Youth crime rates have plummeted in Queensland despite claims from both major parties that the state is in the grip of a youth crime crisis. Both Labor and the LNP have claimed that Queensland's youth crime rate had increased and that harsher penalties would decrease it.
University of Queensland criminologist Renee Zahnow said there was ‘absolutely unanimous’ academic consensus that both of these claims were false. “There's no data to suggest that the rates of youth crime are spiralling out of control in Queensland or indeed anywhere in Australia”, Associate Professor Zahnow said.
“Whilst the population has continued to grow we've actually seen the number of offences stay the same or decrease in certain areas”. She said the false claims were fuelled by sensationalist news outlets, social media platforms and political opportunism.
In 2022, Queensland youth crime hit the lowest rates in recorded history and has remained roughly steady ever since. Crime in general has fallen, with Queensland Police Service data showing falling crime rates in almost all categories.
Notable exceptions include rape, domestic violence, and assault which have all seen significant increases. However Associate Professor Zahnow said the increase in rape and domestic violence data was most likely due to increased awareness, reporting and enforcement. She said the increase in assault data was driven in part by changes to the way assault was classified under Queensland law.
Griffith University criminologist Ross Homel said both major parties were perpetrating ‘the big lie’ that tougher penalties would reduce youth crime rates. He said the opposite has been repeatedly demonstrated through twin studies, randomised controlled trials, natural experiments, and longitudinal studies.
“Criminal justice processing of juveniles is itself a cause of future offending. It doesn't make the community safer”, he said. The popular punishment-based policy approach failed to address the underlying causes of youth crime, driven by factors such as foetal alcohol syndrome, neurodevelopmental disability, sexual or physical violence, poverty and low education.
He said there was a wrong perception that judges were becoming more lenient over time when the opposite was true. Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed the country's imprisonment rate had increased to record highs, especially among prisoners who had not yet received a sentence.
The number of unsentenced prisoners who had been refused bail doubled in ten years from 7,375 in 2013 to 15,937 in 2023 — the highest in history. Professor Homel said Queensland's ever-tightening laws meant more children were being kept behind bars without a sentence.
“We are routinely violating the fundamental rights of these children. We do it cheerfully by changing the law in Queensland and lots of people applaud”, Professor Homel said.
13 October, 2024