David Crisafulli’s task in Thursday’s Queensland election debate was to avoid shooting himself in the foot.
He just about managed that. But the Liberal National party leader’s pledge – that if he wins government he will resign in four years’ time if crime victim numbers have not reduced – might be the equivalent of putting a political timebomb under the premier’s desk.
Crime figures are the ultimate exercise in political spin. Every time a new tranche of numbers is released, so too are creative interpretations.
The Liberal National party has sold the public on the notion of a “youth crime crisis” at a time when figures show rates at near-record lows.
Part of the reason the LNP’s campaign around crime has been so effective is that what matters to voters is how safe they feel, not what the statistics say. Social media anti-crime groups, and media sensationalism, have helped create the impression that crime is persistent and out of control.
Before the 2020 election, a Townsville resident summed up the situation.
“You can throw whatever statistics you want out there, but when you are a victim and someone kicks down your door, what difference does the crime rate make?” she told Guardian Australia at the time.
“What does a number mean to me when I’m having to buy new locks again? Everyone knows someone who has been a victim. No one I know will support that [the idea that the crime crisis is exaggerated].”
Having built a campaign in conflict with the numbers, Crisafulli has agreed to stake his political future on them.
Having built a campaign in conflict with evidence and experts – who argue that the LNP’s “tough” and punitive policies will only drive crime rates up – the risk is that Crisafulli chases quick, superficial victories rather than the sorts of long-term solutions needed to make a real difference in the community.
The LNP’s signature crime policy – “adult time for adult crime” – promises to sentence children as adults. At the same time, analysis shows that up to 96% of young people who go into the youth detention system reoffend.
If the goal of youth detention is to rehabilitate – to prevent reoffending – then the system failure rate is astounding. Any other government system that performs that poorly would be shut down. The LNP’s policies – and, to be fair, Labor’s – just feed more children into that broken system.
These are long-term problems that require generational solutions. Placing a four-year timeframe on bringing victim numbers down will only continue the status quo that exists under Labor; where youth justice policy is shaped by short-term political outcomes rather than what works to keep communities safe.
Locking more and more people up, particularly children, is the shortest of short-term solutions. And the negative effects should begin to show by the hypothetical time Crisafulli is running for re-election in 2028.
“Any time you flood areas with police officers … you do get a crime suppressing effect,” the Griffith University criminologist William Wood told the Guardian in August.
“The thing that we know [is] you cannot arrest or incarcerate your way out of a youth crime problem. The US tried this for 20 years, it was an abysmal failure, you’re just kicking the can down the road.
“If you wanted to write a playbook about how to turn younger kids [into offenders] this is it.”
Crisafulli has mounted a campaign of remarkably small targets. On almost every issue (except crime), the LNP has sought to neutralise points of difference with the Labor government.
Staking his future on one big target might help Crisafulli get elected. But it will also undermine his premiership from day one.
Even if Crisafulli does produce the crime data he promised – showing a reduction in victim numbers – he remains uniquely vulnerable to his own signature tactic: standing next to victims of crime and convincing the state, in spite of the numbers, that things are getting worse.
Ben Smee is Guardian Australia’s Queensland state correspondent
