UniSQ’s Vulnerable Persons Conference to focus on youth crime challenges

One of the chief architects of the Queensland government’s youth justice strategy will by joined by top police, social workers and child advocates to discuss why teens turn violent and what is needed to put them back on the right track.

Some of Australia’s top legal, policing and academic minds will gather at UniSQ to discuss solutions to the growing youth crime challenge at the university’s third Vulnerable Person’s Conference.

Included in the list of speakers is former Queensland Police Service Commissioner Bob Atkinson, who authored a special report on youth justice for the state government in 2018.

That report took stock of Queensland’s strategies and identified what was working, and what had failed, and from it the state government devised its Youth Justice Strategy 2019-2023.

One of the central concerns driving this strategy was that recidivist teens have a history of trauma that includes watching family members carted off to jail, mental or behavioural disorders, substance abuse, low levels of education, homelessness or inadequate accommodation, involvement with the Child Protection system, and disabilities.

It also formed the basis of the UniSQ conference, with organiser Dr Suzanne Reich saying the event will cover each of the four ‘pillars’ that underpin Mr Atkinson’s recommendation.

They include early intervention, keeping children out of court, keeping children out of custody and reducing reoffending.

“Everyone brings a different perspective and if everyone brings their jigsaw piece then together we get a better picture,” she said.

Former Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson will be in Toowoomba on May 12-13 to talk about youth justice strategies. Photo: Lyndon Mechielsen

The speaker list includes Queensland Family and Child Commissioner Natalie Lewis, former Queensland Corrective Services Commissioner Keith Hamburger, Youth Justice Taskforce Acting Assistant Commissioner George Marchesini and a range of criminologists, youth workers and researchers.

Dr Reich said the conference was open to anyone who had an interest in youth justice, from police and academics, to teachers and people working in non-for-profit community groups.

“We will have a range of people talking about each of Mr Atkinson’s four pillars with a question and answer forum at the end,” she said.

Dr Reich hoped the conference would look past the kneejerk, tough on crime response that has dominated political discussion over recent months and said the failure of detention was well-known.

“There will be plenty of people there who will have well-informed perspectives about why some of these ideas tabled in parliament are really bad,” she said.

“We have been incarcerating people for hundreds of years but it does not work.

“What it does do is increase their risk of reoffending and in the long term we are exacerbating the problem we are trying to fix.

“It is not about being soft, it is about being effective.”

The conference will be held at the Toowoomba campus from May 12-13. Tickets are on sale via the UniSQ website.

Click here for more details.