David Crisafulli has vowed to imprison more youth offenders.
In a keynote speech to the Liberal National party’s state conference on Sunday, the Queensland premier said his government would create and legislate a new offence by the end of the year, carrying a mandatory sentence – yet to be set – for repeat offenders who commit serious crimes while on bail.
“Breach bail, go to jail is the next phase of adult crime, adult time, which is holding youth offenders accountable for the first time in a long time,” Crisafulli said.
double quotation markWe’re heading in the right direction and we’ve heard from Queenslanders who are telling us to keep going, and we will with reforms to Labor’s weak bail laws.
But the Youth Advocacy Centre chief executive, Katherine Hayes, said Queensland already had the “harshest youth bail laws in Australia” – a model that became increasingly punitive under the previous government, which introduced a presumption against bail into the Youth Justice Act and made breach of bail a criminal offence.
“Queensland already locks up more kids than anywhere else in Australia – more than Victoria and New South Wales combined,” Hayes said.
double quotation markThis is a further step to make already harsh bail laws harsher.
The Sisters Inside CEO, Debbie Kilroy, said the LNP government had “declared war on children”.
“Queensland is building a youth justice system driven by headlines instead of evidence,” she said.
