Last week the Queensland Parliament sat and devoted the whole week to debating the Strengthening Community Safety Bill, a piece of legislation that addresses youth offending and penalties to be faced by serious repeat offenders who commit violent crimes.
There was plenty of media coverage of this debate, and certainly there was a wide variety of opinions heard that reflects the larger community’s diverse thoughts on youth crime – everything from mandatory sentencing and relocating children to desert locations to a far more softly-softly approach.
It should be made clear that no one piece of legislation, no one single program or intervention is going to address a complex issue such as youth offending. There needs to be proactive, collaborative, and reactive measures delivered across a range of areas.
In Queensland the Youth Justice Framework has four pillars: Intervene early; keep children out of court; keep children out of custody; and reduce re-offending. The Bill debated last week was in support of the fourth pillar and as such is a piece of legislation that does not stand in isolation.
While the number of juvenile offenders is reducing year on year, we know that there is a small cohort of serious offenders who are responsible for a disproportionate number of offences, particularly serious violent offences. This is the cohort that the Strengthening Community Safety Bill was drafted in response to. But a responsible government is always working to ensure that our young people have better options before they get to this point.
A record $330m is being spent on intervention programs to work with young people and their families, but we need to be working together as a community to ensure that those without robust support networks don’t fall between the cracks. It’s a sad indictment on all of us when a government must step in where families have failed. It takes a village to raise a child and we should all be looking out for each other.
