Youth crime has become a key battleground issue ahead of October’s Queensland election after months of rhetoric about a rise in juvenile offences.
Demands for tougher responses have been constant yet a nationally-honoured criminologist and one of the state’s top 50 thinkers has cited a “scandalous failure” by government and wholesale lack of intervention to stop young people going off the rails.
Two decades ago, Professor Ross Homel AO co-developed Pathways to Prevention, which sought to implement an enriched preschool program in a disadvantaged community in Brisbane.
In 2004, the initiative won a National Crime and Violence Prevention Award.
A decade later, Prof Homel checked in with the more than 1500 children who participated in the program, and will soon release a report expected to demonstrate its impact in significantly helping reduce youth crime.
Researchers attribute the success to the notion of holistic early support.
However Prof Homel says there has been virtually no other program nationwide since Pathways to Prevention, similarly aimed at rigorously implementing school enrichment or family support for disadvantaged kids.
“There’s been a scandalous failure in this country, including in Queensland, of investment in disadvantaged communities,” he tells AAP.
“It’s a failure of social justice.”
Working closely with young children and their families is essential to promoting positive paths rather than a life of crime, he insists.
Lack of intervention is also “incredibly stupid” in terms of policy planning, Prof Homel says, as the cost of instead reacting to youth crime is far greater.
“The cheapest way of stopping kids getting into trouble and also exhibiting mental health problems and a whole range of other negative outcomes, is to work with families and the kids themselves when they’re young,” he says.
A University of Queensland study last week found children with access to quality early education – in the first five years of life – are more likely to thrive.
Researcher Karen Thorpe says key contributors to developmental outcomes are educators’ relationships with kids, educational programs and physical environments.
Educational excellence also includes a safe, calm environment and sufficient staff to encourage kids to develop a love of learning but she fears there is currently is not enough workforce investment to help keep kids off the streets.
“The workforce crisis looks like not enough people attracted in the first place and people leaving or moving between centres to get more money,” says Ms Thorpe, who is also a spokeswoman for Mindaroo Foundation campaign Thrive by Five.
“The economic, social and neuroscience evidence is this is the most important place to invest and yet we pay staff in this area the least.”
Ms Thorpe says disadvantaged areas require most staffing investment although the national standard may not fit every early childhood centre.
“More disadvantaged areas have kids with more complexities so having the same number of staff (as advantaged areas) is not equitable.”
Both major Queensland political parties have made strong promises around youth crime in the lead-up to polling day and as voters seemingly grow more frustrated.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows the state’s young offender population increased six per cent to 10,878 last year. Serious repeat offenders increased from 465 to 482 kids since 2022.
However the latest data reportedly suggests the Queensland government’s youth justice policy is making inroads.
A youth co-responder program has led to 12 per cent fewer kids reoffending six months after connecting with the scheme, a government-commissioned review reveals.
Serious repeat offenders – which represent one fifth of youth crime and half the offences committed – have recorded the most significant decrease in criminal behaviour.
Nearly three quarters have committed fewer offences in the six months after engaging with the program.
The Liberal National opposition isn’t buying it, insisting that young people are continuing to transgress despite intermittent changes to rates of offending.
Leader David Crisafulli has instead laid down a hard-line “adult-time-for-adult-crime” policy where child offenders would receive longer sentences.
The LNP also wants to remove detention as a last resort entirely from legislation.
In contrast Premier Steven Miles’ government recently replaced the phrase detention “as a last resort” with detention “where necessary” in a bid to appease voters demanding a crackdown.
Prof Homel says current policies around youth detention are a sham.
“Here we are in 2024 with the human rights atrocities and the horrors that both sides of politics in Queensland are inflicting on the most disadvantaged, most vulnerable kids in our community,” he says.
Throwing money and policy into therapeutic treatment is difficult to achieve when kids are already entrenched in a life of crime, while overcrowding in Queensland’s detention system only makes it more difficult.
The state has the highest number of detained kids in the country, according to the government-commissioned Child Death Review report released in March.
First Nations children are significantly over-represented, with 64 per cent of 10- to 17-year-olds under youth justice supervision and 66 per cent in detention identified as Indigenous in 2021-22.
Ms Thorpe says the policies being announced by both parties are short-term and reactive.
“We’re not saying we put all our money into one thing and ignore the fact there is a crime problem and a youth crime problem but the evidence is that punitive responses don’t work in the long term,” she says.
“We need a two-pronged attack.”
And that’s where early intervention and enhanced education programs come in.
Ms Thorpe says politicians need to remember young offenders are still children and it would be “brave” to introduce policy investing in kids from the start.
“It’s not only about averting crime, it’s also about having individuals who are happy, healthy and contributing positively to Queensland society,” she says.
