Jailing is failing: conference calls for re-think of youth crime crackdown

SBS Australia

5 hours ago

Bec is a resident of Queensland who says she and her family have been the victims of a series of break-ins allegedly perpetrated by a gang of juveniles. "As a victim, our entire family has been traumatised. We feel like prisoners in our own home now, in ways in which we never thought we would be. That should be where we feel the most safe but now we feel vulnerable." Bec is calling for justice to be served. "Yeah, to punish the people responsible in an adequate way." Bec and her family are among the public faces of a push by the Queensland government to introduce tougher laws to address what they say is a youth crime crisis. Children as young as 10 can now face similar jail time to adult sentences for a range of offences, after the state government passed a tranche of controversial crime laws - as Queensland Premier David Crisafulli told Channel 9 in early June. "We passed the first round of 'adult crime, adult time' before Christmas. In the past couple of weeks we've passed the second round." Stronger approaches have been adopted or are being considered across the country. Tasmania is said to be mulling a similar policy to Queensland's, and in New South Wales and the Northern Territory, they've brought in tougher bail laws - the Territory's coming after a Darwin shopkeeper was allegedly being killed by a young man who was out on bail. The Top End also lowered the age of criminal responsibility to just ten years of age in its first week of parliamentary sittings in 2024. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli says he makes no apologies for the approach his government has taken. "Before the election, I spent a lot of time listening to victims. Now it's time to deliver for victims. And I am still driven by that." But not everyone is on board. The Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child - Ann Skelton - has criticised the new laws, saying they display a flagrant disregard for children's rights. "We do not agree that the so-called exceptional circumstances warrant what will be a flagrant disregard for children's rights under international law... We urge the government of Queensland to stand firm with the principle that children should be treated differently from adults in the criminal justice system." Katie Kiss is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. She's told NITV News the Queensland government's approach is a mistake. "I would encourage them to demonstrate some integrity here and to actually reconsider their positioning on this to ensure that while yes we agree that the rights of victims and those experiencing harm from crime are also supported in this process, but that does not give people the opportunity or the right to take away the human rights of our children." In Mparntwe Alice Springs, scores of experts and advocates have gathered for what's known as the Reintegration Puzzle Conference. Among them is a Noongar woman named Rocket, who these days works with the Justice Reform Initiative, but has spent time in prison. "I was in and out most of my life from like, two weeks after my 18th birthday. And it was just like they had a revolving door at the front of the prison until something finally clicked. And I got sick of seeing that revolving door and seeing Aboriginal women going in and out, in and out." Rocket is worried about the nationwide crackdown on law and order - and there are plenty at the conference who feel the same way. Catherine Liddle is the chief executive of children's organisation SNAICC - or the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care - and an Arrernte/Luritja woman from Central Australia. She is concerned that these recent government responses are punitive approaches that will actually make contact with the justice system for vulnerable young people more likely - especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. "We are standing in the middle of an incredible storm, and at the centre of that storm are children; in particular, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children." The numbers appear to back up these concerns. Figures from the Productivity Commission indicate that First Nations youngsters are detained in youth detention facilities at 22 times the rate for non-Indigenous youths. Northern Territory Children's Commissioner, Shahleena Musk, has told NITV this is more than evident in the Top End. "The Northern Territory has the highest detention rate in the nation. On any given day, 94 per cent to 100 per cent of children in custody are Aboriginal children. So we're regressing when it comes to Closing the Gap targets, we're failing to meet national and international standards and commitments, and we're failing to protect the and promote rights of really vulnerable children who are being catapulted through these systems." Robert Tickner was the Australian Minister for Indigenous Australians in the Hawke and Keating governments. He was handed the report of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody - and says even after all these years, little has changed anywhere in the country. "In the three and a half decades almost since the Royal Commission report came down, things have really gotten worse. And at this particular point in time we're at the lowest point we've been. We've got now record levels of Aboriginal incarceration right around Australia, and we've got a youth detention centre which is totally failing. It's almost at the point of collapse." Advocates say the law and order systems championed by state governments are often problematic because they do little to reduce rates of re-offending, or to address the reasons why people end up in youth detention or adult prisons. They say the evidence shows most people entering prison usually arrive there because of an underpinning cycle of trauma or disadvantage, and that prison both exacerbates and entrenches a broader cycle which needs to be broken. Rocket says she has seen this first-hand. "You know, I've seen how the system was just churning people out - in and out, in and out - and it really annoyed me. I got really mad about nothing being done to stop the offending. Like, I was an addict and you know, there was no programs for me to address my addiction. All I had to learn about was my triggers and stuff. And once I learned about them I was able to change my life and address my addiction." There's also evidence to back up the concern that help isn't there within the system at an early enough stage to make a difference. A 2022 report from the Sentencing Advisory Council in Victoria said that children who are first sentenced between the ages of 10 and 12 are more likely to reoffend than those first sentenced when they are older. And Shahleena Musk says in her jurisdiction, 85 per cent of children who had previously spent time in custody were returned to prison within 12 months. Catherine Liddle argues that state governments serious about keeping people out of prison should invest in local communities and the strengthening of families - something she says dozens of other reports and reviews have also recommended. "If we're truly investing in diversionary tactics, if we're truly investing in our communities, then we're saying at this moment in time if a child is unsafe, what do they need? And as a parent - and any parent in the country will know this - when they look at their children and they're sitting with them at the dinner table, they know that they need food. They know that they need a house. They know that they need shoes. They know that they need to be able to go to school, to play sport, to learn how to adult, to have a girlfriend, to go to a Christmas party, to go to a birthday party. These are things that are fundamental. Investing in an environment, investing in the programs, investing in the services that support that for all families stops children hitting tertiary interventions." The state governments are pushing back against these kinds of arguments. Northern Territory Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro says the Country Liberal Party believes they have done the right things. "We're very strong and comfortable with our decision to lower the age (of criminal responsibility). If we're capturing young people early while that offending is in its infancy, we can turn their life around through boot camps and bush camps, and other alternative sentencing options." Queensland's Minister for Youth Justice and Victim Support, Laura Gerber, says the state has taken steps to increase support for vulnerable children, and have established SecureCare facilities for young people with mental health needs. And in Victoria, Attorney General Sonia Kilkenny says their approach emphasises early intervention and diversion from the justice system as key strategies. Victoria's Youth Justice Commissioner, Andrea Davidson, says now Children's Courts and the Supreme Court have the power to impose electronic monitoring and intensive supervised bail for teens in the metropolitan area - as part of their bail conditions - that's an extra incentive for youths to take their situation seriously. "The electronic monitoring trial represents a new way to support young people and help them to turn their lives around... We know that there is a small but very complex group of young people responsible for repeat offending including whilst on bail... We're committed to providing the best possible outcomes for young people in Victoria, using an evidence-based understanding of what works to address offending behaviour and divert young people away from the community justice system." Mindy Sotiri is the executive director of the Justice Reform Initiative, a group that lobbies for a reduction in the number of people in Australia's prisons. She argues that overall, governments ARE ignoring the evidence about what works to combat youth crime. She says there's also problematic attitudes towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people which sees them over-represented in the justice system. "The issue is that we are sending far too many people into prison. We are policing communities and imprisoning communities, rather than actually building up communities." She has told NITV a 2025 Human Rights Watch report contained examples of First Nations children being de-humanised and maltreated, highlighting cases where Australian children were subjected to harsh conditions in detention, including solitary confinement. She says children's basic needs aren't being met in some communities or families because of widespread inequality. And when that's coupled with high representation of First Nations children in the child protection system, it's a recipe for disaster - and how they end up in youth detention. "Making sure that the supports and the preventative and intervention programs that are necessary to ensure that these children are not in contact with the child safety or the justice system in the first place, is where we should be starting here, not legislation that fills the jails and the new detention centres being built." These are all problems that Tyson Carmody is trying to address. The Arrernte man is the founder and director of Kings Narrative, a support service for Aboriginal men and one of a number of grassroots organisations that seek to address the drivers of incarceration for First Nations people - especially young people. "When we can know and understand our story - and particularly our trauma stories, and in our narrative we call them Problem Stories - if we can name those stories and understand them and see them for what they are, then we have better ownership over rewriting those stories to what we call our Preferred Stories or our Stronger Stories. And from my grandfather's teachings we know that the best Preferred Stories and our Stronger Stories are found in our culture." Still, frustrations remain. Closing the Gap data released by the Productivity Commission in March showed just four of the 19 national targets are on track to be met, including Indigenous incarceration rates. Their numbers indicate Australia is not on track to meeting the targets on adult imprisonment - and in fact, things are only getting worse for young offenders. For Robert Tickner, it's little wonder. "As long as politicians keep using Aboriginal affairs as a party-political football, the people who will most lose out are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. But you know what? The whole nation loses out when politicians treat Aboriginal affairs in this way. We've got to get some common ground here." Others are frustrated over what they say is a consistent lack of resourcing, which has been backed up by the release of an independent, Indigenous-led review. The review was led by a group called the Coalition of Peaks, and engaged with more than 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and organisations across Australia. University of Technology Sydney's Jumbunna Institute director Lindon Coombes says the review found Closing the Gap goals aren't being met because too often there's a lot of talk, followed by inadequate funding to meet the need. Mindy Sotiri says there ARE signs of a willingness for genuine partnerships that do work if they're properly supported and resourced. "The system is broken. But what we can see at the moment is a real appetite to change things. We have all this evidence about what works in the community. We have all these examples of First Nations place-based programs now that really make a difference when it comes to reducing incarceration. We have incredible examples of community organisations working with people post-release that can reduce re-offending by up to 70 per cent." But Robert Tickner says real, wider change will only happen when governments of every level listen to what the experts - and the evidence - are saying, and back it up with real funding. And he says that change must start at the top.
"No minister for Aboriginal Affairs - no matter how well-intentioned - can do this. This is a matter for our Prime Minister. I have a great respect for his integrity and his compassion, but on this issue, I beg of him to show leadership to get this issue before the National Cabinet."