Annastacia Palaszczuk and criminologists have rebuffed a call by Queensland’s police union president for serious youth offenders to be treated as adults, after three women were killed in a crash in Maryborough.
A 13-year-old boy is facing three charges of dangerous driving causing death after allegedly stealing a Mercedes from a Maryborough home at 10.45pm on Sunday.
Sheree Robertson, 52, Kelsie Davies, 17, and Michale Chandler, 29, were killed in the three-car crash. A 23-year-old woman is fighting for her life in a Brisbane hospital.
The Queensland police union’s president, Ian Leavers, said “a minimum of life imprisonment” was the community’s expectation for any person who commits an “adult crime”, the Courier-Mail reported.
“These bleeding hearts need to wake up and come to terms with reality because that is something that has hit the entire community,” he was quoted as saying.
Asked about Leavers’ comments on Tuesday the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said: “That’s not part of our laws.”
Palaszczuk also rejected separate calls for a curfew, saying her government has always ruled it out.
“The community is screaming at the moment … it’s heartbreaking,” she said. “It takes a whole community to raise a child, we are putting money into programs … it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.”
The director of Griffith University’s youth forensic service, John Rynne, said children don’t have the brains of adults and should not be treated the same.
“Putting them in jail doesn’t suddenly mean they’re going to get the brain of an adult any quicker. In fact, it impairs development,” Rynne said.
“These aren’t bleeding heart issues.”
Leavers had said the incident had shown why the criminal age of responsibility should not be raised.
“We have states across Australia who want to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14,” he told the Nine network on Tuesday.
“That would mean that 13-year-old would not be held to account.”
The attorney general, Shannon Fentiman, told reporters on Tuesday that Queensland is working towards a national approach to raising the age, with the Standing Council of Attorneys-General considering lifting the age from 10 to 12.
Criminologist and the Leneen Forde chair of child and family research at Griffith university, Silke Meyer, said raising the age is in line with children’s and human rights.
“In the majority of cases, [raising the age] is concerned with … minor crimes that see certain populations overcriminalised and create a prison trajectory rather than a rehabilitation pathway,” Meyer said.
Meyer said the government needs to commit to holistic approaches to prevention and early intervention.
“The evidence shows that incarceration only increases the risk of offending and other adverse life outcomes for these young people,” she said.
Greens MP for Maiwar, Michael Berkman, said if harsher sentences reduced offending, “we wouldn’t still be having this conversation”.
“The reality is that Queensland already locks up more children than any other state and it isn’t working,” Berkman said.
But the state Labor MP for Maryborough, Bruce Saunders, supported Leavers’ comments.
He said he heard the crash on Sunday night and that emotions are extremely “raw” for the community.
“Our community’s a regional city. Everyone knows everyone,” he said. “We’ve got to look at community expectations now and my community is outraged. We’ve lost three lovely people.
“My personal belief is that no, I don’t think [the age of criminal responsibility] should be raised.”
Queensland’s shadow attorney-general, Tim Nicholls, said the Liberal National party is calling for a provision of detention as a last resort to be removed from the Youth Justice Act, gold-standard early intervention and the “unshackling” of the judiciary.
