Fewer than half of Queensland's young offenders are leaving detention centres without a rehabilitation plan despite the state's investment in intervention.
In the last 12 months, 976 kids spent one or more nights in custody with just 444 of those receiving a 72 hour rehabilitation plan after being released from detention, Youth Justice Director-General Bob Gee told budget estimates on Thursday.
A 72 hour rehabilitation plan is designed to provide immediate, intensive support to children and their families after release, to prevent more crimes being committed.
The serious repeat offenders in this cohort - about three quarters or 722 children- are all meant to receive a 72-hour case management plan upon release.
But in the last year, 11.9 per cent of serious youth offenders went without immediate rehabilitation support.
The latest data comes as Queensland has the highest number of youth detainees in the country, according to the government-commissioned Child Death Review report released in March.
The statistics suggest the 72-hour plans do little to stop reoffending.
In the three days after release, 82 per cent did not commit a crime in that period.
However, nearly three quarters of the serious repeat offenders who did receive a 72-hour plan went on to reoffend within 30 days of their release from detention.
Youth Justice Minister Di Farmer said there has been a significant decrease in serious youth offenders since October last year but there are still more kids committing serious crimes than in 2019.
There were 717 serious youth offenders in the last year compared to the previous year's 736.
"To see a significant decrease in the number of those serious repeat offenders in less than 12 months has been quite significant," she told estimates.
But in 2019 there were 442 serious repeat offenders.
"The average day at its peak was 497 in October last year and that's dropped to in operational information about 408 at the end of June so there's been a 14 per cent drop," Mr Gee said.
Youth crime remains a key battleground issue ahead of the October Queensland election following public demand for tougher responses.
The Liberal-National Party has proposed a hardline approach to introduce harsher sentences for serious crimes while the Miles government persists with more intervention policy.
Labor invested $481 million in the recent budget on youth justice to focus on " prevention, early intervention, detention and supporting victims", Ms Farmer said.
