Crisafulli accused of silencing criticism of ‘cruel’ youth crime laws

Queensland’s Liberal National Party (LNP) government has been accused of cutting funding to non-government organisations for criticising its push to criminalise youth offenders.

The Youth Advocacy Centre, a vocal critic of the government’s Adult Crime, Adult Time (ACAT) laws, said the LNP had stripped $3 million in funding as a punishment for speaking out. 

Several frontline organisations have accused the LNP of trying to intimidate them into silence and failing to include them in review processes. 

The allegations were made as the David Crisafulli government passed its Breach Bail, Go To Jail laws which, alongside ACAT, increase the penalties for youth offending and reduce opportunities for non-carceral sentencing.

These changes mean children who would have once been sentenced to community-based supervision may be incarcerated for the same offence. They will be subject to sentencing guidelines previously reserved for adult offenders.

Young people who breach bail conditions for certain offences will be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in detention. 

Evidence suggests this will increase youth re-offending as young people are further exposed to the criminal justice system. These laws will increase exposure to Queensland’s overcrowded and inhumane youth detention and watchhouse facilities. 

The Crisafulli government overrode its own Human Rights Act 2019 to pass these laws, the fourth time a Queensland government has done so since it was introduced, each time to introduce harsher penalties for young people. 

Despite youth crime rates falling across the country, the Crisafulli government promised a heavy-handed response that would impose harsher sentencing for youth offenders. 

Youth incarceration is expensive, costing $3625 a day to detain a young person, compared to $424 for community supervision. 

The approach is not backed by evidence, which suggests an effective approach would require addressing youth poverty, systemic racism, adverse childhood experiences and the criminal justice system itself. 

Crisafulli claims the fear of harsher penalties will defer young people from offending, but this idea has been debunked because it does not address the material cause of youth crime. 

Some of the other changes introduced under ACAT and the Breach Bail, Go To Jail laws include: re-categorising certain youth offences as “significant offences” and creating new offences to give the court power to sentence a child as an adult; changing sentencing principles so detention is no longer considered a last resort; and removing restorative justice orders as a sentencing option for significant offences. 

Full childhood criminal history — including previously unrecorded matters such as cautions — can now be taken into account during sentencing. 

ACAT also introduced harsher sentences for substance use, including increasing police powers, introducing on-the-spot fines and criminal charges for repeat offenders. 

The Crisafulli government’s approach has been met with heavy criticism, including from international human rights organisations.  

Amnesty International (AI) said the laws violate Australia’s international obligations to uphold the human rights of children. “The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Australia ratified in 1990, states that arrest and detention of a child must be the absolute last resort.

“Offending by a child is not ‘adult crime’ and children must not be treated as adults in the justice system.” 

AI said First Nations children are disproportionately impacted by the laws. “These laws are openly racist, brazenly cruel and will only compound the trauma that leads children to offend in the first place.” 

At least 56% of children subjected to youth justice supervision are First Nations. “If parliament enacts a measure knowing who is most heavily policed … and who already fills the state’s cells, parliament owns the racial outcome,” said Debbie Kilroy from Sister’s Inside. She said the Crisafulli government could not “hide behind neutral wording”. 

A federal senate inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system found that Queensland is not alone in its punitive approach to young people. 

It urged for an evidence-based, child-centred set of national minimum standards that prioritise early intervention and a health and human rights approach.