before new prisons are built at great expense to taxpayers and then handed over to the uncaring private sector to operate and ignore basic human rights of the incarcerated at every opportunity,” Dr Hagan said.
Shadow Attorney-General Tim Nicholls said “it’s well recognised that a lot of these youth offenders are escaping from some pretty atrocious situations at home, or [are] out of home in care”.
A typifying example is 15-year-old Mount Isa girl Isla Johnson (court-appointed pseudonym), who ended up on the streets with her siblings after her aunty and uncle went to jail.
She was placed in a care home where she bonded with girls who were known juvenile property offenders.
Magistrate Mac Giolla Ri later said this led to Isla’s property offending.
“Is it any wonder that these kids get set on that path of offending,” Mr Nicholls said.
The new laws require courts to take into account previous bail history and criminal activity, as well as increasing penalties for criminals who boast about their crimes on social media.
Parts of the laws override the state’s Human Rights Act.
However, Katter’s Australia Party MP Nick Dametto said the legislation did not go far enough.
KAP wanted the removal of detention as a last resort and mandatory minimum sentencing for unlawful use of a motor vehicle, burglary, and break and enter.
“Ask one of the children that you find over the next couple of days in a stolen car if they even knew what was going on in parliament last night. And if the legislation passed last night will change their behaviour.”
The party also pushed for a presumption that child offenders be tried as adults for particular offences and relocation sentencing; where an offender is sent to a western station to work.
In Townsville on Friday, the Hinchinbrook MP said the party would regroup.
“We’re licking our wounds after the last two years of this battle,” Mr Dametto said.
“I’d like to be an optimist in the situation to think that we are going to see a dip in the crime numbers over the next 12 to 18 months … people are struggling with the cost of living. Now they’re going to struggle with the cost of crime.”
Originally published as New laws won’t curb youth crime: JCU criminologist Glenn Dawes
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