Desperate parents are turning to private investigators to stop their kids from becoming young offenders as criminal lawyers warn Queensland is facing a youth crime "crisis".
The increasing covert surveillance taking place on the request of worried parents includes the use of undercover operatives and GPS tracking devices on wayward teens' vehicles, according to a veteran investigator.
It comes as Queensland grapples with two tragic events that have seen a bloody start to 2023.
A 17-year-old boy was this week charged with murder over the alleged random stabbing death of 43-year-old David Connolly on a footpath at Wilston last weekend.
The incident occurred less than one month after Emma Lovell, 41, was fatally stabbed in the chest during an alleged violent home invasion by two 17-year-old boys in North Lakes on Boxing Day last year.
The teens were charged over the mother-of-two’s killing and the attempted murder of Ms Lovell's 43-year-old husband Lee, who was stabbed in the back during the burglary.
Parents of runaway teens turn to private investigators
Former Queensland police detective Michael Featherstone said his investigative firm was increasingly tracking down runaways aged between 14 and 18.
"We get calls when they (parents) haven't heard from them and they've left home,” the Gold Coast private investigator said.
"Usually drugs are involved, and they want to know where they are.
"The police do a great job tracking them down, but if the child has turned 18, they say the police won't disclose where they are to the parents because of privacy."
Keith Schafferius, a Brisbane private investigator of more than five decades, said the demand for work investigating teenagers was increasing.
Mr Schafferius said he used GPS tracking devices on teenagers' cars and employed covert operatives to "mix" with teenagers and infiltrate their circles.
"Queensland is the only state we can put GPS tracking devices on motor vehicles," he said.
"I do use GPS trackers on kids who have got access to cars to find out where they're going or what they're doing."
Mr Schafferius said he was not just retained by wealthy families, but also parents who were "terrified" of the changing landscape for teenagers.
Generational hatred of police
Queensland lawyers at the coal face of youth justice say juvenile criminals almost always come from "significant disadvantage".
Gold Coast criminal solicitor Michael Gatenby said 95 per cent of young people he represented had a background with Child Safety or parents who had been to jail repeatedly.
"Often their parents have an overt hatred of police [and] are happy to express that," he said.
"We have parents of children we act for that have been more critical the child has spoken to police and owned up to the fact they have committed an offence than their crimes."
He called the current situation in Queensland’s juvenile detention centres a "youth crisis".
"In some cases, magistrates are locking children up because they simply don't have a place to go," Mr Gatenby said.
"They try and balance all the factors, but some magistrates try to act protectively to get children off the streets and remand them in custody, which is not the aim of detention."
He said for many children, "the best they can come up for a bail address is to sleep under the lights at the beach" or with an adult who has "pages and pages of criminal history".
The state with the most kids in jail
This week, new figures were released revealing Queensland had the largest number of children in custody — more than any other state in the country.
Queensland recorded a daily average number of 287 people in youth detention in 2021-22, the highest of all states and territories, with NSW next in line with 190.
It has led youth justice advocates to call for a measured approach to keeping children out of detention.
The Productivity Commission's Youth Justice report also showed more than half of youth offenders released from supervision were re-sentenced for new offences within 12 months.
Queensland children spent 100,425 nights behind bars for the year to the end of June 2022.
Almost two-thirds of those nights — 65,298 — were served by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, yet they represent only 10 per cent of the state's population of people aged 10 to 17.
'Most comprehensive reforms' being rolled out
Politicians have been grappling with youth justice in Queensland for years.
In the wake of Ms Lovell’s death, the Queensland government announced it would introduce its "most comprehensive response to youth crime in this state", including several changes to sentencing.
Two new youth detention centres are also expected to be built.
The raft of new laws will impose more severe punishments for violent offenders, including increasing the maximum penalty for car theft from seven years in jail to 10.
There will be a more severe penalty of 14 years if the offence is committed at night, with violence, or if the offender is armed or damages property.
The Youth Justice Act will also be amended to take into account previous bail history during sentencing.
But solicitors are sceptical increasing penalties will deter juveniles.
"I don’t know of any adult person that I've acted for that looks at the maximum penalty that's applicable to their offending — and to a child that’s even further from their mind," Mr Gatenby said.
"The whole basis for youth justice is that they’re children and they do not think."
Bail laws strengthened but advocates concerned
Following a review of youth justice in April 2021 — and two months after Kate Leadbetter and Matthew Field were killed while walking their dogs in Alexandra Hills by a teen on bail who was driving a stolen car — the presumption of bail for reoffending children was removed.
This means a child charged with another offence while out on bail must now prove why they should be released, and they can be kept in custody if they cannot.
"These are the toughest youth bail laws in the country. Since the legislation took effect, we have seen more serious repeat offenders being held in custody, and for longer," Youth Justice Minister Leanne Linard told the ABC.
However, Youth Advocacy Centre chair barrister Damien Atkinson KC said it was "unambitious" to strengthen sentences and send more children into custody.
"It is now easier to get bail as adult than it is as a child," he said.
Mr Atkinson said "tough on crime" approaches distracted from positive community-based programs being run by many people in Queensland to rehabilitate teens.
"There are lots of reasons to be optimistic … half of the young people who come into contact with the system don't reoffend within 12 months, and we want to focus on rehabilitation because the other way just involves confining more and more real estate to detention centres and that is just to admit failure," he said.
Kids still being kept in watch houses
Government reforms in 2018 removed 17-year-olds from adult jails.
Police procedures designed to stop the detention of a child in a watch house for more than one night say it should only be done in "extraordinary circumstances".
But a children's court judgement published this week revealed a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and an acquired brain injury had been kept in the Mount Isa watch house for 15 nights with no prospect of being transferred to a detention centre because it was at capacity.
The child was charged with taking a car for a joy ride after the owner left it unlocked with the engine running in the driveway on New Year's Eve.
A toddler was in the back of the car at the time.
While Magistrate Eoin Mac Giolla Ri noted the "profound terror that the child's parent must have experienced in that period", he said the basis for the 15-yearold's bail application was that he had been in the Mount Isa watch house "since his arrest and there appears to be no prospect of getting … to a detention centre in the near future".
"… Conditions in watch houses are harsh and adult detainees are often drunk, abusive, psychotic or suicidal," the judgement said.
"Although children may be kept in separate cells, those cells are usually open to the sights and sounds of the watch house.
"The Queensland Police Service's Operational Procedural Manual is clear that the detention of a child beyond one night in a watch house should only ever occur in 'extraordinary circumstances' but Ms Green of Youth Justice advises that all three detention centres in Queensland are at capacity and that there is no prospect that [the child] will be transferred to a detention centre in the near term."
The child was granted bail.
Youth detention centres close to capacity
The latest figures obtained by the ABC record 294 young people in the three youth detention centres in Queensland as of January 24.
The juvenile jail facilities in Brisbane, Cleveland and West Moreton have a combined capacity of 306 beds.
According to the office of the Minister for Youth Justice Leanne Linard, the average daily number of young people held in youth detention centres in the 2021-22 financial year was 275.
The average daily number of young people held in youth detention centres in the 2020-21 financial year was 229.
"Numbers in youth detention centres fluctuate and are completely dependent on decisions made by the courts and arrests made by police," Ms Linard said.
The new legislative changes are expected to be rolled out in the coming months.
