Queensland Premier Steven Miles to overhaul youth detention as a last resort

Premier Steven Miles will overhaul a contentious Queensland sentencing principle that juvenile offenders be detained as a last resort.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles. Picture: David Clark

Premier Steven Miles will overhaul a contentious Queensland sentencing principle that juvenile offenders be detained as a last resort in a move to rehabilitate the third-term Labor government’s image on youth crime ahead of the state election in Octo­ber.

Government sources have told The Australian the state’s youth justice laws will be rewritten this week, requiring magistrates to “prioritise community safety” when sentencing.

The Liberal National Party opposition has targeted Labor over its 2016 decision to reintroduce the legal provision that children should be detained in custody “only as a last resort and for the least time that is justified in the circumstances”.

LNP leader David Crisafulli, who had pledged to axe detention as a last resort within two months of the election, has argued the reintroduction of the principle almost a decade ago has allowed youth crime to fester and has led to an increase in violent attacks.

Mr Miles had emphatically rejected removing detention as a last resort, in February saying it would be “incredibly dangerous”, expensive and ineffective – but on Monday he would not be drawn on the issue.

“I am not going to pre-empt announcements that will be made later in the week,” he said.

Asked if he still believed removing detention as a last resort would be expensive and ineffective, Mr Miles said: “I think mandatory detention is certainly not something we would consider.”

Changes to youth sentencing principles will be introduced to state parliament on Wednesday as part of a suite of new crime legislation that will include expanding the media’s access to juvenile court proceedings and giving police powers to stop and search people for knives at shopping centres.

Mr Miles has said the mass stabbing murder at Bondi Junction was a “compelling reason” to expand Jack’s Law – which already gives police powers to use metal detector wands to search people for ­weapons on public transport and in nightclub precincts without a warrant.

The parents of teenager Jack Beasley, who died after being stabbed on the Gold Coast in 2019, are also pushing to expand the laws into NSW.

Under Mr Miles’ “community safety plan”, a new criminal offence also will be created for the ramming of emergency services vehicles, with a penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment.

Crime is a major political issue in Queensland with taxpayer-funded polling released in February revealing only 16 per cent of voters were satisfied with the government’s performance on the issue.

The latest Newspoll shows Queenslanders rank crime as their top vote-deciding issue after the cost of living.

Mr Miles toured regional Queensland last week promising police helicopters, boosted officer numbers and station upgrades in marginal seats along the east coast.

The parliament’s youth justice select committee, which was disbanded this month after LNP and Labor MPs failed to reach consensus on key issues, recommended in an interim report that the government review laws to “determine whether the central principle of community safety is being overshadowed by the principle of ‘detention as a last resort’ as it relates to sentencing”.