In this article, Research Analyst Mia Schlicht contextualises and disseminates the IPA’s research on criminal justice reform.
“Adult crime, adult time” was the phrase adopted by Opposition Leader David Crisafulli in his speech to the LNP State Convention earlier this month. It signalled the first promising step taken by a Queensland political leader to seriously tackle youth crime in the lead-up to the election.
The Opposition Leader is right to double down on personal responsibility, and to use tough consequences as a deterrence against crime.
Australian Bureau of Statistics’ data show that over the past decade, the number of violent youth offenders in Queensland has increased by a staggering 45 per cent.
The number of youths prosecuted for acts intended to cause injury and robbery is at a 10year high.
Queenslanders have, for too long, lived with out-of-control youth offending and record levels of violent crime.
To date, the response from government has failed to restore order.
Last year, in a panic, the state government rammed emergency legislation through parliament to use adult prisons and police watchhouses as temporary youth detention centres to house the overflow of offenders.
On top of this, it then committed to building a new $250 million prison to address the capacity crisis.
Earlier this year, the government announced it would remove the “detention as a last resort” clause from sentencing legislation and replace it with a slightly different clause: “a child should be detained in custody, where necessary, including to ensure community safety, where other non-custodial measures of prevention and intervention would not be sufficient”.
Despite rushed legislation and pledges to spend more money to combat crime, Queensland communities are far from safe.
The challenge facing our political leaders is that youth prisons only provide transient protection for the community.
Almost 70 per cent of detainees released will reoffend and return to supervised detention within 12 months.
Yes, this could be seen as an argument to lock violent teens up for longer.
But this comes at a price, with youth incarceration costing five times the cost of that of an adult.
The average cost of detaining one young person for a year in Queensland’s youth detention centres is approximately $669,308 per year.
There is no argument against the idea that prisons must be used to incarcerate violent and dangerous offenders in order to protect the community. However, what Queensland desperately needs is wholesale criminal justice reform, targeted at the root cause of crime.
Currently, there are limited effective punishment options for youth offenders who have broken the law, but have not committed crimes severe enough to justify incarceration.
Any youth offender caught in the back of a stolen car joyriding needs to be isolated from the social groups encouraging such dangerous behaviour.
Likewise, low-level thieves caught loitering in shopping centres, rather than attending school, need intervention before their offending escalates.
As Crisafulli correctly highlighted, “where there arc consequences for actions, it deters behaviour”.
Therefore, sentencing reform must ensure there are consequences for all levels of offending, to ensure an individual’s criminal behaviour docs not escalate over time.
Those who commit a crime, but whose incarceration cannot be justified, should be sentenced to an intervention program in the form of a rehabilitation ranch, as successfully implemented in the United States. Rancho Cielo in California has established a successful program for non-violent offenders on probation and at-risk youth, with a focus on giving them the skills to build a better life.
Youth offenders arc sent to the ranch as students, where they receive a high school education while also being enrolled in workshops that teach practical and employable skills.
The ranch operates at just a quarter of the cost of the local prison and has reduced youth reoffending rates from 40 per cent to 15 per cent over two decades.
Such an option has been advocated for by Kattcr’s Australian Party, with its well-argued Relocation Sentencing Policy.
Sending troubled youth repeat offenders to outback detention facilities, as the policy document says, “could potentially pave the way for a more effective and holistic approach to juvenile justice”.
These programs break the offender away from the social groups encouraging their offending and equip them with the skills necessary to become proud, contributing members of their community.
With proven precedent, it is time to send ’em bush to end the cycle of youth offending.
And, in the process, make Queensland communities safer.
