‘Cheap tactics’: Legal figures reject LNP’s latest Qld youth crime pitch

The news

Queensland’s peak legal sector body says the LNP’s promised changes to how a young person’s criminal history can be recorded and used in court are “cheap tactics” that will not help make the community safer, and will instead entrench disadvantage.

Legal figures and organisations have strongly rejected the proposal for law changes to widen what is included in a child’s criminal history and have this carry into adulthood as possible evidence in court – some of which is already permissible.

“These are cheap tactics by politicians,” Queensland Law Society president Rebecca Fogerty told Brisbane Times. “Changing the law in these ways are cheap mechanisms to avoid having to fund social services properly.

“It will just entrench disadvantage in people who have been let down by our community from the very beginning.”

Why it matters

LNP leader David Crisafulli said if elected to government next month, he would rush through changes giving courts access to kids’ full criminal histories – in a move akin to some Newman-era overhauls.

This would also be expanded to include restorative justice agreements, supervised release order breaches, and even police cautions used to try and divert offenders from the justice system.

But while put forward by the LNP as a way to “unshackle” judges, a child’s convictions can already be accessed by courts hearing about their later adult offending.

Due to developmental differences between children and adults, what is recorded – and for how long – in criminal histories is balanced with the risk that it could harm rehabilitation.

What they said

Fogerty was one of several people and groups to speak out about the proposed changes on Tuesday.

“This is not a law that is going to make the community safer,” she said. “There is decades and decades of research ... [on] what needs to be done to address youth crime, and that’s dealing with the root causes … at the community, family, education, social, and health levels.”

Bar Association of Queensland president Damien O’Brien KC noted that the group, which represents barristers, usually only commented on legislation before parliament.

“In doing so, the association has consistently taken the position that any legislative reform involving juvenile justice should be evidence-based,” he said in a statement.

Criminal lawyer Bill Potts accused the LNP of “trying to punish their way into parliament”.

And Youth Advocacy Centre chief executive Katherine Hayes said the changes would put more children into the state’s straining detention system.

Perspectives

In an LNP media release, the initiative is framed as “reversing” Labor’s 2016 unwinding of earlier Newman-era changes.

“The slate shouldn’t be wiped clean when an offender turns 18,” Crisafulli said.

Premier Steven Miles refused to reveal if he supported or opposed the move, other than to say it was about winning votes more than community safety, or it would have been proposed earlier.

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