The growing push for ‘Adult Crime, Adult Time' laws

Australia Broadcast Center

18-05-2025

Sam Hawley: When Queensland woman Emma Lovell was stabbed to death by a teenager in 2022, the community and nation was shocked. The 17-year-old offender had broken into her family home on Boxing Day with Emma, her husband and two daughters asleep inside. The crime was a catalyst for a campaign for stricter sentencing for youths and Queensland went on to become the first state to introduce 'adult time for adult crime' laws. Today, ABC News Queensland presenter Jessica Van Vonderen on why other states could follow suit. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Jessica, youth crime, it really has dominated the headlines in Queensland for the last couple of years and that might have passed some people by if you're not in that state. So why is that?
Jessica van Vonderen: Yes, it has been an absolutely potent issue here in Queensland, particularly, probably actually, in fact, as far back as 2020, the opposition was trying to fight an election at that point on youth crime. But, gee, youth crime in the last election just gone in 2024 was absolutely, as well as cost of living, the number one issue.
David Crisafulli, Qld Premier: The youth crime crisis keeps getting worse under Labor. If government changes by the end of the year, the Making Queensland Safer laws will be laws.
Jessica van Vonderen: And look, that was fuelled by some really tragic and high profile cases that occurred in Queensland. In 2021, there was a young Queensland couple out walking, Matthew Field and Katherine Leadbetter. They got hit by a car driven by a drunken youth in a stolen car. They died along with their unborn baby. And then in 2022, a woman by the name of Emma Lovell, a 41 year old woman, she confronted a couple of teenage boys who had broken into her home on Boxing Day and she was fatally stabbed.
News report: While fleeing outside the house, he stabbed Emma Lovell in the chest and her husband in the back. The 41 year old mother could not be saved.
Jessica van Vonderen: And then just last year, a grandmother, Vyleen White, also allegedly fatally stabbed while grocery shopping. The alleged offender, 16 years old at the time, this happening during an alleged carjacking.
News report: It's here in an underground car park that Vyleen White was stabbed and killed. A 16 year old was charged overnight with murdering the Ipswich grandmother before allegedly fleeing with her car.
Jessica van Vonderen: So sort of the culmination of these really high profile and really sad cases really crystallised and galvanised this view in Queensland that we had a really big problem that the community increasingly wanted to be dealt with.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, there were terrible crimes and this was all sort of happening in the lead up to a state election and it was putting the Labor government at the time under great pressure, wasn't it?
Jessica van Vonderen: Under enormous pressure. People were marching in the streets on Parliament House, victims of crime in particular, demanding tougher action.
Protestors: Increase minimum sentencing!
Jessica van Vonderen: And so what we saw was the former Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk did come out with various crackdowns, including increasing prison sentences for car thieves, tougher sentences for boasting about crimes on social media and reintroducing a breach of bail as an offence, along with things like building two new youth detention centres. The opposition leader, David Crisafulli at the time, he would hold press conference after press conference with a victim of crime to highlight that particular person's plight.
David Crisafulli, Qld Premier: Five months ago, I sat at Victor's kitchen table and made him a promise that the loss of Vyleen wouldn't be in vain. Today, it was great to be able to return to letting him know about our plan for adult crime, adult time.
Jessica van Vonderen: People might have heard of adult crime, adult time. This was the policy that the LNP was promoting during their campaign. And as we know, ultimately, they did win that election.
David Crisafulli, Qld Premier: What history will show is that tonight was the turning corner of the youth crime crisis. And by Christmas, adult crime, adult time will be law.
Sam Hawley: Yeah. All right. So Jess, let's come back to that adult crime, adult time slogan, if you like, in a moment. But I want to get a sense before we move on of the crisis. You mentioned those terrible cases. They're absolutely horrifying. But do we know if youth crime is actually on the rise?
Jessica van Vonderen: It is a complicated question, Sam. What's that expression? Lies, damned lies and statistics. Yes. There are lots of figures that get published. And nationally, the Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that there's been a decrease of young offenders aged between 10 and 17 years of age from last financial year to the year before, also reporting a decrease in Queensland, specifically of 3% in that time. But look, it's sort of in some ways, it depends who you ask. Certainly, if you read a press release from the current Liberal National Party, it will tell you that there has been an increase in things like robbery and stolen cars over the last decade. You know, this is the thing too. Do you compare right now to 10 years ago? Do you compare right now to last year? You know, an increase in numbers might not necessarily mean an increased number of offenders. It might just be because of this real surge in policing that has been happening lately.
Sam Hawley: All right. Well, Jess, let's go back then to the politics of it and this adult crime, adult time concept. The Queensland Premier, David Crisafulli, of course, won the state election late last year, and the government has since implemented these tough new laws. So just explain them for me.
Jessica van Vonderen: Yes. And he promised to do them within his first 100 days in office, which is what he did. So as the title suggests, this is a policy that treats juvenile offenders who commit certain serious crimes as adults when they come before the criminal justice system. So if a child at the age of 10 committed a murder, that would mean life in prison, because that is the penalty if you're an adult. So in Queensland, life in prison means a minimum prison time of 20 years before you are eligible for parole. So that started off with a list of 13 offences that has since been expanded to now include 33 crimes where adult crime, adult time applies. So we're talking about things like rape, aggravated attempted robbery, attempted murder, arson, torture, all of those kinds of offences. They've also removed the principle of detention as a last resort. And also written in the legislation is basically that the rights of victims now need to take priority over the rights of young offenders. So the courts have to make the impact on the victim the priority in their considerations when they're handing out sentences.
David Crisafulli, Qld Premier: We want youth criminals to understand that the days of their rights being greater than the rights of the victim are a thing of the past.
Jessica van Vonderen: The other big change, I guess, is something called Jack's Law, which allows police officers to randomly search people with metal detectors without needing a warrant. It's named after Jack Beasley, a 17-year-old boy who was killed on a night out on the Gold Coast. This started off as just a trial in places like train stations and safe night precincts. But there is, as we speak, legislation currently before the parliament to extend that to all public places.
Sam Hawley: Super interesting. Okay. So these kind of laws, they've been legislated in Queensland and are in the process of being legislated. But we're also seeing really similar tough laws discussed in other states now, haven't we?
Jessica van Vonderen: Yes, we've seen a lot of other states now looking at a tougher approach. So let's take Tasmania, for example. The government, they're mulling over adopting tougher laws to target repeat youth offenders. We've just seen in the Northern Territory, they've lowered the age of criminal responsibility back to 10 years old. In New South Wales, last year, the Minn's government announced some new youth crime laws, making it harder for some young people to get bail after jailable offences. And then we've also got several jurisdictions, as I mentioned earlier, this posting and boasting situation where they're posting about it and boasting about it on their social media feeds. So making that also an increasing the amount of jail time for that as well.
Sam Hawley: Interesting. Okay. So we've got these tougher laws, a tougher stance against youth crime. But Jess, what does the evidence actually show us? Does that help then reduce crime overall?
Jessica van Vonderen: Well, this is key, right? So the Queensland government is hoping that it's a deterrent. The Premier is measuring it on he wants to see fewer victims of crime. That is the measure he's using. In fact, he's staked his leadership on it. But I guess the opposing voices in this whole debate, there have been a lot of them. The Queensland Human Rights Commissioner, Scott McDougall, he described these changes as rash and alarming.
Scott McDougall, Queensland Human Rights Commissioner : A society that treats its children in the same way that it treats its adults is a society that's lost its way.
Jessica van Vonderen: We saw the former chairperson for the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Anne Skelton, also slamming this legislation, saying that it violates children's rights under international law.
Ann Skelton, former Chairperson for the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: We urge the government of Queensland not to depart from the longstanding and universally accepted principle that deprivation of liberty for child offenders must be a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.
Jessica van Vonderen: The Queensland Law Society, the same.
Rebecca Fogerty, Qld Law Society: When we are dealing with the most damaged, the most vulnerable, and the members of our community who have been let down the most by our community, I don't understand why we are seeking to apply different standards.
Jessica van Vonderen: And also one of the other really vocal opinions in all of this has been the head of the Youth Advocacy Centre in Queensland, Katherine Hayes. She points out things like, these kids are often facing systemic issues such as domestic and family violence, drug use, homelessness. How do you fix those things with tougher sentencing?
Sam Hawley: Yeah, all right. Well, Jess, there really does seem to be a line here between the excessive detention of children, many of whom are really vulnerable kids, and also on the other side, community safety. It's incredibly difficult.
Jessica van Vonderen: Very complicated, very fraught question. And there's a lot of talk about prevention, intervention. These are longer term solutions. And I guess adult crime, adult time is an easy kind of headline. Things like these longer term programs, which to be fair, there is also millions of dollars being injected into those. The Crisafulli government here in Queensland, they say we are trying to do both, put in the tough laws, but also more support for communities. Things like a 12-month post-release plan for any child that leaves youth detention to help them reintegrate into the community to try to make sure that they don't offend again. So it really is a crucial balancing act. And I guess these tough new crackdowns, they're just new, right? They're just coming into effect. They've been in place for a few months. Everybody will be watching. Is the youth crime rate going to go down? Do I feel safer? Is this approach working? And the proof will be in the pudding. We'll have to come back, Sam, and chat again in a few years' time to see where this has landed.
Sam Hawley: Jessica Van Vonderen presents the 7pm ABC News in Queensland. This episode was produced by Sydney Peadand Sam Dunn. Audio production by Adair Sheppard. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.