The Queensland Family and Child Commission says governments need to change their focus from criminal justice to addressing root causes if youth crime is to be solved.
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The Commission has recently launched a report called Changing the Sentence: Overseeing Queensland's youth justice reforms which chose Brisbane, Townsville and Mount Isa as case studies.
The report looked at the factors contributing to youth crime and the services that exist for young people in the justice system. It also looked at the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the justice system.
The commission talked to young people, families and support services in Mount Isa, Townsville and North Brisbane. Commissioner Natalie Lewis was in Mount Isa this week talking about the report with groups who participated.
Commissioner Lewis said each community was different but the number of Indigenous kids in the Mount Isa context was without parallel.
"The over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children is an issue across all parts of Queensland but is magnified when looking at the situation in Mount Isa," Commissioner Lewis said.
"Aboriginal children make up 26pc of the children of Mount Isa but when we look at youth justice data, the interaction of children with police, it was significantly higher. The number of youth justice orders is almost 100pc."
She said the other thing noticeable in the data was a relationship between school engagement and disciplinary action.
"For a lot of children in the high risk category there is evidence of really early disengagement from school with low rates of attendance," she said.
"What we are seeing in the data is overuse of exclusions and suspensions when it came to ATSI children in the school system."
Commissioner Lewis said the pattern begins in prep and grades one and two and intensifies in later years.
"When we look at the population on justice orders that is exactly the trajectory that is common," she said.
"People typically look at punitive responses, you know 'surely we've got to get the police involved', but the reality is the things that could help young people stay of youth justice is really where we should be focusing our efforts and education offers a protective factor."
Commissioner Lewis said they would be better off addressing the rights and wellbeing of young people rather than defaulting to a criminal justice response which don't address long-term issues.
"Police and courts can't address housing issues, they can't eliminate poverty, they can't address home safety or other indicators of safety," she said.
"We keep looking to the wrong parts of the system to provide answers. We have to recognise that with the young people that are the most high risk, their risk is not about the risk of offending, the risk is to their safety and their wellbeing."
Commissioner Lewis said those risks were due to homelessness and family and domestic violence.
"If we don't address those inequities we are going to be continually on this merry-go-round," she said.
Commissioner Lewis said the next phase of their work would be to speak directly with the high risk offenders, including in Mount Isa, to get their perspective.
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Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
