The Assistant Commissioner for Youth Justice Taskforce says the number of "unique offenders is declining" despite talks of a youth crime crisis.
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As Robbie Katter calls for the police minister to visit the city to see what he calls a "car theft hotspot" the Youth Justice Taskforce has met with local services to initiate stage two and prevent youth crime in the city.
Assistant Commissioner Youth Justice Taskforce Cheryl Scanlon said a lot of amazing work was being done behind the scenes with results showing.
"Across Queensland the group of kids that I am working with to turn around is about 400 young people, if you look at all the other children that we see come into the system but we don't see again...the number of unique offenders coming into the youth justice system has been in decline for about 10 years," Ms Scanlon said.
The Youth Justice Taskforce visited Mount Isa in 2021, with a focus on implementing changes to legislation and reforms around serious repeat offenders and have returned this week to focus on stage two of the plan.
Ms Scanlon said the second phase was about unifying the system to work closer and better together.
"The second phase of the taskforce has been about establishing multi-agency collaborative case panels, to bring all the government agencies together who are involved with the taskforce to operationalise this at local level, to work with this serious group of repeat offenders," Ms Scanlon said.
"This visit has been about seeing that panel group of practitioners here in Mount Isa and spend some time with them and other agencies about what things need to be done."
Ms Scanlon said the taskforce was focusing on the grassroots approach to curbing and preventing youth crime.
"We have set up 18 of these multi-agency collaborative panels across the state, they are in all the big centres like Mount Isa, Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Mackay, Logan, Gold Coast; and that brings together all the taskforce agencies to meet regularly and locally.
"What I have seen around Queensland is that while agencies are well-intentioned to doing work, it wasn't connected very well. So this is about connecting better, sharing information and unblocking parts of the system. There has now been a MOU of all of these agencies to share information to better work together."
Youth Justice Senior Executive Director Michael Drane said the process was two-fold, ensuring community safety while also addressing the needs of youth offenders.
"It's also about that long term change of that young person and making sure that all those services are connected. A young person in the youth justice system doesn't offend because of any single root cause, they're complex young people and hence for every agency and service provider to be involved because their needs are multifaceted," he said.
"If you're genuinely going to change that behaviour and that trajectory, it is about an employment or education pathway, a stable living environment, mental health, drug and alcohol abuse, primary health needs; so this is the longer term work. Research shows that you stand a much greater chance at change in behaviour if you coordinate the provision of all of those services and make sure you're intervening with that child and their family."
Ms Scanlon said Mount Isa had a great team who was very invested in fixing youth crime in town.
"I've met with senior health people here, principals of schools and more. I am very positive about what I have seen here in Mount Isa, the people that sit on the panel live and work in this community and we all want the same thing," she said.
"Youth crime is not exclusive to Mount Isa, this is an issue that we are doing work right across Queensland and it's about enlisting the effort from all agencies, this is not just a policing problem, you actually really have to address the root cause for the longer term and that's not a quick fix. There is no quick fix. Police will do everything they can, but for a longer term it needs to be a community effort."
"And that's what the change in legislation was about, trying to slow the rate down."
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