High-profile victims of youth crime in Queensland have formed a collective in an effort to decrease offending and the "injustice" in the system, which they say leaves them feeling "unheard, disregarded and unsupported".
It comes as the Queensland government announced today it would invest $332 million into a raft of initiatives and law reforms to tackle youth crime across the state.
The funding will go towards boosting police resources, supporting community safety and to address the cause of juvenile offending.
The Victims of Youth Crime Collective is three years in the making for Michelle Liddle and Ben Beaumont, parents of teenager Angus Beaumont, who was murdered in a Redcliffe park in 2020.
The collective draws on the lived experience of other victims including Lee Lovell, husband of Emma Lovell who was allegedly fatally stabbed by two teenagers on Boxing Day and victim of a home invasion, former rugby union great Toutai Kefu and his neighbour Ben Cannon.
The collective has put forward a proposal to each Queensland member of parliament calling for changes to the youth justice system which they believe is weighted "so heavily in favour of young offenders that victims and their families are denied access to justice".
Although the submission has consulted several victims and their loved ones, and experts in youth justice, Ms Liddle said the group did not attempt to reach consensus on every recommendation because the lived experience of its members was diverse.
"We believe the current approach to youth justice is tantamount to systems abuse, as young people requiring boundaries, structure and intervention are released, on bail, mid crisis, addicted to drugs, to return to the environments and circumstances that led to their offending," the submission said.
"We are grieving and we feel largely unheard, disregarded and unsupported.
"We consider this moment in time when the laws are being reformed as the moment when we collectively stand up and say enough is enough."
Some members of the collective reported that MPs and the Queensland premier had refused to meet with them, while others expressed concern that the relevant ministers did not appear to "know the laws" they were overseeing, according to the submission.
The collective has put forward 26 recommendations, the first being that ministers undergo training to "fully understand the force and effect of the laws they are passing".
Another recommendation includes preventing violent youth offenders from partaking in youth justice conferencing with victims or their loved ones, because they believe the method does not prevent reoffending.
The collective called for a review to restore the practice to its original form and intent of diverting young people from re-offending.
Other recommendations included calls that bail not be granted to violent repeat offenders or those facing serious violent offences and that bail cannot be granted after five breaches of bail for the same offence, and no bail after 10 breaches.
Ms Liddle said outside parliament the collective included victims of several different crimes with varying experiences with the justice system, but also the parent of a young offender who is addicted to ice.
"We're again happy to have that balance in our group because they want to see law reform too, they want to see mandatory rehabilitation," she said.
'Two very different things'
Police Minister Mark Ryan said the breach of bail offence the government would introduce to parliament today "currently works" for adults and would be extended to kids.
"One thing that we know works in the criminal justice system and it's one of the levers that can be pulled is consequence for action," he said.
He told ABC Radio Brisbane the state government's breach of bail offence was different to the former Newman government's breach of bail offence that the Palaszczuk government scrapped in 2015.
He said the LNP's offence only applied when a youth was found guilty of committing a further offence, while the Palaszczuk government's offence applied when a youth breached a bail condition.
"They’re two very different things," he said.
"We've seen that when you have additional disincentives, additional deterrents, that can modify behaviour."
Mr Ryan said the new offence would operate similarly to the adult system where the penalty was up to two years in jail for an adult.
The Palaszczuk government has strongly criticised the LNP for adopting breach of bail as a policy.
Breach of bail 'not compatible with human rights'
Mr Ryan said when introducing the draft laws that the Human Rights Act would be overridden to introduce the offence of breach of bail.
"The government acknowledges that removing the prohibition on the application of this offence to children is not compatible with human rights," he said.
"The bill proposes to override the operation of the Human Right Act in relation to this provision.
"The decision … is not taken lightly but is considered necessary in order to address the acute problem presented by a small cohort of serious repeat offenders who engage in persistent and high risk offending."
In exceptional circumstances the act allows parliament to make an override declaration where the Human Rights Act does not apply to the law or part of a law.
'We are listening to the community': Premier
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the law changes would include strengthening conditional release orders, a new declaration of serious repeat offenders and expanding the number of offences with a presumption against bail.
"We have listened to the community and this action is all about putting community safety first," she said.
"We will use the full force of the law to target the small cohort of serious repeat offenders that currently pose a threat to community safety.
"When these young people reoffend time and again, we need the police to catch them and we need the courts to do their job.
"They have the resources, they have the laws, they have the tools."
The state is also building two new youth detention centres in Queensland which will have therapeutic services.
Other measures include:
- A specialist police "flying squad" will be expanded with a $17 million investment for youth justice workers to partner with police
- $15 million will go towards helping senior citizens install security improvements
- $100 million towards the continuation of intensive case management in Townsville and Cairns and an expansion of the current program across Brisbane, Logan, Toowoomba, Moreton, Gold Coast, Rockhampton and Ipswich. It will also support the expansion of youth co-responder teams into Toowoomba, Hervey Bay, Mount Isa, Ipswich and South Brisbane
- $4 million will be invested in On Country programs and early intervention programs
- $9 million will go towards enhancing assistance for victims of crime, including $3 million to boost counselling capacity and support non-government organisations
'Stop politicising boot camps'
New youth justice laws were also announced late last year following the death of Emma Lovell, including a longer maximum penalty for car theft from seven to 10 years.
The collective wants political parties to "stop politicising boot camps" and to instead commit to working together to find a training and redirection intervention" that meets the needs of young offenders in a manner that is "morally acceptable and lawful".
They argued young people needed an environment where they could connect with "role models", that taught them employment skills, self-respect and respect for others.
Ms Liddle said she wanted victims to have "more of a say" and more support in the youth justice system but reforms to ensure there were "fewer victims".
"What we want to see happen is just a bit more thought given and a reworking of the system to accommodate victims and the process they have to go through, and to see it made easier and more sensitive to their needs," she said.
"We wanted victims to have a voice and we wanted to advocate together to improve, you know, the situation for victims.
"Hopefully, with this collective group, and what we've put in this submission, we hope that one day there won't even be a need for this collective group, we hope that we'll be able to see changes that will make us redundant."
Mr Cannon, who came to the aid of neighbour Toutai Kefu during an alleged home invasion, said the collective had a shared view that the youth justice system was broken.
"From our point of view, it would make sense that victims have a voice through this that they can then affect change, so that it doesn't happen again … that offenders don't reoffend and we try and make things better for the whole community," he said.
Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay, who was a former state prosecutor, said responses to youth crime like breach of bail offences "don't actually address the underlying root causes of crime".
"Unless we can address those root causes, we're not going to solve the problem," she told Radio National.
"So my view is simply putting more kids into a youth detention centre that we already know is in crisis is only going to make the problem worse, and it doesn't actually achieve the long-term solutions that we need in this area."
